Barbie has been many things in her life: A doctor, a paleontologist, an astronaut, a cheerleader, a race car driver and a candidate for the US presidency.
Now, on the threshold of her 55th birthday, the world’s most famous doll is stirring up a social media frenzy with her debut in Sports Illustrated’s 50th anniversary swimsuit edition.
In a tie-in with toymaker Mattel Inc, the top-selling US sports weekly has cast the leggy — if anatomically impossible — all-American doll on a mock cover, sporting a black-and-white one-piece reminiscent of the one she wore when introduced in 1959.
Photo: AFP
“The Doll that Started it All,” reads the headline on the cover, which is being wrapped around some issues of the magazine.
The Twitter hashtag #unapologetic features in the joint marketing campaign, which will also include ads in the magazine.
“From its earliest days, Swimsuit has delivered a message of empowerment, strength and beauty, and we are delighted that Barbie is celebrating those core values in such a unique manner,” M.J. Day, the Sports Illustrated senior editor responsible for the iconic and highly lucrative special edition, said in a statement.
Sports Illustrated launched the swimsuit edition in 1964 to prop up circulation between the US football and baseball seasons. Now a stand-alone product, it is the best-selling of Time Inc’s titles.
The swimsuit issue comes out on Tuesday with a bikini-clad Chrissy Teigen, Nina Agdal and Lily Aldridge on the cover, posing on a sun-kissed tropical beach with their toned buttocks well exposed.
However, it is Barbie — or more precisely the notion of giving her top billing in a magazine that pitches sun, sea and sex to impressionable US males in the dead of winter — that has fired up the blogosphere.
“This is what is known as obvious trolling,” Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote at Salon.com. “You plan on getting mad again this year about hot, barely clothed women in a sports magazine again this year, world? Here. Here’s a plastic one ... a freaking mass-produced doll.”
“Just as the swimsuit issue isn’t for the kids, Barbie isn’t for the grown-ups either,” Mommyish.com editor Eve Vawter added. “Barbie is no longer just a doll. She is a sex doll. Think about that the next time your daughter wants one in the toy aisle.”
Alas, on the eve of the New York Toy Show and hard on the heels of New York fashion week, Barbie is grappling with the middle-aged fear that she is no longer hot stuff.
Publicly listed Mattel revealed in January that worldwide gross sales of its Barbie products fell 6 percent last year and 3 percent in 2012, putting a drag on the profitability of the world’s biggest toy manufacturer.
“We just didn’t sell enough Barbie dolls,” Mattel chief executive Bryan Stockton said in a conference call with financial analysts, although its other doll lines, such as Monster High, are faring better.
Barbie — whose brand is valued at US$3 million, a tad more than Oprah Winfrey’s estimated worth — is no stranger to controversy.
She has regularly been faulted in the past for setting an unrealistic example for young girls with her impossibly lithe figure, fabulous wardrobe and storybook romance with dashing boyfriend Ken.
If 29cm-tall Barbie was a full-grown US woman, she would have a 81cm bust, a 40cm waist and 74cm hips, as well as a child’s size three foot, according to Rehabs.com, a Web site that addresses eating disorders.
Lindsey Feitz, who lectures on gender and women’s studies at the University of Denver in Colorado, considered it “ethically dubious” to use a girl’s doll to sexualize girlhood in a magazine seen mainly by men.
“We’ve evolved from the ink drawings of pin-ups in the 1940s to chronic Photoshopping and digital body alterations of today’s cover models,” Feitz told reporters by e-mail.
“And now the model has disappeared and been replaced with a plastic representation of a sexy girl/woman. It’s ironic,” she added.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
ABOVE LEGAL REQUIREMENT: The Ministry of Economic Affairs is prepared if LNG supply is disrupted, with more than the legal requirement of 11 days of inventory Taiwan has largely secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies through May and arranged about half of June’s supply, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Since the Middle East conflict began on Feb. 28, Taiwan’s LNG inventories have remained more than 12 days, exceeding the legal requirement of 11 days, indicating no major supply concerns for domestic gas and electricity, Kung said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. The ministry aims to increase the figure to 14 days by the end of next year, he said. While one or two LNG or crude oil shipments for May
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
RSS