She's a Barbie girl, in a new world

In the 60 years since Ruth Handler introduced her to the world, Barbie has carried a massive amount of symbolic weight on her tiny shoulders(opens in a new tab). She’s been embraced and reviled. Andy Warhol painted(opens in a new tab) her, women’s rights activists have protested(opens in a new tab) her, and the Louvre even devoted an entire exhibit(opens in a new tab) to her. She’s not just a plastic doll — she’s a global icon.

Between 2015 and 2019, Barbie’s icon status took a new turn. For a doll historically white, busty, and thin, the second half of the decade saw the most radical overhaul to Barbie’s physical image to date. Mattel, the toy company that manufactures Barbie, majorly ramped up inclusivity efforts in the latter half of the 2010s, releasing dolls with a wider variety of body sizes, skin tones, hair textures, and ability status. 

Thanks to these changes, more and more young kids looking to play with Barbie might end up with a doll that actually looks like them. And because youngsters use Barbie to imagine new worlds, this change advances the idea that Barbie — and those who play with her — can do, and be, anything. While Barbie and her friends have been through rounds of diversity efforts in the past (some better than others), the past five years have seen a flurry of consecutive changes to Barbie herself, making her even more inclusive. 

While the Barbie universe included dolls with darker skin tones as early as the 1960s, these dolls were always “friends of Barbie,” like “Christie,” the first black doll in Barbie’s world, said Barbie collector Bradley Justice, a former regional director for the United Federation of Doll Clubs and a contributing editor at Doll News.

It wasn’t until 1980, years after the Civil Rights Movement and the Chicano Movement, which was a push for Mexican American empowerment, that Mattel first released “Black Barbie” and “Hispanic Barbie.” Following the release of these two dolls, Justice said that prominent new collections, like the “Day to Night Barbie” and “Twirly Curls Barbie” in the 1980s, would sometimes include a white, black, and Hispanic version of each doll. At the time, Asian and Native American Barbies were still absent from these collections. 

The first apparent East Asian Barbie, released in 1981 in the “Dolls of the World(opens in a new tab)” collection, wasn’t assigned a specific country, even though other dolls in the collection belonged to countries like Italy and Scotland. Instead, she was labeled using a pejorative term, dubbed “Oriental Barbie.”(opens in a new tab) This was more than a decade after a concerted, pan-Asian movement started advocating(opens in a new tab) for the end of the term’s usage in the U.S due to its derogatory associations(opens in a new tab).

The “Dolls of the World” collection, which ended in 2014, incrementally expanded racial diversity for Barbie by creating dolls that represented a wide variety of nations. Notably, these dolls were dressed in traditional garb from their respective nations, in an effort to “celebrate cultural differences and tradition,” according to a statement from Mattel. But while some of the nations represented in the collection might allow more kids to buy a doll that looked — and perhaps dressed — like them, the traditional clothing worn by the dolls still separated them from the main collection, and as a result, the modern, American Barbie. 

Additionally, because the dolls were dressed in “traditional” clothing, they could also oversimplify the diverse sartorial and cultural trends in the countries they were representing, sometimes falling into stereotypes, Justice said. As recently as 2013, parents and online commentators criticized(opens in a new tab) 2012’s "Mexico Barbie(opens in a new tab)," claiming her outfit and accessories, which included a chihuahua, were stereotypical(opens in a new tab), and inaccurate.

And there’s another longstanding critique of Barbie: her body(opens in a new tab). Barbie’s plastic, hourglass figure led critics(opens in a new tab) to suggest that Barbie normalized an anatomically impossible(opens in a new tab) body standard, especially for young girls who played with her. After all, Barbie is the doll that once infamously(opens in a new tab) included a diet book with only one suggestion: “DON’T EAT.” While Barbie’s diet book, and a scale signifying that her weight was 110 pounds, were released in the 1960s, other products containing messaging that some considered harmful to the wellbeing of young girls continued up until the 1990s. In 1992, some models of a "Teen Talk Barbie" were programmed(opens in a new tab) to say “Math class is tough!” Though Mattel pulled the message off of the production line for "Teen Talk Barbie," its impact lingers(opens in a new tab) — and likely still shapes some people’s perception of Barbie. 

Additionally, until recent changes, all Barbies were able-bodied, with the exception of a “friend of Barbie” named Becky, in the 1990s, which is no longer sold. Similarly, Justice notes that until the overhaul this decade, there was only one change to Barbie’s body, which was slight. In 1998, the release of Really Rad Barbie(opens in a new tab) offered a slightly wider waist and smaller breasts, which was meant to make Barbie “cooler.”(opens in a new tab) (Justice felt that the 1998 changes reflected a body that would look better in the looser, baggy fashions that were popular at the time.)

