Forever Barbie (36 page)
Authors: M. G. Lord
129
Newsweek's
1988 report on the demise of the supermom.
Good
Housekeeping's
"New Traditionalist" ad campaign: See Faludi, op. cit., p. 90.
129 Lacroix quoted on bubble skirts ("for women who like to "dress up like little girls' "): Ibid., p. 169.
130 "Bye-bye . . . little bow tie":
Mademoiselle,
quoted bv Faludi, ibid., p. 177.
131 "When I as a futurist share our assumptions . . .": Telephone interview with Laurel Cutler, September 11, 1993.
CHAPTER SEVEN: PAPER DOLL
134 Circulation figures for Barbie novels: See Random House internal memos, 1962. (Random House archive, Columbia University
Library.)
136 'The eommodifieation of one's look became the basis of success": Winni Breines.
Young, White and
Miserable: Growing Up Female in the
Fifties
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), p. 105.
136 Being seen was "one of the main attractions of attending school": Ibid.
138 Paula Foxx slips into the Roberts "family circle as naturally . . . as any ordinary woman might have done": Bette Lou
Maybee.
Barbie's Fashion
Success
(New York, Random House, 1962), p. 21.
138 "what a pretty and talented daughter I have": Ibid., p. 27.
139 Barbie afflicted with "rare streaks of just being ornery": Ibid., p. 88.
140 "There are more important things to dream about than being rich": Ibid., p. 6.
140 Nancy Drew is "within reach. . . . She is pretty but not beautiful": Arthur Prager,
Rascals at Large, or the Clue in
the Old Nostalgia
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1971) p. 77.
141 Barbie afflicted by "emotions so strange that she could not understand them herself": Cynthia Lawrence, "The Size 10 Dress,"
Here's Barbie
(New York: Random House, 1962), p. 94.
141 Barbie and Bertha hold hands in a "warm spotlight": Ibid., p. 100.
141 "A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years . . ." Sylvia Plath,
The Bell Jar
(New York: Bantam Books, 1972), p. 2.
142 "calm, steady" Ken Carson: Cynthia Lawrence,
Barbie's New York
Summer
(New York: Random House, 1962), p. 21.
142 Genitals resembling "turkey neck and turkev gizzards": Plath, op. cit., p. 55.
142 Constantin's name as "full of S's and K's": Ibid., p. 41.
142 "Why did 1 attract these weird old women?": Ibid., p. 180.
142 Barbie wants "a whole New York wardrobe, free": Lawrence,
Barbie's
New York Summer,
p. 5.
143 Esther Greenwood's mother "begging [her] with a sorrowful face . . .": Plath, op. cit., p. 166.
143 "I hate her": Ibid., p. 166.
143 "A girl . . . tries to resolve her ambivalent dependence . . .'": Nancy Chodorow,
The Reproduction of
Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the
Sociology of Gender
(Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1979), p. 137.
144 "I felt like a piece of merchandise": Lawrence,
Barbie's New York
Summer,
p. 62.
144 "A sudden gust of wind caught [Barbie's] full skirt . . .": Ibid., p. 107.
144 "It was probably Clara's British background . . .": Bette Lou Maybee,
Barbie's Hawaiian Holiday
(New York: Random House, 1962), p. 39.
145 "I was born in the wrong part of the century . . .": Telephone interview with Bette Lou Maybee, May 21, 1993. (All Maybee
quotations are from this interview.)
145 Rose Marie Reid: "a swimsuit wiz-ardess . . .": Brown, op. cit., p. 94.
146 Bernard Gottlieb to Robert Bernstein: Letter dated August 31, 1965. (Random House archive, Columbia University.)
146 Sales of the later Barbie books recorded in internal Random House raemos and royalty statements. (Random House archive,
Columbia University.)
147 "With the donkey's noisesome voice . . .": Eleanor Woolvin,
Barbie
and the Ghost Town Mystery
(New York: Random House, 1965). p. 50.
148 Thanks to former
Barbie
magazine editor Karen Tina Harrison for providing me with a copy of the unreleased
Barbie
magazine
(Barbie,
Christmas. 1984).
148 "Barbie Goes Milano,"
House &
Garden,
June 1986.
148 Sottsass intended the style as "an ironic gesture": Stephen Bailey,
Taste:
The Secret Meaning of Things
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), p. 68.
149 "Barbie Goes to Brazil," in
Barbie,
Winter 1988.
149 "We couldn't show Barbie's family . . .": Interview with Karen Tina Harrison, New York City, February 23, 1993. (All Harrison
quotations are from this interview.)
