Barbie Girls of Today

My astonishment at the way some companies choose to market their goods to little girls has just reached a new level.



Growing up, I played with most of the toys marketed at my age bracket: Barbies, Bratz, MyScenes, Polly Pockets. All of them! And I loved it! I mean, the main thing I remember getting for my 7th birthday was a Barbie's Bakery!

But looking back on it now, we have to think it's kind of weird. And here is an example.
Today, I was looking up Barbie outfits for a party at university, where the girls go as guys and the guys go as girls. Don't judge, it's all in good jest! So I was googling the worst Barbie outfits of all time for a guy friend, and somehow made my way to a website which specialises in displaying most of the Barbies from 2000 onwards.

'Hmmm', I thought to myself 'What better place to look for Barbie's fashion faux pas than right here!'
But wait...there's more.

So really, it turned out that Barbie hasn't really had many questionable fashion choices in the more recent years, and to find some of her worse ones you have to go quite a way back. But what I did find on this Barbie website was a collection of university Barbies!

Being a university student myself, I was like 'WOW! Barbie has been to university, this is so relate-able to this time in my life right now!' (Well, I don't actually talk like that, but it was really along those lines!).  So I clicked on this collection.

The 2012 collection of University Barbies, according to this website, comprises of 8...cheerleader Barbies. Not Barbies studying to be Doctors or Lawyers or Engineers or Journalists. No. Barbies who aren't even studying! Barbies who want to be...cheerleaders.

Don't get me wrong, everyone knows that Barbie has had many professions throughout her life so far (Why did she stop being an astronaut/vet/doctor/arctic rescuer? Did she get fired?!), so we all know that she's kind of smart! But marketing a collection of University Barbies where the only Barbies in this collection are cheerleaders seems like a huge mistake on the part of Mattel!

Little girls (and even boys) all over the world look up to Barbie, and she's an inspiration to all, so really, it seems to me like Mattel is saying to little girls 'Go to university, be that cheerleader!' Not, 'Go to university, get a good job! Then Ken will like you even more!'

From my point of view, despite Barbie's odd shaped features, Barbie is still every little girls' dream. To be what she is. To look like she does. And so, perhaps instead of calling this collection University Barbie, they should have called it Cheerleader Barbie. Because cheerleading isn't the reason I'm at university. And it shouldn't be the only reason little girls want to go to university!