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musings on the world as I see it
28 March 2014
Black Barbie: A New Look
While rushing to get ready for work this morning, I came across a fascinating segment on CTV Canada AM. Queen Cee customizes dolls to reflect the beauty and diversity of women of colour. Cee explained that she was frustrated by the lack of options available to her daughter in Canada. She decided to start collecting Mattel's 'So In Style' line of Barbie dolls because they came in a variety of skin tones. Cee customizes the dolls' hair to match the various textures girls and women of colour are more familiar with. Having one of Cee's dolls would have certainly helped me learn to braid my hair a lot earlier! I'm also glad to see that a few of the dolls proudly wear locs like me.
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4 comments:
Thanks for sharing this Kanyika! It's so refreshing to see Queen Cee customizing Barbies to represent a diverse range of women! Children's book publisher LEE & LOW BOOKS wrote a really great post on Barbies and diversity too. You can check it out here: http://blog.leeandlow.com/2013/12/05/why-is-black-barbie-less-important-talking-to-kids-about-race/
Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog Keilin! I read the post you shared and I recall the day as a child when I was out shopping with my aunt. She offered to buy me a new Barbie and I instinctively reached for the Caucasian doll. In my 8-year-old mind, she was the "original" Barbie and somehow better. I'll never forget the moment my aunt gently put Barbie back on the shelf and picked up her Black counterpart for me. She said: "Why don't we get this one instead? She is beautiful like you." I can only imagine the complications that arise in raising a little girl of mixed race. I'm also glad to see that the dolls have come a long way by including a greater variety of skin tones and facial features - a small, but important detail.
lol They're no Barbies of color. They're just black.
I agree that sometimes political correctness can get in the way of keeping things simple, but I think that the term "person of colour" is a way of referring to a wider group of visible minorities. Apparently, Mattel has created Black, Asian and Hispanic Barbies over the years - even if these dolls were largely variations of the same. It can't be easy for a toy manufacturer to accurately infuse racial and cultural identities into plastic. Where there seems to have been a generally lazy approach in the past, I'm glad to see Queen making an effort to capture some of the nuances in her work.
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