Ed Vulliamy in Washington
The question that has haunted a billion parents for 20 years is poised to go before a judge and jury in an American court: is Barbie a wholesome toy for young children or a sex object?
As the worlds billionth Barbie doll was sold last week, a song called Barbie Girl stood poised to top the United States pop charts. Mattel Inc, creators and manufacturers of Barbie, insist that its cult product has nothing to do with sex. Aqua, the Danish bubblegum group responsible for Barbie Girl, dont agree.
Aqua so bad they make the Spice Girls sound like Schoenberg landed in the US last week to begin a tour promoting a dreadful debut album called Aquarium. They were surprised to find that Barbie Girl, a dialogue between the doll and Ken, her beau since 1961, had caused such controversy.
Im a Barbie girl in a Barbie world/ Life in plastic, its fantastic/ You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere, sings Barbie.
To which Ken replies: Youre my doll, rock and roll/ Feel the glamour and the pain/ Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky.
Mattels objection to the song that it implies the unfair and commercially defamatory notion that Barbie is a sex symbol. Lawyers for the company and for MCA records were locked in talks for the best part of the week, with legal action not ruled out.
Mattel insists: We believe our product is being positioned as a sex object, which it is not. It is a toy designed for young girls between the ages of three and 11.
The ditty was composed by Aqua drummer Soren Rasted while cycling around Copenhagen. He says: Its a funny song theres nothing more to it.
The song, however, is not at the centre of the ongoing debate about Barbie and her sexuality that pivotal position belongs to Barbie herself. Her origins leave little room for debate. In 1952 a cartoonist in Hamburg, OM Hausser, launched a comic-strip character called Lilli which was then turned into an adult dolly an undisguised masturbation aid.
In 1957 Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel, was touring Europe and after purchasing three Lilli dolls came up with an idea: Barbie.
Barbies blue eyes nestle beneath carefully arched eyebrows. She has bee-stung, ruby- red lips. Her figure, transposed to human scale, is a reality-defying 36-18-33. Her legs are long and lean, and her hallmark shoes are open-toed and stiletto-heeled.
So while Barbie dolls have sold at a rate of two per second (95 percent of American girls between the ages of three and 10 own one), the row about Barbie and her sex life has raged on.
MG Lord, author of a book about Barbie, said the doll was aggressively coded for wholesomeness to overcome the fact that she was inspired by a quasi-pornographic gag gift. Lord added that initial market research showed parents to be hostile but Mattel appealed to little girls who clearly wanted a doll that didnt need a nappy- change or a bottle so much as a date. Ken came three years later anatomically neuter where the crucial details were concerned.
On the Internet, Web sites mock Barbies sexuality with rare photographs of Orgasm-faker Barbie and Teenage Slut Barbie while a paper in Buffalo suggested a Battered Wife Barbie with removable bruises, scars and a list of excuses why she wont leave Ken.
Meanwhile, looking to improve on its $1,7- billion in revenue last year, Mattel has tried to meet the serial challenge of a thoroughly modern though sexless Barbie. A spokesman for Mattel mentioned plans for the next Barbie. Biker Barbie will come complete with leather jacket and a Harley Davidson.
Earlier in this over-eventful year for Barbie, Mattel came up with what it regarded as a coup de grace in the caring society, a final bow to political correctness. Share-a-Smile Becky is the latest addition to Barbies miasma of saccharin relatives and friends whizzing about in a bright pink wheelchair.
What matters, though, is that Becky has a great figure, great face, great hair, great legs and great attitude. Fat Barbie is still a way off.