In Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Mattel raids its entire toybox. Along with Margot Robbie’s titular doll and Ryan Gosling’s Ken, we see discontinued toys from bygone eras of Mattel, all of them pulled from shelves for a host of reasons: marketing blunders, parental uproar, widespread controversy. In Gerwig’s film, though, they’ve bonded over their shared rejection, hanging out in a strange house on the outskirts of Barbie Land, unloved yet resilient.
Since the launch of Barbie in the late Fifties, Mattel, along with its target consumers and their parents, have grappled with changing attitudes towards fashion, self-expression and gender roles. Their dolls have followed suit, and understandably there have been some blunders along the way. So join us as we rummage through the toy graveyard and unearth some of the more outrageous misfires in Barbie history.
