TIME Magazine:
Mattel Updates Iconic Barbie Doll to Reflect Modern Women Like Lena Dunham
by Kipp Jones 29 Jan 2016
Mattel has announced
updates to its iconic Barbie doll, which
include the additions of curvy, petite and tall body types, as part of an
attempt to ensure the toys better represent modern women like Kim Kardashian
and Lena Dunham, according to TIME magazine.
Speaking exclusively to TIME this week for a cover
story, Evelyn Mazzocco, who is the head of the Barbie brand, said that Barbie’s
declining popularity forced the company to try a different approach. For
the first time, the doll will be available in alternate body types, which will
include a variety of skin tones and hairstyles.
Mazzocco said after a previous attempt at making the at
times controversial
doll more independent and feminist, her company decided to shift its focus to
creating dolls that represent greater diversity. Mattel is also marketing the
toys to mothers who are more reflective of that diversity.
“The millennial mom is a small part of our consumer base,”
the Mattel exec told the outlet, “but we recognize she’s the future.”
Speaking to the publication’s Eliana Dockterman,
Mazzocco acknowledged that critics will say her company is “late to
the game” in regards to diversity, but she reasoned, “changes at a huge
corporation take time.”
Mattel has been criticized for decades over Barbie’s
impractical body proportions.
Dockterman, who was given exclusive access
to Mattel’s El Segundo, California headquarters for the feature
story notes Lena Dunham, who is the star and creator of HBO’s
Girls,
might be partially behind Barbie’s transformation. She writes:
American beauty ideals have evolved: the curvaceous
bodies of Kim Kardashian West, Beyoncé and Christina Hendricks have become
iconic, while millennial feminist leaders like Lena Dunham are deliberately
baring their un-Barbie-like figures onscreen, fueling a movement that promotes
body acceptance.
Dunham’s supposed influence on the world of toys, as
asserted by TIME, is profound. In addition to her promotion of “body
acceptance,” the HBO star wrote in her 2014 memoir that she was raped when she
was 19 by a man she insisted was a “resident conservative” while she attended
College in Ohio.
An exhaustive, month-long
investigation into the claim by Breitbart’s John Nolte debunked
Dunham’s shocking allegation.
Kim Culmone, who is the vice-president for Barbie design,
also explained that the latest changes to Barbie were handled with diligence.
“It’s a personal issue because almost every woman has
owned a Barbie, and every woman has some relationship with or opinion about
Barbie,” said Culmone.
Mattel has drastically shifted its focus on
advertising in recent months. Back in November, the toy giant began marketing
Barbie dolls to young boys.
The company’s new dolls are available now on Barbie.com, and will hit
stores March 1.
Click here to read TIME‘s
exclusive interview with Mattel.
Barbie
Barbie
is a Mattel Inc. product.
Note: Vasant M. Prabhu
is a director at Mattel Inc., and
the CFO for NBCUniversal.
Jeff
Zucker was the president & CEO for NBCUniversal,
an executive producer for the NBC
Nightly News, and is a director at the Robin
Hood Foundation.
Brian Williams
was an anchor for the NBC Nightly News,
is a director at the Robin Hood
Foundation, and Allison Williams’s
father.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Robin Hood Foundation, and the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
George
Soros was the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society, is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, and Robert Soros’s father.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
William D.
Rollnick was a funder for the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and the chairman for Mattel Inc.
Hillary Rodham
Clinton was a director at the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and Audrey Gelman was her intern.
Audrey Gelman
was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s intern,
is an actor in Girls, and a friend
of Lena Dunham.
Lena Dunham is a
friend of Audrey Gelman, and an actor
& creator of Girls.
Allison Williams
is an actor in Girls, and Brian Williams’s daughter.
Brian Williams is
Allison Williams’s father, a director
at the Robin Hood Foundation, and was
an anchor for the NBC Nightly News.
Jeff
Zucker was an executive producer for the NBC Nightly News, the president & CEO for NBCUniversal, and is a director at the Robin Hood Foundation.
Vasant M. Prabhu
is the CFO for NBCUniversal, a
director at Mattel Inc, and was a group
president for McGraw Hill Financial Inc.
Barbie
is a Mattel Inc. product.
Kurt L. Schmoke
is a director at McGraw Hill Financial
Inc., and a trustee at the Carnegie
Corporation of New York.
Pedro
Aspe was a director at the McGraw
Hill Financial Inc., and a trustee at the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Carnegie
Corporation of New York was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Lois Dickson
Fitt was a director at the McGraw Hill Financial Inc.,
a guest scholar at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), and is Susan
E. Rice’s mother.
Strobe Talbott is
the president of the Brookings
Institution (think tank), was William
J. Clinton’s roommate at Oxford, and an editor at Time magazine.
Kate
Betts is a contributing editor for Time
magazine, and a friend of Melissa
Soros.
Melissa Soros is
a friend of Kate Betts, and married
to Robert Soros.
Robert
Soros is married to Melissa Soros,
and George Soros’s son.
Sanjay Gupta is a
columnist for Time magazine, and the
chief medical correspondent for CNN.
Walter Isaacson
was a managing editor for Time magazine,
and the chairman & CEO for CNN.
CNN Worldwide
is a division of CNN.
Jeff
Zucker is the president of CNN
Worldwide, a director at the Robin
Hood Foundation, was an executive producer for the NBC Nightly News, and the president & CEO for NBCUniversal.
Brian Williams is
a director at the Robin Hood Foundation,
Allison Williams’s father, and was
an anchor for the NBC Nightly News.
Vasant M. Prabhu
is the CFO for NBCUniversal, and a
director at Mattel Inc.
Barbie
is a Mattel Inc. product.
Patricia
Fili-Krushel was a chair, news group for NBCUniversal, and a VP for HBO.
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