The Inventor Of Barbie : Ruth Handler, The Daughter Of Russian Jewish Immigrants

The two companies behind the project have optioned the movie rights to Robin Gerber's book "Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her." The book, published in 2010 is about Barbie creator Ruth Handler, who was inspired to create the Barbie doll after seeing her daughter,

In an article in Interview Magazine, Emily Prager discuses her opinions of Mattel's toy doll Barbie being designed by Jack Ryan, husband to Zsa Zsa Gabor, and designer of military missiles. The concept that a doll for young girls was designed by such a person greatly shocked Prager." Suddenly a lot of things made sense to me" says Prager. The element that Ryan designed Barbie may explain some of the key aspects of the doll itself.

Early in the 1960s, Mattel had made over $100 million in sales, due largely to Barbie (Woo). The company was based in Hawthorne, and annually made out new versions of Barbie as well as a huge wardrobe of outfits and accessories. Soon enough Barbie grew an exponentially amount of friends and family. Ken, named after the Handler's son, invented in 1961; Midge in 1963; Skipper in 1965; and African American doll Christie, Barbie's first ethnic friend, in 1969. The first black Barbie came much later, in 1981. In the 1970’s The National Organization for Women and other feminists targeted Barbie, arguing that the doll promoted unreachable expectations for young girls. If Barbie was 5 foot 6 instead of 11 1/ 2 inches tall, she would be the “perfect woman”. An academic expert once calculated that a woman's possibility of being shaped like Barbie was less than 1 in 100,000.

In the words of her creator, Ruth Handler states “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has

Picture yourself as the ‘perfect’ woman. Embodying every woman’s dream. You are undeniably gorgeous, weighing in at 100 pounds, standing 6 feet tall and holding nearly 150 careers (barbiemedia.com). Yes, this is the beloved, ever so ‘inspirational’ childhood toy, the perfectly perfect Barbie Doll. Barbie is America’s most beloved toy, considering young girls between the ages of three and eleven own at least 10 Barbie’s throughout their childhood (‘Life in Plastic’). As creator of the Barbie Doll once said, “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented that a woman has choices,” (Handler). However, Barbie has proved to serve the opposite effect and

Children’s child play has become a form of an unrealistic world. Although, it is considered for children to begin creating a creative imagination, the mind fascinates children into toys. Some child’s play toys are not ideal for young children, like the one and only “Barbie”. Barbie has become a worldwide toy product for children all over the world, from the North Pole to the South Pole. These dolls have emerged from one ethnicity to another. In Ann DuCille, “Dyes and Dolls: Multicultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Differences” the author talks about the race and gender differences; found in Barbie. She argues; “Is Barbie bad?” her response, was “Barbie is just a piece of plastic” (459). In contrast, this piece of plastic is not just a piece of plastic to young girls; it is much more than that. A piece of plastic that little girls all over the world wish they could be. Even though, it is only a piece of plastic to adults that Barbie significantly means nothing to them. Growing up, I owned a couple of Barbie dolls. The tall, long blond hair, blue-eyed doll was my best friend and my “role model”. I wanted to become exactly like Barbie. As a child, I thought only beautiful people who looked liked Barbie signified beauty. To my little to no knowledge, I soon came to find out no one really looks like Barbie, except people who want to become like Barbie. In my adolescent years, no one taught me Barbie was “unreal”; no one taught me it was just a figure in my imagination.