150 "I take my daughter to marches": Interview with Katy Dobbs, New York City, November 20, 1992. (All Dobbs quotations are
from this interview.)
152 "the largest drug combination . . .": "When TV Kids Go Down the Tubes: Eight Stories You Won't See on Sitcoms,"
People,
March 25, 1991. p. 38.
154 "I can remember sitting in meetings . . .": Interview with Barbara Charlehois, Los Angeles, May 2, 1993. (All Charlebois
quotations are from this interview.)
155 "We Girls Can Do Anything,"
Barbie Fashion,
June 1991.
155 "Aunt Rose Comes First,"
Barbie
Fashion,
June 1993.
155 'The Volunteers,"
Barbie
Fashion,
February 1993.
156 "I can have Ken being a feminist . . .": Interview with Barbara Slate, Sag Harbor, New York, July 1, 1993. (All Slate
quotations are from this interview.)
158 They formed "a cluster of images . . .": Neal Gabler,
An Empire of
Their Own: How the Jews Invented
Hollywood
(New York: Anchor Books, 1989) p. 7.
CHAPTER EIGHT: BARBIE LIKE ME
161 "Our inner cities burned . . .": "It's a Wonderful Life: Thirty Years of Barbie and America,"
Barbie Thirtieth
Anniversary Magazine,
Winter 1990, p. 11.
162 "For six years, I had been preaching . . .": Interview with Yla Eason, New York City, January 22, 1993. (AH Eason quotations
are from this interview.)
163 "I'm not sure I'd go so far . . .": Interview with Ann duCille, New Haven, October 1, 1993. (All duCille quotations are
from this interview.)
163 "Having been a little girl who grew up without the images . . .": Telephone interview with Lisa Jones, March 9, 1993.
(See also Lisa Jones, "A Doll Is Born,"
The Village Voice.
March 26, 1991 p. 36.)
164 Reclining Chinaman, Chicken Snatcher, other shameful historic toys: See Jo Ann Webb, Smithsonian News Service, "American
Toy Makers Respond to the Call for Positive Ethnic Products,"
Los Angeles Times,
August 16, 1992.
165 Details of Watts riots: See Paul Jacobs,
Prelude to Riot: A View of
Urban America from the Bottom
(New-York: Vintage Books, 1968), p. 30.
165 Jacobs "ought to be investigated" for having written it. Ibid., p. 16.
166 "To buy a house in the Valley . . .": Ibid., p. 102.
166 "I think what Lou and Robert . . .": Interview with Marva Smith, Los Angeles, February 1993. (All Marva Smith quotations
are from this interview.)
167 "I know you don't agree . . .": Letter from Paul Jacobs to Ruth and Elliot Handler. (Paul Jacobs papers, Mugar Library,
Boston University.)
168 "You'd sew it into the doll's head . . .": Telephone interview with James Edwards, January 15, 1994; interview, Los Angeles,
February 22, 1994. (All Edwards quotations are from these interviews.)
168 All quotations from the 1977 Shindana Catalogue (Los Angeles: Shindana Toys, 1977).
168 "Black people were suspicious . . .": Cliff Jacobs memo. (Paul Jacobs papers, Mugar Library, Boston University.)
169 "Art was the kind of person . . .": Telephone interview with Robert Bobo, January 14, 1994. (All Bobo quotations are from
this interview.)
170 "I can't even begin . . ." Telephone interview with Ralph Riggins, January 16, 1994.
170 Manipulation: The Mammoth Corporation Game, Shindana 1980 Catalogue (Los Angeles: Shindana Toys. 1980).
171 "Well, you know, they didn't have . . .": Interviews with Cliff Jacobs, Los Angeles, July 17, 1992, and April 27, 1993.
(All Jacobs quotations are from these interviews.)
171 Shani story: Interview with Roger Wilkins, Washington, D.C, December 31, 1992.
172 "It was so disheartening": Interview with Darlene Powell Hopson, Middletown, Connecticut, April 22, 1993. (Unless otherwise
indicated in the text, all Darlene Powell Hopson quotations are from this interview.)
172 "despair around the world": Derek Hopson and Darlene Powell Hopson,
Different and Wonderful: Raising
Black Children in a Race-Conscious
Society
(New York: Prentice-Hall Press,' 1990), p. xx.
173 Skin color and social hierarchy within the African-American community: See Midge Wilson, Kathy Russell, and Ronald Hall,
The Color
Complex: The Politics of Skin Color
Among African Americans
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), pp. 67-68.
