Barbie’s Mom Was a Whore: The Truth About the Doll!

The New Movie is “Woke” but the Doll’s History is Even Woker.

Barbara Millicent Roberts. She sounds so erudite, so cultured, so respectable. She’s an astronaut, a surgeon, a microbiologist, a paleontologist, an astrophysicist, a game show host, a rapper, an art teacher, a beekeeper, a dolphin trainer, a ballerina, a US Air Force Thundercats pilot, and so much more. Her student loan debt must be astronomical, but all that matters is that she’s Barbie and she’s a total doll.

Born on March 9, 1959, in Southern California to Mattel with co-founder Ruth Handler serving as doula, Barbie emerged as a fully grown teenage woman with an utterly unrealistic 11-inch-tall body. We can ignore how big her boobs are, how small her waist is, and how insanely long her legs are. But those feet? Who can stay on their tiptoes every day of their life, even if they wear heels exclusively? Barbie, that’s who! That ability doubtless helps her when she’s Ballerina Barbie but probably isn’t so useful when she’s Lifeguard Barbie.

As has since become tradition, moms in a 1958 market study by Mattel were not impressed with the new doll’s physique. There was just too much of it. Instead of giving Barbie a breast reduction, Mattel took the matter to the court of public opinion, kept the doll the same, and introduced her to kids via television commercials. Naturally, the targeted demographic, young girls, went wild. A doll that didn’t look like a baby! Instead, this doll looked like a total babe!

Sadly, Barbie lived alone in her Barbie world until 1961, when Mattel introduced her boyfriend, Ken. I’m not sure whether it’s a sweet tribute or a sick perversion that Ruth named the dating dolls after her real-world daughter and son. But here we are. Each was released wearing bathing suits, hers a black-and-white striped one-piece and his a simple set of red trunks and a towel.

Two years later, the company released the doll that my parents gave to me, Midge, the best friend of Barbie. Later models of the freckled pal were apparently married and pregnant, which caused a stir among the overly moral, but mine was a stacked Amazon with big boobs, a rib-less waist, a turned-up nose, and shoulder-length hair that ended in a flip. A year later, Barbie’s younger sister Skipper arrived on the scene. During the next four years, Barbie began to make friends with people whose skin was not as blindingly white as hers. Black Barbie and Latina Barbie didn’t arrive on the scene until 1980, however.

With this huge and ever-growing network of family and friends, it’s notable that Barbie is an orphan. Never are any parents mentioned, although she does have young siblings and is known to babysit, the infamous doll that inspired Ruth to create Barbie in the first place is not part of her official story. Her heritage is too saucy for little girls and in an unauthorized Barbie biography, she was called a “pornographic character… gold digger, exhibitionist and floozy” by the author.

Bild Lilli was a German fashion doll introduced to the market in August of 1955, with roughly the same proportions as her American descendant, available in two sizes. The brainchild of Reinhard Beuthein’s ribald filler comic-strip character in the Bild Zeitung newspaper during the early 1950s, Lilli was popular with adult men, who would purchase her as a racy gag gift from tobacco kiosks, bars, and adult novelty shops.

She liked to wear stylish and often scanty garments, live an active lifestyle, match wits with the men she was actively flirting with, and enjoy the finer things of life that a male admirer could provide. Unlike her daughter, whose deformed feet were able to wear a wide assortment of shoes, Lilli’s feet were created wearing shoes molded to her ankles. The hand-painted vixen was available in 11.5-inch and 7.5-inch-tall models. Cool German dudes would suspend the smaller dolls from their rearview mirrors sitting on a little swing.

Among her cartoon antics was a stroll down the sidewalk while wearing nothing but a bikini. Apparently illegal to do in those days, when she is finally stopped by a cop, she asks, “Oh, and in your opinion, what part should I take off?”

A transactional woman without a steady male partner in sight, Lilli slathered on the eyeliner, was built like a brick house, put her hair in a bold ponytail, and didn’t spare the side-eye. As her cartoon self, she often wore scandalous clothing and talked shit to the men who drooled over her womanly form.

“I’m going to have to ask at least one of you to stop following me,” she teases during one comic strip where multiple businessmen pursue her. In another, a gust of wind blows her tiny tennis skirt up to show her panties. Instead of being embarrassed, Lilli said, “I never used to be interested in sports, but the newest tennis fashions at Wimbledon have given me a new perspective.”

With a resume like that, it’s not surprising that parents were initially reluctant to buy Bild-Lilli for their own daughters. Once garment expansions became available, that all changed.

When Ruth and her husband first saw Lilli during a visit to Switzerland, she knew that the doll was almost exactly what she wanted her own daughter to have available for play. Just, you know, with a less vulgar persona. A sexy Girl Next Door who keeps her legs closed and plays the tease to perfection.

Some sources refer to Lilli as Barbie’s “sister,” but I think that’s disingenuous. True, she’s not that much older than Barbie, but she is the inspiration for the shapely beach bunny whose primary job is putting on cool clothes, playing make-believe with children, and portraying the ultimate all-American girl and rampant consumer. Also: unofficial bisexual.

Ruth softened Lilli’s facial features, changed her lips and eyebrows, and minimized her still abundant bust, but the initial Barbie bore a strong resemblance to her German progenitor. This did not sit well with Lilli’s creator, who recalled that “I was outraged when I saw this doll. This was my Lilli with a different name. What had these people done? Had they stolen my doll? I didn’t know what happened.”

What happened was that the creators of Lilli eventually struck a licensing deal with Mattel rival Louis Marx, who had developed the Miss Seventeen and smaller Miss Marlene dolls, neither of which really got off the ground. The company sued Mattel in 2001 for royalties going back to 1964 when it had sold Mattel all related assets, and alleged pressure to sign over Lilli’s rights for a mere $25k. The case failed, the use of Lilli’s name for book titles or other products became forbidden, and Reinhard’s company folded.

Even if Barbie is a virgin with a gay boyfriend and a babysitting gig, both she and her mom are freaks of nature. According to a 1994 study in Finland, a meat-world Barbie wouldn’t have enough body fat to menstruate. Since then, Mattel has altered its Barbie body mold to make her look a wee bit more human.

Those amazing bullet bra boobs have been tamed, her waist has grown a little wider, her hips look less womanly, and in 1971, Malibu Barbie stopped with the side-eye and looked directly ahead. In 2016, Barbie became available in three sizes: petite, tall, and curvy. Buying a Barbie was kinda like ordering a latte.

The rampant Capitalism and sexualization of the Barbie world continue to be a topic of sometimes heated debate, but her selling power remains admirable. Her unacknowledged mother would be so proud. Barbie flaunts her curves in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. For obvious reasons, she does not inhabit Saudi Arabia, but she did inspire a hijab-wearing doll for Muslim girls.

And now we have the ever-fuckable Margot Robbie portraying the doll with unbending knees and elbows. Except, she can bend her knees and elbows. During the film, Barbie comes to an uncomfortable awakening of consciousness like that of Adam and Eve.

Cast from the Garden of Ignorance and Innocence, the movie Barbie, who is presumably pre-presidential, becomes aware of the shallow existence of her material possession-obsessed lifestyle and that her relationship with Ken is largely symbolic.

As is the case with art, literature, and probably dance and song, sex was there first and served as the muse for future generations’ innovations. We might still be up to our asses in baby dolls if it hadn’t been for that slutty Bild-Lilli and her fun-loving appreciation for the things that men can buy for her.

Her asexual daughter likewise enjoys the good life, and she’s found a way to do it without putting out, becoming a barfly, or being hassled by the cops for walking down a sidewalk wearing only a bikini.