For Barbie historian Gerber, Barbie’s inclusivity options (or lack thereof) for much of her history made her message implicit.

“You can be anything, but only if you’re white and blonde,” Gerber said. 

Barbie’s changes in the 2010s, many of which counter these old critiques, rolled out in rapid succession.

Lisa McKnight, Mattel’s global head of dolls, who has been with the company for 20 years, said that Mattel started its inclusivity efforts by directly giving Barbie a voice, with the launch of Barbie Vlogger(opens in a new tab) in 2015. The animated vlogs elicited pleasant surprise(opens in a new tab) for Barbie’s newfound ability to engage in frank discussions about issues like depression(opens in a new tab) and the “sorry reflex(opens in a new tab).” 

McKnight felt this helped parents, some of whom had formerly chided Barbie’s perceived one-dimensionality, see Barbie’s potential as a role model.

“We wanted to position Barbie more overtly as someone that celebrates girl’s empowerment, was open to evolution, and was reflecting the world around girls,” McKnight said. These videos expanded what Barbie could represent. That said, Barbie is still marketed specifically to girls with “girl empowerment”(opens in a new tab) messaging. Other Mattel dolls more overtly invite both boys and girls to play.

After these first vlogs, Mattel then released a flurry of changes to Barbie’s body and styling: In 2015, it increased the availability of skin tones and hair fibers, and also released a doll with flat feet, when the Barbie Fashionistas(opens in a new tab) line launched. (This helped to assuage some concerns(opens in a new tab) that Barbie’s body would be uncomfortable for a real person to possess.) The same year, Mattel also made the switch to call all Barbie dolls either Barbie or Ken (the male doll in the Barbie universe), thus making all of its inclusivity efforts for the dolls direct additions to Barbie herself, not just her friends.

In 2016, Barbie’s options for body type expanded to include curvy, petite, and tall. In 2017, the Fashionista line debuted 40 new dolls (including new options for Ken) with 11 skin tones, 28 hairstyles, and 7 body types, making the line Mattel’s most diverse collection to date. In 2019, Mattel introduced(opens in a new tab) Barbie in a wheelchair, as well as another with a prosthetic leg.

In designing the Barbie with a prosthetic leg, Mattel consulted(opens in a new tab) with a young activist(opens in a new tab) who has a prosthetic arm to ensure accuracy. According to Mattel representatives, the team working on all of these projects always reflected the products they were making. When necessary and possible, outside groups were consulted to make sure that products were accurate.

Mattel also made waves when it released the "Creatable World(opens in a new tab)” doll line in 2019, which was largely considered the first gender neutral (opens in a new tab)toy collection. This collection was not part of the Barbie universe, which has historically been dedicated to “inspiring the limitless potential in every girl," though Barbie "invites any child to engage with the brand," according to Mattel representatives. 

Throughout the latter half of the decade, Mattel focused on increasing the amount of real-life role models(opens in a new tab) in Barbie’s oeuvre as well. Between the one-of-a-kind “Barbie Sheroes,” first released in 2015, and “Barbie Inspiring Women” series, released in 2018, its new collections boast a wide array of dolls based on inspiring women like Ava Durvernay, Frida Kahlo, U.S. Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, Amelia Earhart, and Misty Copeland, increasing Barbie’s inclusivity in the process. 

These Barbies were celebrated(opens in a new tab) for their expansions to Barbie’s world, both by fans(opens in a new tab) and by some of the real people who inspired the dolls. Muhammad, whose doll marked the first Barbie to wear a hijab(opens in a new tab), said in an Instagram post(opens in a new tab): “I’m proud to know that little girls everywhere can now play with a Barbie who chooses to wear hijab! This is a childhood dream come true.” Zendaya, an actor whose Barbie lookalike depicted her famous 2015 Academy Awards outfit(opens in a new tab), said in an Instagram post(opens in a new tab): “When I was little I couldn’t find a Barbie that looked like me, my…how times have changed.”

At the end of 2016, as changes were still incrementally rolling out, Mattel representatives said 36 percent of dolls sold globally featured one of their new inclusivity additions. Now, three years and many changes later, that number has jumped even more. In 2019, 55 percent of dolls sold globally included at least one of their additions to hair style, skin tone, body type, ability status, hair color, and eye color.

