"Long legs, big tits, no brain, too much makeup and mute." That's how Barbie inventor Ruth Handler described the ideal American woman in 1959. "Our goal is to instill traditional American values in young girls." Anticipating the feminist movement by a decade, Handler went on to say, "American woman are becoming educated. It's all Hitler's fault. If it weren't for him, women would never have had to work. Look at me. I should be home baking cookies, but I'm running this company and taking a job away from a man who has a wife and children to support. Granted, I only earn twenty percent of what Elliot (Handler's husband and Mattel co-owner at the time) earns, but still. We have to do something or, my God, these girls will grow up to think they're equal to men. The Nazis made women work and we don't want to see a group of, what would you call them, um, Feminazis, that's it; we don’t want Feminazis to force women to work in the future. Women should be objects. That’s what we’re trying to teach."

Reflecting on her famous creation later in life, Handler reminisced, “I believed it was important to a little girl’s self-esteem, to play with a doll that has breasts. Women are biological support systems for breasts, nothing more, nothing less. It's important that young girls understand that.” Handler was such a fan of breasts that she designed and patented a realistic prosthetic breast in 1975. She said at the time: "This product will help realise a long-term dream of mine—that someday soon, medical technology will make it possible for all women to have huge, honking hooters."

The Handlers' gift of prescience was not limited to the future behaviour of young women. "Guns will always be an important part of American life," said Elliot Handler in a 1996 interview. "We wanted to be sure that teenage boys would be proficient in their use. That's why we marketed toy rifles so heavily throughout the Fifties and Sixties. We wanted to prepare the kids of the time for the day when they would become the parents of children who would play with real guns. I think we were quite successful in that."

In an exclusive Utterpants interview, current Mattel president, Matthew Bousquette, reflected on Mattel's history and the changes it has made to keep up with a fast-moving society.

Utterpants: "The Barbie Doll is one of the most phenomenally successful toys on the market. Can you explain the phenomenon of its phenomenal success?"
Bousquette: "Unusually large breasts are the primary marketing tool in America. Barbie is the perfect product to market using unusually large breasts because it actually has unusually large breasts."
Utterpants: "Is it really appropriate to use unusually large breasts to market to children?"
Bousquette: "Absolutely. In fact, studies have shown that Barbie advertisements help mothers wean seven and eight-year-olds. For children who were bottle-fed, Barbie’s unusually large breasts are comforting and may help reduce the teenage violence attributed to the use of some of our other products. We view the use of unusually large breasts as part of our corporate responsibility."
Utterpants: "What do you say to critics who claim that Barbie creates negative stereotypes of women and causes teenage girls to have ‘body image’ problems that lead to Anorexia, Bulimia and depression?"
Bousquette: "I say, ‘We sell $1.5 Billion of this Barbie shit. I have $9 million in stock options. Fuck off."
Utterpants: "Is that the extent of your response?"
Bousquette: "Well, OK. ‘We sell $1.5 Billion of this Barbie shit. I have $9 million in stock options. Fuck off, dyke."

Utterpants: "I see... I think we have a sense of what you mean by ‘corporate responsibility.’ The term ‘Barbie Doll’ has entered the dictionary as a term for a vapid sex-object. How do you feel about that?"
Bousquette: "Elated. It means that our strategy is working. We want girls to grow up to be vapid sex-objects and it’s nice to know that people recognise and support that idea."
Utterpants: "Um, OK. Let’s talk about Barbie herself for a moment. She’s undergone a huge number of transformations over the years. Can you tell our readers about those changes and the motivations behind them?"
Bousquette: "Of course. Our first Barbies were white. Our market research at the time indicated that—this was 1959, you know—the majority of white Americans didn’t know that Black people existed. The ones who did were frightened by them, so it didn’t make sense to market a Black doll at that time. Sadly, American society changed in the Sixties and everyone knew that there were Blacks in America, so we introduced Christie—the genetically inferior version of Barbie."

