After decades of serving as a vacant-eyed, perpetually tiptoed punching bag for feminists who derided her as a symbol of the unattainable beauty standards that warp young girls’ relationships with their bodies, Barbie is finally addressing her image problem by doing what she does best: Getting a makeover. Mattel announced in TIME magazine today that the doll will now come in four varieties: “Original,” “Petite,” “Tall,” and “Curvy.” The dolls will also come in seven new skin tones, representing a variety of different ethnicities:
Aside from the Russian woman who has spent her entire life being molded into a human approximation of the infamous plaything—and whose website is fascinating, in a car crash sort of way—presumably, a majority of the toy-buying public will support the move. This assumption is supported by TIME’s piece about the new dolls, which repeatedly refers to Barbie’s “identity crisis” and falling sales in a market that now offers girls unrealistic ideas about popularity and generational curses as well as the desirability of an all-pink house. (That’s all relative though, considering Mattel still sells a billion dollars’ worth of Barbies every year.)
There’s always a vocal minority, though, some of whom have verified Twitter accounts and everything. Take Kirstie Alley, who, it should be noted, has a vested interest in women being dissatisfied with their weight:
The new, diverse dolls will be part of the “Fashionistas” collection and available exclusively on Barbie.com until Mattel can figure out a retail strategy. So the children of shitty parents whose parents buy their birthday presents at CVS at the last minute will still have to rip the heads off of and smush together the old, anti-feminist Barbies for the time being.
[h/t Mashable]