Barbara Millicent Roberts, a tall, blue-eyed, blonde-haired, doll with full make-up from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin, since the 1960’s she has been in our lives. The oldest of five children, born to Margaret and George Roberts. Does her name sound familiar? The American businesswoman Ruth Handler's "Barbie" has evolved over the years and is still changing till this day. Throughout the years there have been vast altercations to the Barbie doll from the way it looks to her professions. But there’s one thing Barbie has not changed throughout the years, the inspiration she brought to many young girls and her role to represent

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend (Carol Channing), but I beg to differ. Beginning in the late 1950’s, something as small as 18 inches, made in human likeness captured the hearts of many young girls. Ruth Handler, designer of Barbie states her creation was inspired by her daughter, Barbara, during a trip to Switzerland. On this trip, Handler noticed her daughter’s fascination with the doll “Bild Lilli. From that incident, Handler knew that girls enjoyed playing with dolls that resembled adults rather than dolls that resembled babies. Girls wanted the opportunity to create a world that allowed them to be anything that they wanted to be and Barbie created that outlet. Because of this, one of the key motives or objectives

A new Barbie commercial challenges us to question, “What happens when girls are free to imagine they can be anything?” (“Imagine the Possibilities”). Mattel has created an inspiring and thought provoking ad. The ad, titled “Imagine the Possibilities,” was developed and published by Mattel as a promotion for Barbie Dolls. The ad was originally published on Mattel’s YouTube channel (Rose). To create a successful advertisement, Mattel targeted a particular audience. A very specific purpose was kept in mind as Mattel created the ad. Rhetorical appeals were boldly used throughout the ad to capture the audience’s attention.

Ruth Handler realized that pretending about the future was a part of the growing up process. While she watched her daughter, Barbara (who Barbie is named after), playing with paper dolls, Handler formulated the idea of creating an adult doll. This was not necessarily a new idea because there were adult fashion dolls, such as Cissy and Miss Revlon, which were on the market. The phenomenon behind Barbie was that she was an affordable toy that had those same grown up accessories as the other adult dolls.

Before Lilli’s conception, anybody encountering a doll with this particular body type was practically unheard of. Her adult-looking features were the central reason why these toys found themselves in adult hands. And when Handler took these dolls back to Mattel and began re-designing them to create Barbie, the features that set this doll apart were not lost on her either. During a 1977 New York Times Interview, Handler reasoned her decision for Barbie’s curves and contours. “Every little girl needed a doll through which to project herself into her

It wasn’t until the late 1960’s that critics began “comparing Barbie to a Playboy Bunny and calling her a corrupter of youth” (”Bad Girl” 3). One woman commented, “She’s an absurd representation of what a woman should be” (“Bad Girl” 3)-–and that’s exactly what many others thought she was, too. With such impossible real-life measurements of 5’9” tall, 36”-18”-33” bust, waist, and hip (Benstock and Ferriss 35), it’s easy to see why mothers across the country banned the doll from their homes and refused to let their impressionable young daughters be influenced by a piece of painted plastic (Bestock and Ferriss 35). Since dolls have often been responsible for teaching children what society deems important or beautiful, many concerned parents wondered why Mattel did not design a doll that taught more valuable lessons than dressing pretty and being dangerously skinny (Edut 19)? Who said a runway model was best suited for teaching a child what is beautiful anyway? “According to a Mattel spokesperson, a Kate Moss figure is better suited for today’s fashions” (Edut 19), and that is one reason why Barbie must be so disproportional. Actually, another reason for Barbie’s anorexic figure can be traced back long before Kate Moss and the fashion runway. Barbie was

a. Girls, this is a question for you. How many of you have had Barbie dolls growing up? (Have time to answer)

A. Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel, observed her daughter Barbara playing with paper dolls. This sparked Ruth's vision to create a 3-D doll for girls to play out their imagination.

On 9 March 1959 Barbara Millicent Roberts made her debut at the International Toy Fair in New York under her nom de plume, Barbie. Produced by Mattel Incl., Barbie candidly infringed the conventional American toy market with her exceptional adult aspect and her full blown aspirations, pandering to the enthusiastic Fifties economy and partaking with her voluptuousness of the general Yankee post war pettiness. The success she would have later reached was nevertheless not easily conceivable in the early steps of the doll’s life; the producer’s determination to make Barbie the personification of the faith in the American wealth, met not insignificant criticism especially from WASP mothers who were disturbed