Friday, June 20, 2008

Barbie Dolls

If any of you out there loved your Barbie doll more than any other toy, I apologize in advance. You are not going to like this post. I was looking at the videos in my video bar and came across the Barbie doll video, and I was reminded of my dad. When I was a little girl, more than 30 years ago, my dad forbade me to have a Barbie doll because she "looked like a prostitute". I didn't get that at all. There was bridal Barbie, career Barbie, I'm not sure if Malibu Barbie made it out yet, but you know what I mean. I didn't see the turning tricks Barbie anywhere, so I had no idea what he was talking about. As I grew up, I could only assume that he thought she developed an unattainable figure like that because she was up to no good.
Years later, after my dad had already changed his citizenship to Heavenian, I saw a special on 20/20 which traced the origin of the Barbie doll to a doll in Austria in the mid to late 1950's which was based on a cartoon in the newspaper. I know, when we think cartoon characters, we usually think Donald Duck, not Jessica Rabbit. Can you guess what her occupation was? I'll give you a hint: it was a very, very old one. My dad might have been familiar with Austrian pop culture of that time because in 1956 he fled Hungary during the Hungarian revolution.
So when he said she "looked like a prostitute", he wasn't talking about her figure, or the way she was dressed, or the way she was always all over Ken like a spill on my kitchen floor. No, he literally meant she looked like a prostitute character back in Austria. It's amazing how a person can misunderstand a person they are really close to just because they did not ask "what do you mean by that?" It's also amazing that a video of Barbie's dressed kind of provacatively (at least in the beginning part I watched) can remind me of my dad, especially since he changed his citizenship to Heavenian about 15 years ago.
Have a great day! I hope none of you Barbie fans hate me now. It really doesn't bother me that her twin sister was a bad girl. And I'm sure she was faithful to Ken always. Her and G.I. Joe were just friends...

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