Barbie flexes her muscle
Film examines how doll’s shape has evolved.
NEW YORK – How do you eliminate a thigh gap from a plastic doll?
That’s one of the questions Barbie designers tackle in Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie (on Hulu Friday after premiering Wednesday at Tribeca Film Festival), a documentary from director Andrea Nevins that takes viewers inside Mattel in the months leading up to the brand’s headline-making launch of a new curvy doll, along with tall and petite dolls, in 2016.
Without making it obvious that there’s a thigh gap, there “has to be some space for (the doll’s) legs to move,” says Kim Culmone, vice president of Barbie design, as she examines a prototype of curvy Barbie in the documentary. She likes the idea of having the limbs turn out on a wider angle so they don’t run into each other but appear closer together.
That is the kind of effort Mattel has gone through to update the doll, whose original design in 1959 was inspired by an adult novelty toy called the Lilli doll.
Getting rid of Barbie’s thigh gap — an unhealthy body ideal many young girls fixate on — is part of “evolving the images that come to mind when people talk about Barbie,” Culmone tells USA TODAY. “(We’re listening to) what girls are talking about.”
That’s a far cry from the Barbie of the 1960s, who was packaged with a scale set to 110 and a book on how to lose weight that had this advice: Don’t eat.
Culmone acknowledges that it will take years to reshape Barbie, a toy that’s so much a part of pop culture that Nicki Minaj raps about being a Barbie in Black Barbies and Barbie Tingz. But the dolls with diverse bodies are resonating with girls, with sales for the doll up 9% in the fourth quarter of 2017 after an initial drop.
“Our No. 1 selling doll last year in Fashionistas was a curvy redhead with a ‘Girl Power’ T-shirt,” Culmone says. “We made these changes because this is important, and it’s what the world looks like.”
In the past two years, Mattel has released dolls with more ethnically diverse features and textured hair, Culmone says. There’s also the muscular new Lara Croft Tomb Raider doll and a Role Models line that includes fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad (the first Muslim-American athlete to wear a hijab while competing), aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. (Mattel says the Frida Kahlo Corporation approved the design for the latter doll, yet there was backlash about Frida Barbie’s lack of a unibrow; Culmone insists it’s there.) In the documentary, fans and feminist activists are seen celebrating the new curvy Barbie body.
“Barbie was pretty much everything the feminist movement was trying to escape from (but) was forced to change by dollar power,” Gloria Steinem says. Though the new bodies are “a step in the right direction, I’d like to see an actual fat Barbie,” Roxane Gay says. “She’s like what, a size 12?”
Going forward, Culmone says Barbie will continue to evolve and is “looking to be inclusive to all kinds of people.” Does that mean a transgender Barbie could be among the dolls launched ahead of Barbie’s 60th birthday next year? “That’s a very interesting question,” says Culmone, not exactly saying no. “We’re exploring lots of possibilities. Anything is possible, because it’s the Barbie brand. It’s very difficult at times to hold back what they’re working on.”
“We made these changes because this is important, and it’s what the world looks like.” Kim Culmone Vice president of Barbie design