Look who's turning 50

Barbie is turning 50 Monday, and one thing is certain: this blond bombshell has caused quite an impact on American culture.

According to Mattel, her toymaker, in the year that Barbie was “born,” 300,000 dolls were sold; now 50 years later, 90 percent of U.S. girls aged 3 to 10 own at least one Barbie doll.

Mattel also claims that Barbie is number one worldwide in the traditional toy industry.

“Her male counterpart may be Superman in terms of a fictional hero and enduring image and presence in popular culture,” said George Plasketes, an Auburn University professor of popular culture.

She’s been unstoppable and successful as a rock star, a U.S. Army officer, a surgeon and a TV chef, among other diverse careers.

Mattel has even manufactured an Angel Barbie, complete with wings, stilettos, mini-skirt and knee-high socks reminiscent of a Catholic school-girl. But despite Mattel marketing Barbie as wholesome, feminists, academics, religious groups and mothers have voiced concerns that she is not that innocent.

For years, Barbie has been blamed for perpetuating unrealistic body images in girls and reinforcing negative gender stereotypes about women.

Mattel’s release of a Barbie that uttered the phrase “Math is hard” brought a maelstrom of condemnation.

She has even been criticized by Christian groups for promoting materialism and steering girls away from marriage and children.

As Barbie enters her sunset years, she could be turning a new page in her pseudo-life.

“Her mid-life was stereotypically a crisis,” said Plasketes, citing her break-up with Ken after 43 years of going steady.

For the past 50 years, Barbie has been focused on her 108 different careers and hardly had time for marriage or children. But now with a wider waistline (Mattel increased her waistline in 1997), her stint as a rap musician behind her (yes, Barbie was a rapper) and with Mattel hinting that Barbie and Ken have a romantic future, she might just be settling down, leaving her tarty, controversial reputation behind her.

As the big 5-0 nears, Barbie even has a newfound positive attitude; she states with a chipper, confident tone: “Math is hard, but not impossible!”

“Barbie has its place,” said Denise Davis-Maye, an Auburn University sociology professor. “It’s a doll … an opportunity for children to fantasize, pretend, dream and grow … while their parents and community help them to develop a love for their own faces, bodies and wonderful selves.”

Dr. Jennifer Kerpelman, professor in the Department of Human Sciences, shared that sentiment. “I would caution anyone who claims that Barbie is responsible for poor body image in girls that this is overstating the influence that any one thing can have on complex human development,” she said.

Auburn resident Amy Way agreed. “The kind of body (Barbie had) didn’t make me feel bad about mine ... there were plenty of living, breathing people who took care of that,” she said. “My mother, now 75, spent hours working on her waist size. When she got married 53 years ago, her waist was size 18! And that was inches … and several years before Barbie was born!”

Barbie enthusiast and Auburn resident Claire Watts believes that kids today would benefit from some extra playtime with Barbie. “It encourages pretend,” she said. “Kids don’t pretend enough today. I taught kindergarten for 25 years, and I had to teach them how to pretend. Imagination leads to creativity and our changing world needs creative thinkers.”

As far as Barbie being responsible for many of the ills in women’s lives, Watts, too, thinks her critics need to remember what she is: a toy.

“If a girl plays with a Raggedy Ann, what does that do? Does she grow up desiring red hair and button eyes? My boys played with GI Joe and dressed in camo, but not one of them wanted a military career,” she said.

Barbie connoisseur Jane Cunningham doesn’t have a bad thing to say about Barbie but claims to have insight into those who do. “Barbie bashers are jealous,” she said with conviction, her master’s degree in psychology from Georgia State University backing her theory. And to set the record straight, “I’ve taken calculus, and I can tell you math is hard,” she said.

Barbie is more than just a hobby for Cunningham. Her collection consists of more than 2,000 beautiful dolls, of many nationalities, in all manners of dress or undress, from Vera Wang wedding gowns to swimsuits. The collection is insured for $100,000, but their value and their beauty belie their drab surroundings; in Decatur, Ga., Cunningham’s fluorescent-lighted, climate-controlled storage unit overflows with Barbie dolls and accessories.

During the day, Cunningham works as a technician repairing scientific equipment, but her passion is for Barbie, and she spends her spare time scouring antique stores and flea markets for anything Barbie related.

Although Cunningham said she “may be the only radical feminist Barbie collector,” perhaps the concept is not an outrageous one. Mattel claims “Barbie is the original billboard for ‘girl power.’ ” After all, the original 1965 Astronaut Barbie landed on the moon four years before Neil Armstrong, her blond, mysteriously coifed hairdo prompting the question: a 60’s bubble cut or an atrocious case of “helmet hair?”

In 1998, Barbie began a career as a NASCAR driver 10 years before Danica Patrick’s Indy car win. And in 1992 Barbie became a presidential candidate, an aspiration for which flesh and blood women still aspire.

When asked what she would like to see in Barbie’s future, Cunningham didn’t hesitate for a second. “I’m waiting for her to be robotic so she can pick up after herself and get her tiny accessories before the vacuum gets them,” she said.