In addition to new dolls, Mattel also debuted other initiatives in recent years, like the Dream Gap Project(opens in a new tab), a global initiative launched in 2018 that will, among other things, develop a school curriculum to address the dream gap, the phenomenon in which young girls develop self-limiting beliefs. In the same year that the Dream Gap Project launched, Mattel also released a Netflix series, Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures(opens in a new tab), that further situates Barbie in an increasingly modern, digital world. Unlike playing with dolls, though, it can get confusing to name all characters Barbie in videos, Mattel representatives said. In Barbie Dream House Adventures, Barbie herself is white, as are her siblings, while some of her friends appear to be characters of color. Still, digital Barbie is yet another thin, pretty doll. 

In contrast to Barbie’s former reputation(opens in a new tab), Barbie’s changes in the late 2010s might appear to be painted with a swift brush.

Gerber and Stone, the Barbie historians, and Justice, the Barbie collector, however, see Barbie’s changes in the last decade as congruent with Barbie’s trajectory in her 60-decade lifespan, as well as with Barbie founder Ruth Handler’s initial vision. In their telling, Handler made dolls that would sell. Mattel is now making Barbie more inclusive so they can sell more toys, too.

“She created a global icon. You don’t do that because you’re thinking about the feminist [movement.] She was all about the business,” Gerber said. “This is a company that produces products and their products happen to be toys.”

Following Barbie’s release, Gerber said consumers quickly asked for a male doll, which Mattel then made(opens in a new tab) in 1961. Barbie’s glance also changed in 1971 from a coy side eye to a direct stare, which Stone said was also a response to changing social mores concerning women’s self-assertion that arose from the women’s liberation movement around the same time. 

“Right from the beginning, you had a company responding to its audience,” Gerber said. “If they did a focus group and it said no one is going to buy a new doll, they’re not going to make it.”

The Barbie brand of the 2010s appeared to operate the same way, despite Handler’s resignation from Mattel in the 1970s and her death in 2002, Stone and Gerber said. The old business model — consumers demand; company responds — stayed. Now, it was the dolls that needed changing.

“We didn’t like the feedback that we were getting [from parents] on Barbie five or six years ago. We needed to modernize Barbie,” Mattel’s McKnight said. “When we reappraised the brand, we realized that she had not been keeping pace with the culture, and we knew there was an opportunity to go back to the roots of the brand.”

McKnight said the changes of the 2010s were spurred by the realization that parents’ perception of Barbie didn’t match the company’s intentions for the doll. Barbie had fallen behind the culture at large. Mattel surveyed parents who found Barbie to be “too perfect, one-note, one-dimensional, and not reflective of the values that [they] held dear to them.”

Reporting covering(opens in a new tab) Barbie’s changes in the last decade often cites Mattel’s declining(opens in a new tab) sales as a catalyst for the changes. In 2012(opens in a new tab), 2013(opens in a new tab), and 2014(opens in a new tab), worldwide gross sales for Barbie decreased. 

By the end of 2013’s fourth quarter and throughout 2014, those decreases were especially dramatic, dropping 13 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

By the end of the fourth quarter in 2015(opens in a new tab), after Mattel’s first wave of inclusivity efforts around skin tone and hair fibers identified by McKnight, sales were up eight percent compared to the previous quarter. In terms of annual sales, Barbie was still down 1 percent since the prior year, but it was a marked improvement.

To say that changes were a response to declining sales is not necessarily inaccurate, Barbie experts said, but they also suggest this is nothing new for Mattel.

“Anytime they feel like some of their market share is being taken away, they’re going to make a change,” Justice said. “They have to react to that.”

McKnight also acknowledged that decisions are going to follow what’s happening in the culture more broadly. Although it seems Mattel has broadened its definition of which culture it responds to since not everyone was skinny, white, and blonde when Barbie was first invented. 

“When you track the brand’s history, when we’re connecting to culture is when we’re doing the best,” McKnight said. “We’ll always be evolving.”

In the years ahead, as Barbie continues to both follow and shape culture, this also means that new products and initiatives will continue to reflect our shifting mores, Gerber and Stone said.

Though Mattel keeps new products under wraps, Justice, who played with both Barbie and G.I. Joe as a child, has a few ideas. To begin, he advocates for an increased effort to avoid labeling doll play as a feminine activity, in order to get kids of all genders playing with Barbie, which he called himself “lucky” to experience as a child. Additionally, with all of the new body molds, hair textures, and skin tones, Justice hopes to see options in the future that allow kids to build their own Barbie dolls, as the other Mattel line, Creatable World, does, so that kids can fully see themselves in Barbie.

“As any person can tell you, it’s always great to see something that represents you,” Justice said.