Older kids enamored of Barbie

We girls/Can do anything/Right, Barbie?

I’m a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world …

— Barbie commercial jingles

If I didn’t have space and storage challenges, I might be tempted to retake a passion I had as a child: Barbie dolls. Yep, Barbies, in all their unrealistic figure proportions.

A coworker who’s a Barbie enthusiast, who has decorated her desk with the dolls and who recently attended a virtual “BarbieCon” — and a controversy concerning the omission of an Asian doll in what was supposedly a diverse collection of Olympics-related Barbies — has put this 11½-inch-tall icon back on my mind.

Mattel, maker of the Barbie, did a bang-up job in keeping us little girls and grown women fascinated with a doll who could serenely rock a prim vintage suit, a mini dress, overalls or a regal Bob Mackie gown with no sweat for the last 62 years.

I enjoyed the company of dolls in general until the age of 12 (which earned me the side-eye from one of my older sisters). Barbie incarnations I owned, or which at least captured my interest, included Skipper (Barbie’s teen sister, whose flat feet, and available shoes, weren’t nearly as interesting as Barbie’s high-heel-ready feet); Talking Busy Steffie, who could talk and had hands that could be manipulated to clutch stuff; P.J., Barbie’s go-go/hippie friend with the blond pigtails, attached round sunglasses and psychedelic mini dress with bell sleeves; and Christie, Barbie’s Black friend (who I somehow decided must have been based on “Get Christie Love!,” the ’70s Black-female-cop show featuring Teresa Graves).

Growing up fairly poor I found that getting a Barbie doll was one thing; getting the accessories to which such a famous doll should be accustomed was another. I remember scoring at least one of the Barbie cases made to hold the doll along with her clothes, which were hung on tiny hangers, but also remember becoming quite the young hand-sewer through making simple dresses for these dolls. My Barbies didn’t go on to own their own Corvettes, Dreamcampers or Dreamhouses.

As many scary shows and movies as have been made about dolls, there have been to my knowledge no major Barbie horror films. (Plenty of scary Barbie fare on Youtube, naturally —“Barbie is Watching Us!”)

Barbie represents that dual role we’ve seen women walk in during these modern times: Objectified (look up the racy German Bild Lilli novelty doll on which Barbie was supposedly based) and

glamorized, but wielding all the power, holding all the cards and becoming a working woman, political candidate, pilot and astronaut as she owns her branded possessions. Ken, the male doll who is her boyfriend, is mere arm candy, a doll made up so that Barbie can say she has a man … and seeming almost like a keptman, languishing in Barbie’s shadow.

Barbie is still noted for looks — from that artist’s depiction of how she would look with real-life-female measurements, to the fact that she’s now under social-media criticism because there was no Asian version of her included in the Barbie collection dedicated to the Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021) Olympic Games.

“Mattel, the toy company that manufactures Barbie dolls, collaborated with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Tokyo 2020 organizers to release a new line of dolls in February 2020 specially designed for the Games,” writes Heather Law, for CNN. “The collection includes five dolls that reflect the five new sports that had been added to the Olympic program this year — baseball/softball, sport climbing, karate, skateboarding and surfing … Despite an attempt to ‘[highlight] inclusivity and innovation,’ many were quick to note the absence of an Asian Barbie” when the dolls were promoted again in July. The fact that the Games were held in an Asian country made the omission especially egregious among those posting their outrage.

“Users on social media have questioned why Mattel has not included an Asian doll given the prominence of [Asian American Pacific Islander] athletes and the location of the Tokyo Games,” Law writes. And with Sunisa Lee, a Hmong-American, becoming the first Asian to win gold in the gymnastics individual allaround, no less.

Here’s hoping Mattel will hasten to add a Sunisa Lee doll to its Olympic collection. Meanwhile, if I at some point delve into Barbie collecting as has my coworker, I’ll definitely take the collection beyond Malibu Barbie or Talking Busy Steffie. And unlike the Barbies of my childhood, each of these Barbies could keep wearing the outfit she came in, no other clothes needed. And she’d keep her hairdo intact (for which she’d be grateful, if she could feel, knowing how I murdered all my dolls’ hair as a kid). And she’d be in a display case, so no need of a doll case or a car or a dream house. I might even throw in a Ken doll or two for arm candy.

Because we gals can do anything. Even “play Barbies” at nearly 60.

Be an email girl (or guy) in an email world … hwilliams@adgnewsroom.com