174 There were "a lot of things that when I look at now . . .": Interview with Kitty Black Perkins, El Segundo, California,
September 21, 1992. (All Black Perkins quotations are from this interview.)
176 "I'm an African American": Telephone interview with Jacob Miles, January 12, 1994. (All Miles quotations are from this
interview.)
178 "You'd be surprised how many white people . . .": Interview with Susan Howard, New York City, November 16, 1992.
CHAPTER NINE: MY FAIR BARBIE
180 "I needed [the characters] . . .": Interview with Jill Ciment, New York City, September 30, 1992. (All Ciment quotations
are from this interview.)
182 "nothing is as crass and vulgar . . .": Bayley, op. cit., p. 142.
183 "You'll notice prole women smile more . . .": Paul Fussell,
Class
(New York: Summit Books, 1983), p. 51.
184 "working class women . . . are less aware . . .": Pierre Bourdieu,
Distinction: A Social Critique of the
Judgment of Taste
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 206.
185 For an update on class-coding in dress and grooming: Joan Kron, "Secret Beauty Codes,"
Allure,
August 1992, pp. 54-57.
186 "Nothing is too ugly . . .": Fussell, op. cit., p. x.
187 "proper tea ceremony": Pleasant Company Summer Catalogue, Summer 1992, p.4.
187 "Miss Crampton's Academy . . .": Ibid, p. 20.
187 Eleven million sold: American Girls' ad,
Publishers Weekly,
September 27, 1993.
188 "the poor and the relatively unschooled" favor brilliant colors: Packard, op. cit., p. 113.
188 "Scientific observation shows . . .": Bourdieu, op. cit., p. 10.
189 "We're fulfilling what we always said . . .": Interview with Meryl Friedman, El Segundo, California, July 15, 1992. (All
Friedman quotations are from this interview.)
190 "Whatever the fashion, the California version . . .": Alison Lurie,
The Language of Clothes
(New York: Random House, 1981), p. 112.
190 "the opposition between the classical sports and the Californian sports . . .": Bourdieu, op. cit., p. 220.
191 "The prole bathroom . . .": Fussell, op. cit., p. 95.
192 'The first time I saw it happen . . .": Reyner Banham,
Los
Angeles: The Architecture of Four
Ecologies
(New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 213.
193 "the dream of a good life . . .": Ibid., p. 238.
193 "All the elegant accesories . . .":
Mattel 1964 Toy Catalogue
(Hawthorne, Calif: Mattel Toys, 1964), p. 28.
194 "Well, there's a brick wall . . .": Interview with Aaron Betsky, Los Angeles. July 15, 1992. (All Betsky quotations are
from this interview.)
194 Details of the Deluxe Reading Corporation's Dream Kitchen: See Mark Ouellette, "Dream Kitchen,"
Barbie Bazaar,
May/June 1993, pp. 15-17.
195 "global power brand": Interview with Astrid Autolitano, El Segundo, California, April 27, 1993. (All Autolitano quotations
are from this interview.)
CHAPTER TEN: GUYS AND DOLLS
200 "Woman with the Golden Hair": Robert Bly,
Iron John
(New York: Vintage Books, 1992), p. 141.
200 "Millions of American men . . .": Ibid., p. 136.
202 Readers of
Leg Show . . .
"tend to be white-collar, educated people . . .": Interview with Dian Hanson, New York City, January 21, 1993. (All Hanson
quotations are from this interview.)
204 Matrisexuality of children: See Chodorow, op. cit., p. 96.
207 "1 rubbed . . .": Madonna quoted by Mark Bego in
Blond Ambition
(New York: Harmony Books, 1992), p. 15.
207 "If you look at any . . .": Sharon Stone quoted by Kevin Sessums in "Stone Goddess,"
Vanity Fair,
April 1993, p. 207.
208 Vampiric female gaze: Telephone interview with Camille Paglia, October 28, 1992.
208 Men "create folk legends . . .": Chodorow, op. cit., p. 183.
208 A nude should arouse "some vestige of erotic feeling": Clark, op. cit., p. 8.
209 Erotization of medieval bellies in medieval times, other female body parts at other times: Anne Hollander,
Seeing Through Clothes
(New York: The Viking Press, 1975), p. 98.
209 Psychological meanings of milk: Packard, op. cit., p. 93.
209 "So long as only the upper parts . . .": Langer, op. cit., p. 44.
210 "stopped off to do a
Playboy
shoot on the way to cheerleading practice": Halberstam, op. cit., p. 575.