Introducing the New and Culturally Diverse Barbie

BARBIE, HERETOFORE, was something of a bore. Long legged, sure, but utterly generic. Then too, the generic Ken. Composites of American middle class white culture. Lily white Barbie, of questionable veracity, anatomically. Plain vanilla. Now, there's a new gal in town. Henceforth, Barbie shall manifest in three types; the tall, the petite, and last but definitely not least, the busty voluptuous. Skin pigmentation takes on a whole new tone as well, as Barbie is reinvented in seven shades of beige, from the light, to the less so, to the darkly pigmented. Will consumers purchase the model which best matches their hopes and dreams for their own daughters? How will one ever decide? The best prediction is that African-Americans will start getting in on the fun, but will purchase only the darkest shade of Barbie. At slumber parties, at least it will be a bit easier to keep track of whose doll is whose, assuming cultural diversity among the flesh and blood living in the sleepover set. Cultural diversity finally comes to the doll industry. Now that America is a majority minority culture, we must make allowances for the market. In the seven years of "Leave It To Beaver", the only African-American presence was that of a maid, at the house of a wealthy caucasian. The scene lasted about a mintue or less, and the reaction wasn't very positive. No other television show of the late fifties or early sixties featured much in the way of color. But the nineteen fifties have finally come to an end; as long as the appropriately politically correct varieties of Barbie line the shelf at Toys R us. Soon enough, the girls'll be able to mix and match an assortment of Kens and Barbies without fear of the censure which has traditionally, and until quite recently, been the wages of inter-racial dating.