To Barbie, or not to Barbie?

Back in our day, my little sisters and I used to play a mean game of Barbies. And, between the three of us, we had quite the collection of dolls and accessories. There was an unspoken agreement that the most handsome Ken doll was Baywatch Ken (although, in my opinion, Aladdin could have taken the prize if it weren't for the annoying fact that his fez was permanently attached to his head). As far as which female doll was the prettiest, I think we each held our separate opinions. My favorite was Camping Barbie, whose dishwater blond hair and tan skin set her apart from her more generic platinum blond counterparts.

In life, there are few occurrences more irritating than when a well-intentioned adult attempts to join in your game of Barbies. This is due to the fact that adults, when they play "make believe" games with kids, tend to assume that the make-believe world is more innocent than it actually is. They try to make the Barbies behave like little kids; Barbies, clearly, are not little kids. At six, seven, eight, or nine years old, my sisters and I recognized that the dolls we were playing with represented adult people, and we, accordingly, imagined adult scenarios to place them in. Our Barbies would fight and even kill each other. They would get drunk. They would have sex. Of course, none of our enactments of the aforementioned events were at all realistic, but they were our speculative attempts to make sense of the befuddling grown-up world. And we enjoyed it immensely.

Of the various games and scenarios we would continuously revisit in our playtime with Barbies, one stands out to me in particular on account of its absurdity as well as its especial popularity: weddings. Our Barbie and Ken dolls would get married all the time. We were constantly partnering them off with new people (hey, it was only fair that all the ladies should get their own crack at Baywatch Ken). We had two wedding dresses and plenty of other formal gowns that would be appropriate for a bride in a pinch, but, alas, we only had one tuxedo; so, our dolls were constantly performing costume changes throughout the duration of our play in order to accommodate the multiple couples who were being paired off that day.

But even more interesting than the wedding wardrobe was the marriage ceremony itself, particularly the last part (and, more interesting yet, what happened after the ceremony). Follwing the officiant's pronouncement of Ken and Barbie as "Man and Wife," he would always, always, declare conclusively: "You may go and get naked!"

At this point, Barbie and Ken would fly (yes, you read right, fly) off into the air together to another end of the room where they would be stripped of their clothes and left alone to do as they pleased. This was the formula for make-believe marriages that we stuck with, and we stuck with it because it worked: it gratified our need to make two wedding dresses and one tuxedo satisfy the fashion demands of half a dozen couples, and it complied with our firm knowledge (gleaned from a ubiquitous comment made by our mother) that men and women saw each other naked after they got married.

Last Sunday I found myself engaged in a riveting conversation about Barbies with two friends whose ideas and opinions I always respect and enjoy. One of these friends has a baby girl and considers carefully the possible concerns of permitting or not permitting her child to have or play with certain types of toys. The other friend was not allowed to play with Barbies when she was growing up. The three of us agreed that, in retrospect, we find the practice of little girls playing with dolls that have adult bodies to be somehow troublesome, if not downright distressing.

But, in the end, what is the real impact of allowing one's daughter to play with Barbies? Or of withholding them? A child in contemporary society will still be exposed to plenty of unrealistic adult bodies on television or screaming from the magazine racks at the supermarket. How much of a difference does it make if the unrealistic adult body is not just in an airbrushed photograph, but is that of her own plaything? Would I have a different self image today if I'd never met Camping Barbie and Baywatch Ken? Would I have a healthier understanding of my own body in relation to others' bodies? Would I have healthier views on sex?

I just don't know. But what I do know is, I can't wait to get married.