Barbie: An American icon’s long journey towards becoming inclusive

Share A Smile Becky was the first handicapped Barbie introduced in 1977

With the recent Barbie movie release and the ongoing Barbiecore trend, I decided to visit the world’s largest Barbie Fashion exhibition held in Cours Mont-Royal in downtown Montreal, Canada, where more than 1000 Barbie dolls are displayed. These dolls represented fashion from different eras, dolls from different nationalities, and well-known celebrities and icons. Barbie after all is one of those icons that has been around for years, boasting a 98% brand awareness rate worldwide, stirring little kids’ imagination, and bringing hot pink happiness into their world.

As a millennial, many of my childhood memories involve Barbie: making up love stories between Ken and Barbie, sewing her, poorly I must add, new clothes, and playing with my younger cousins who till today have kept some of those Special Edition Barbies in their beautiful gowns unboxed. Just like my mom had kept her old Barbie dolls and their beautifully designed vintage clothes and furniture to pass on to the next generation, I made sure to pass on my set of Mattel dolls and accessories (including a pink Corvette, my dream car growing up) to my daughter when she turned three.
Barbie still captivates the hearts of millennial moms who turned from consumers to purchasers of a brand they share such fond memories with and one that brings them comfort and joy.

But Barbie’s rosy journey hasn't been without its hurdles. Her shallow and tame image, along with her disproportionate and unachievable figure made critics claim that a false image of womanhood was being ingrained in children’s minds. Between 2011 and 2015, Barbie sales dropped by a third. Consumers perceived the brand as out of touch with culture and in need of modernization. Other contestants like Bratz were gaining market share and winning children’s hearts. From the start, Bratz dolls were more inclusive, with dolls of different ethnicities and shapes that allowed a wider segment of girls to see themselves reflected in a toy. One Bratz fan admitted that “she buys Bratz dolls because all of them —all the Bratz dolls— are treated right.”
In addition, the dolls didn't provide an unrealistic image of women’s bodies as they were made to look more like cartoon figures than human-like toys.

​To stay relevant, Barbie needed to change strategies and widen its scope of representation. It introduced its new line, the Fashionista, in 2016, which offered a variety of skin tones, eye colors, hair colors, and textures as well as three new body types—“tall,” “curvy” and “petite”.


The Modern Barbie
Today, Barbie is a motivational female character that can do anything and be anyone, with 125 career options spanning from scientist to the president, showing girls all around the world that anything is possible. It is the perfect example of emotional branding done right by opening up new possibilities to a child’s perception of the world through simple play. If Barbie can do anything, so can you. That is the core message that empowers all the kids who play with a Barbie doll, as they project their adult identity onto this adult figure doll, inspiring them to dream big, and forging their self-identity from a young age. These are great benefits that not many toys are in a position to provide.
But it wasn't until recently, and in line with their strategy of being more inclusive, that Mattel released a set of Barbie dolls, including a doll with no hair, one with a skin condition called vitiligo, one in a wheelchair, another with a prosthetic limb, and one with a hearing aid.

What took you so long, Barbie?
If Barbie, a brand that was created based on people’s aspirations* took 60 years to fulfill the aspirational needs of the biggest minority population in the world, that of people with disabilities, then how long will it take for other companies to follow suit? In its journey towards inclusion and representation, Mattel tackled body type, ethnicity, female empowerment, and cultural differences before finally involving the disabled community.

It is important to note that the first handicapped Barbie was introduced in 1997 and was called “Share a Smile Becky”. “School Photographer Becky” and “Paralympic Becky” were two others that followed.
6000 dolls were sold within the first two weeks, showing the interest in the market for dolls representing people with disabilities. But Mattel was quick to stop production of this line after buyers complained of the incompatibility of the wheelchair with Barbie’s Dreamhouse and other accessories. And just like in the real world, accommodating people with disabilities became a secondary concern, one that was deemed complicated and put aside to deal with much later.
Don’t get me wrong, it is great that Mattel finally acknowledged giving the disabled community a voice through this new line. Changes like these have a long-term impact on normalizing disabilities and helping people with disabilities become better integrated into society. Barbie dolls with different disabilities help children grow up without prejudice and hopefully lead to a more integrated and inclusive future where people with disabilities get front-seat tickets to participate in conversations on reforms.
When we talk about representation and inclusion, it always takes a minute to realize that we need to make room for the disabled community as well. After all, disability affects people from different ethnicities, religion, sexual orientations and cultural differences. But a quick look at the current Netflix TV shows gives us a clear view on how many of the shows have already integrated social issues within their plot, casting, and promotions other than disability.
The latest “Where We Are on T.V.” report by GLAAD details that “out of the 775 regularly appearing characters on television, only 22 (or 2.8 percent) had a disability, making the disabled population the least-represented minority group on television.”

The first step has been taken: introducing a line of Barbie dolls with disabilities. Next is to produce Barbies and Kens from various ethnicities with disabilities, emphasizing the sheer fact that disability affects people all over the world. But more importantly, going back to the initial “School Photographer Becky”, Mattel needs to introduce dolls with interest in various activities who happen to have a disability, thus teaching young kids to focus on the capabilities of a person with a disability rather than her or his disability itself. But stopping here would not just be a bad business decision, but an incomplete representation of what inclusivity is. If Mattel wants to become truly inclusive through its Barbie dolls, then it should start producing furniture, equipment, and a line of clothing that are specially adapted to dolls with disabilities to show children that acceptance isn’t merely enough, but adapted environments including homes, schools, cars, and others are what makes our world welcoming to people with disabilities.

So, kudos to Barbie for finally becoming more relevant in today’s society, but there is still work to be done and, contrary to popular belief, even profits to be made.



*After World World II, several women felt that through one-dimensional baby dolls that limited girls' play to “homemakers”, society was hindering little girls’ minds to dream beyond their household roles. It was time for a change. Founder Ruth Handler saw the need for her daughter to play with a doll that gave her more room for imagination, beyond the role of motherhood and that is how Barbie was born.

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