the plastic undead

mattel's barbie turns 50 today.

i know a lot of feminists are against barbie dolls for stating that they set up young girls with unrealistic expectations out of life but shit...i turned out ok and i constantly played with them.

allright allright... i turned out ok-ISH...

however i'm fairly sure my barbie playing days were a bit different than that of a lot of my peers.

as a kid my grandmother babysat me for years weening me on a strict diet of the price is right and all my children. this often reflected on the barbies theater of my mind- erica kane was a huge influence. my barbies were generally sluts constantly doing weird perverted acts -sometimes involving he-man action figures and gi joes who were admittedly at least what? like 3 feet shorter?
ken dolls were either gay (i mean come on! look at the hair! those clothes!), crossdressing (i watched a *lot* of bosom buddies as a kid too) or simply barbie's ugly sister.
most often barbie was always too busy for ken anyway she had her own shit going on with like 10 different careers and having a really cool band-my favorite barbies to play with were always the barbie and the rockers sets (even though they kind of just looked like rejects from the movie pretty woman) and my jem dolls, particularly the misfits. in my head my barbie band did NOT sound like the cheesy cassette of barbie and the rockers that came with the doll. my barbie band sounded like the go-go's and blondie but with more 'tude.
i often cut and "dyed" my barbies hair to have punk rock haircuts at a whim ; blonde barbies were known to be the bitches while the brunette barbies were the smart ones.
(ironicly i was blonde as a kid and as an adult find myself dying my hair dark constantly...hmmm...)

my barbie also had a really awesome apartment so she never needed to move in with loser ken (and i never ever wanted the barbie dream house-waaay too suburban for me).

barbie was a pretty big part of my childhoood and so in celebration of barbie's bday i present to you a barbie that i would still support in my adulthood- basically the coolest barbie made E.V.E.R.!



here's how to make your own army of the plastic undead.