(Tosa 30). The new doll, deemed Barbie, was named after her own daughter Barbara, whos many years of play with paper dolls had actually inspired her to begin designing the three-dimensional adult doll (Lord 30). Though Mrs. Handlers version of the doll was not as racy or alluring as Lilli, her imitation of the German streetwalker would come back to haunt her many years later (Bad Girl 2). But for now, the Barbie doll would launch Ruth Handler and her company, Mattel Creations, into what was soon to be a successful national corporation. In fact, the Barbie doll was so popular that three years after her release in 1959 Mattel was still filling orders from her first year (Long 17). It wasnt until the late 1960s that critics began comparing Barbie to a Playboy Bunny and calling her a corrupter of youth (Bad Girl 3). One woman commented, Shes an absurd representation of what a woman should be (Bad Girl 3)-and thats exactly what many others thought she was, too. With such impossible real-life measurements of 59 tall, 36-18-33 bust, waist, and hip (Benstock and Ferriss 35), its easy to see why mothers across the country banned the doll from their homes and refused to let their impressionable young daughters be influenced by a piece of painted plastic (Bestock and Ferriss 35). Since dolls have often been responsible for teaching children what society deems important or beautiful, many concerned parents wondered why Mattel did not design a doll that taught more valuable lessons than dressing pretty and being dangerously skinny (Edut 19)? Who said a runway model was best suited for teaching a child what is beautiful anyway? According to a Mattel spokesperson, a Kate Moss figure is better suited for todays fashions (Edut 19), and that is one reason why Barbie must be so disproportional. Actually, another reason for Barbies anorexic figure can be traced back long before Kate Moss and the fashion runway. Barbie was originally designed a...
