Soooo. . .I guess I was the only one who alternated between playing "Little House Barbies" and "Lesbian Alternative Barbies" when I was a kid. Good to know.
I mean, come on, did anyone not think Ken was gay when they were nine?
The first one, with the caterpillar body, frightens me on a visceral level and I can't articulate why. It looks like she's been tortured with some horrible surgery in which her limbs were cut off and she was covered with clay, but she's still smiling. I'm fine with seeing Barbies get it on, but I don't like caterpillar torture.
Hm. Apparently I didn't realize I was creating "art" back in the day when I'd arrange my barbies and kens into a little game my friends and I called "sex party."
You shush. My mam's still got her vintage Barbies and they are AWESOME. You just know they were so cold-hearted and would smoke cigs in those holder things and wear opera gloves and straight up cut bitches. The one in particular has the best hairstyle evar. It's like a perfect chignon. And she also has that permanent sidelong glance and her eyes are sultry as all get out. The modern Barbies have nothing on Vintage Barb. Believe it.
Am I the only one who had Francie? Barbie's boobs scared the shit out of me, and Francie was more modestly built. Of course, it was the 70's and I was obsessed with tanning so they were all Malibu Barbies.
I even had the Ken with real hair - his stick-on mustaches kept showing up in very strange places on Francie, which enraged Barbie enormously.
"The book says that young Ken "grew up embarrassed and humiliated by having an anatomically incorrect boy doll named after him . . . [with] no hint of genitalia."
Surely he would have been more embarrassed if the doll had plastic molded genitalia?
For Christmas, my niece got gymnast barbies that you attach to a bar and they do flips. I played with it for 2 hours on Christmas. My niece couldn't stop giggling because they put the doll in a sparkly outfit with like a g-string underneath.
I was a strange child. My doctor Barbie performed weird experiments on all the others. One of her more memorable experiments happened on the newest Barbies to join the ranks. One was not willing to cooperate with the doctor so she wound up in the freezer,then took a ride through the dishwasher.
The other one was set on fire, but I blame the boys in the neighborhood for that.
My mom refused to buy me Ken dolls, perhaps because she knew that I would just make them have sex with Barbie. So I got an off-label barbie doll for a gift once and when I chopped her hair off she looked too manly so I smooshed in her boobs and then put her in this pair of barbie jeans & a t-shirt that I'd written "I *heart* Duran Duran" and that was Ken. But then once Barbie murdered Ken in a fit of rage so I poured red nail polish over his face. When I went to take it off with polish remover, all of the face paint for "Ken's" eyes came off too but a little bit of red nail polish got stuck in the cracks.
Then fake Ken became a crazed psycho killer who would always hijack Barbie's convertible and force her to strip naked in the town square before popping off her head.
@EdnasEdibles: Hilarious, my goodness. I had a Midge whose face I painted like a tiger for an off-season Halloween party they were having. It was so pretty, I left it that way for a few weeks, but then when I tried to wash it off, Midge's face was stained orange. If only we had spray tans back then, I could've answered it all away. Instead I leant her to a boy I knew, who promised to pamper her and clean her up for me. She was still stained when I got her back, despite his assertion that he lovingly rubbed her with lotion many times. You know, that didn't ick me out when I was a kid, but boy does it ever now.
My Barbies got their hair done and went out on sexdates with my blonde and dark haired Ken dolls who were always George Michael and Andrew Ridgely from Wham. Little did I know how much the real Ken and the real George had in common...
If you haven't already, you should all read "Forever Barbie". It's such a fascinating read. I think it's been updated since it's first printing as well.
All my Barbie storylines would be loosely based off of books I'd recently read.
Needless to say, I had re-appropriated Jem and Scout as a Teen Skipper and a redhead Kelly doll respectively. They had their own funny voices, and I'd made Jem accident prone so I could give her casts made out of wet toilet paper. Scout was a child prodigy who was too cool for play school. All of their furniture was made out of K'Nex and Legos.
As the years passed, Jack Ryan finally taught Barbie to bring him his slippers, pass for a princess (and a doctor, and a cowgirl, and an astronaut, and a brunette...), and pronounce her "h"s. This cleared up a number of problems between the two, as Barbie no longer embarrassed Ryan by repeating his compliments, such as, "you're a naughty, naughty 'ore" incorrectly. Although she eventually left Ryan for her dream house with the admittedly inadequate Ken, she only exchanged one tumultuous relationship for another, famously responding to Ken's insistence that she exercise to maintain her figure by scornfully rejoining, "Walk! Not bloody likely...I can barely stand upright."
@PartyOfOne: Ahh, but she didn't leave until Divorced Barbie was born. She's so much more expensive because she gets half of the Ferrari, the mansion, the clothes, etc.
10/14/09
I mean, come on, did anyone not think Ken was gay when they were nine?
10/14/09
I thought he was a total man whore and cheat, and often my Barbies would have fights over his cheating that led to angry three ways and lesbian sex.
How the hell did we know this stuff?
10/14/09
Also, our mothers' soaps.
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01/08/09
01/08/09
I even had the Ken with real hair - his stick-on mustaches kept showing up in very strange places on Francie, which enraged Barbie enormously.
01/08/09
Surely he would have been more embarrassed if the doll had plastic molded genitalia?
01/08/09
01/08/09
Also I punked out all my Barbies at one time, ripping their clothes and giving them mohawks. My parents applauded me for my creativity....
01/09/09
01/08/09
The other one was set on fire, but I blame the boys in the neighborhood for that.
I never received Barbies as presents after that.
01/08/09
Then fake Ken became a crazed psycho killer who would always hijack Barbie's convertible and force her to strip naked in the town square before popping off her head.
01/08/09
01/08/09
01/08/09
01/08/09
Needless to say, I had re-appropriated Jem and Scout as a Teen Skipper and a redhead Kelly doll respectively. They had their own funny voices, and I'd made Jem accident prone so I could give her casts made out of wet toilet paper. Scout was a child prodigy who was too cool for play school. All of their furniture was made out of K'Nex and Legos.
I kind of miss it sometimes.
01/08/09
01/08/09