(2002-04-30) f

Ruth Handler, creator of Barbie, died . "Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices."

On the other hand, Brenda Laurel said Nevertheless, I hate her. For me, Barbie was never about what was possible. Au contraire, she was precisely about what was impossible. Barbie was about who I could never be. Blonde, fashionable, thin, confident. Not in a million years... As a teen, I most often thought of myself as one of those miserable chimps dressed in frilly clothes at the circus. I was never popular; being smart, female, and nerdly was social suicide. Sometimes I wonder how different my life might have been if I had received the message that I was fine just as I was; that growing up wasn't about abandoning yourself to become an ideal woman, but about allowing the beautiful woman inside to bloom. In my memory, Barbie is the earliest clear example of the unattainable.

(May28) And here's Anita Roddick (Body Shop) on their Barbie story. In the United States, the toy company Mattel sent us a cease-and-desist order, demanding we pull the images of Ruby from American shop windows. Their reason: Ruby was making Barbie look bad, presumably by mocking the plastic twig-like bestseller.