Utterpants: "Genetically inferior?"
Bousquette: "As you would know, if you had done any research for this interview, Mrs Handler was a big supporter of the United Negro College Fund. We at Mattel have always felt that if we can’t send them all back to Africa, we should at least try to educate them. That’s why we introduced Oreo Barbie in 2001."
Utterpants: "Oreo Barbie? We're not familiar with that model in the UK."
Bousquette: "A nig—um, black Barbie. It was, to be honest, one of our few timing errors. Not many people realise this, but there is a philosophy behind Barbie products. We recognised early on that Barbie is very influential in developing a girl’s view of the world, so we’ve tried to use that to build a stronger, whiter America. But you have to be subtle when you do that and Oreo Barbie was, well, less than subtle."

Utterpants: "Your philosophy sounds more like a political agenda."
Bousquette: "I wouldn’t say that. We at Mattel have always believed that our mission is to turn children into good citizens. For instance, if we can’t eliminate Black people, we can at least try to make them as white as possible. The first Christie doll used a different face mould from the normal Barbie. She had African features but we gave her long, straight hair. See, that was subtle. We started by making little Black girls think they should have Caucasian-looking hair. The knock-on profits from hair-straightening treatments were a real boost to my stock portfolio at the time. Um, where was I?"
Utterpants: "Telling us about your mission?"

Bousquette: "Right. We’ve always seen the potential of plastic surgery to give all women unusually large breasts. But in the Seventies, we came to realize that plastic surgery can also be used to make Black people look whiter. So, in 1977, we started to use the same mould for both Black and White Barbies. That way, all of our Black dolls have White features. We’ve also been lightening Black Barbies’ skin tones. Oreo Barbie was the natural extension of our attempt to make Black people less Black. We all want young Black girls to be ‘white on the inside,’ like Oprah is. But it didn’t really work. Blacks are notoriously stubborn, you know."

Utterpants: "But how does lightening a doll’s skin tone allow Black girls to identify with ‘Black Barbies?"
Bousquette: "Mattel doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There are all kinds of other things going on in the world. We’ve been working with Michael Jackson—he’s a great lover of children, you know. Our ‘Barbie bleaching’ as we like to call it, was timed to coincide with Michael’s skin treatments."
Utterpants: "Are there any other ways that Barbie has reflected what’s going on in the world?"
Bousquette: "Too many to list. Let’s see, we introduced a Black version of Barbie’s friend Midge that was identical to her white counterpart except for her skin tone—and we made her pregnant because, well, you know how those people breed."
Utterpants: "Could we get off the race issue? I think we’ve covered that. The UK is a predominantly Black and Asian country nowadays."

Bousquette: "No shit? Um, let’s see. Ken is an example. Ken was introduced as Barbie’s brother, but many girls make Ken into Barbie’s boyfriend. That weirded us out at first, but we noticed that sales of our Ken doll were very strong in the more rural parts of America, particularly Tennessee and West Virginia and that the pair sold very well in Britain, for obvious reasons."
Utterpants: "Are you saying that Mattel promotes incest?"
Bousquette: "I wouldn’t say ‘promotes incest.’ Mattel believes, first and foremost, in wholesomeness. That’s why Barbie will always have unusually large breasts, but will never have genitals. Women shouldn’t know about genitals. However, we at Mattel recognise that America is a diverse society and that our products must take economic advantage of that diversity. It’s a difficult balancing act. We want the perverts’ money, but we don’t want to tarnish the wholesome image that comes with unusually large breasts."
Utterpants: "Can you explain?"

Bousquette: "In 1989 we discovered that some people have, um, close relations with animals, so we introduced Animal Lover Barbie. We tried to disguise the target market by aiming it at the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) crowd, but they weren’t buying it. It sold well in Texas, but some of our distributors saw through our charade, so we had to pull it. Sometimes, though, it’s just a matter of timing. We’ve had a Dominatrix Barbie on the drawing board for quite some time, but we didn’t know how to market it. Then the Batman movies came out and Ka-Ching!"
Utterpants: "Ka-Ching?"
Bousquette: "It’s the sound a cash register makes."
Utterpants: "Oh. Were there any other failures in the Barbie product line?"
Bousquette: "We did lose focus on our initial mission for a time. We were infiltrated by America-hating liberals who tried to sell Professional Barbies—doctors and astronauts, things that little girls should never aspire to be. Some of the infiltrators were homosexuals. They’re the ones who decided that Ken’s knees needed to bend. It was disgusting and we’ve put a stop to it. Those people are no longer employed by Mattel and are currently under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security."

Utterpants: "We meant marketing failures."
Bousquette: "We haven’t had many. We’re pretty good at turning failures into successes. Crack Whore Barbie didn’t sell very well, so we just made her Hispanic. Same toy sold to the same demographic, but marketed differently. Nun Barbie didn’t sell, except in Ireland. We had plans for a Hillary Clinton Barbie, but our focus groups insisted that she have a penis. Clinton rejected that. She said she didn’t want anyone to know. Our no-genital policy would have precluded that anyway, even though we do have the moulds left over from the liberals’ attempt to manufacture a Shemale Barbie for the New York market."
Utterpants: "Can we talk about the economics of Barbie for a moment?"

Bousquette: "Sure. Mattel is proud of the part it plays in the American economic machine. Our Board of Directors and officers own stock in a number of other companies. Collectively, we have large holdings in cosmetic companies, women’s fashion accessories distributors, weight-loss and other dubious health product manufacturers, etc. We are very conscious of how our Barbie line supports those industries. Look, we’ve created a product that ‘shops’. Think about it. We’ve created a consumer product that is capable of consuming. If your parents buy you a Barbie, you’ll inevitably want all the useless crap that goes with it. When you grow up, you’ll be used to buying useless crap. That’s good for America. And what's good for America is good for the rest of the world too."

(Our interview was rudely interrupted at this point when Britney Spears collapsed into the room unannounced, to discuss the new Talentless Slut Barbie planned for 2006. Wearing a pair of sexy, frayed shorts and a soiled T-shirt bearing the catchy slogan 'MILF in training', Ms Spears looked every inch the embodiment of Barbie. Pausing only to scratch her crotch and light up the first of many cigarettes, the devastatingly attractive, highly talented blonde bimbo proudly boasted that she was getting no compensation from Mattel aside from the unusually large breast implants they'd already paid for.

According to Bousquette, “Talentless Slut Barbie is the culmination of years of successful marketing and consumer research and Britney is the embodiment of all things Barbie: Vapid, vacant and unashamedly slutty. She just needed bigger tits and we were happy to provide them. We at Mattel see this arrangement as the perfect way to accomplish Mattel’s mission to turn all little girls into Barbies.”

Copyright issues—or possibly a large, ugly man named Bruno with a suspicious bulge under his left armpit—prevent us from reporting the details of the ensuing conversation, but we have been allowed to give Utterpants readers an exclusive preview of Mattel’s newest Barbie creation. Talentless Slut Barbie will be based on three earlier versions of the doll, Gang-Bang Barbie, Crack Whore Barbie and the short-lived Barbie Farts-a-Lot, and will be the first Barbie to feature a working anus.

Bousquette rubbed his hands together as he explained: "The anus will have three functions: First, Talentless Slut Barbie will be a singer. We didn’t want to mess around with our face moulds, so the anus will be where the sound comes from. Britney insisted on that bit of realism.”

Vocalizations are not the only things that Spears apparently insisted on having emerge from the new Barbie’s ample bottom, as Bousquette explained: “Britney really wanted her doll to realistically reflect her, so we will be installing a flatulence device. Press on Talentless Slut’s belly button ring and it farts, just like Britney.”

Talentless Slut’s derriere, like that of the popular pop tart it's modelled on, won’t be a ‘one-way-street,’ according to Bousquette. “Ms Spears suggested that Talentless Slut should be able to take it up the ass like an all-American hoe. It was our idea to include a few, small plastic bags filled with white powder. Girls can insert the bags into the doll’s anus before she crosses international borders. The flatulence device will spit the bags out when the Barbie doll reaches the next stop on her concert tour—unless Ken ruptures them first, of course."

Comment on this story? Click the button to have your say.

Story © 2005 David Agosta. Design © 2005 utterpants.co.uk / 061005 A101205