Barbie and Ken if you poor

[TkkkOnMe]

So, I just had 2 x generic barbies, a skipper and a Ken.
We didn't have the money for all the 'sets' to make her doctor, showjumping, lawyer or whatever, so she was just a perfect blonde. Mum and I made her clothes and it was fun.
Ken was a love rat in my house who was shagging all 3 of them.
AIBU to see that it is only about money for Mattel, not the fricking 'mission for female empowerment' Helen Mirren is bleating on about on the film, and they didn't have a clue about how lots of girls, especially in the 80s, played with her?

Well I didn't have any of these...I had a Tressy (whose hair pulled out of the top of her head so you could make it either long or short 🥰).

Although I loved her...I was SOOO jealous of all my friends who had Barbies/Kens and all the shite that went with them! I literally just had the Tressy doll and a bunch of home made clothes 🤦‍♀️ (one of which was a silver sparkly lurex dress made out of my Nan's old 'posh' evening gloves 🤣)

I only had Sindy, and only after a lot of begging. Even then I wasn't allowed the blonde one.
I got to play with Barbies via friends, although action man had to be a substitute for Ken.
Our dolls were flatmates having funtimes going on dates and changing clothes A LOT.

My Sindy was dating my brother’s Action Men. They went for dates in his jeep. Never had a Barbie or Ken.

Like you I also only had 2 Barbie’s and a Ken and I played with them to death. Saw the film this week and absolutely loved it - thought it was hilarious, clever, poignant. My sisters and I were cracking up over weird Barbie, insecure Ken and let’s not forget Alan (Action Man was my Alan) I got a bit emosh over the Mum’s speech and the mother/teen daughter relationship storyline. Perfectly pitched I thought. Obviously Mattel are gunning to make money from it - that’s business and they’d be idiots not to - not sure why you’re getting yourself so wound up over it - don’t buy any Barbie merch if it bothers you so much - problem solved! Honestly the things people get worked up about on here!

AIBU to see that it is only about money for Mattel, not the fricking 'mission for female empowerment' Helen Mirren is bleating on about on the film

Yer what? Helen Mirren’s speech was tongue in cheek.

We never had a Ken, we had an old Barbie that we shaved her head really short. Our Barbies were a mixture of standard ones, and some that were mums when she was young, (where their limbs still had elastic bands in them not ball joints to hold them together). Clearly looking back loads had come from boot sales as we had a Barbie house and a variety of Barbie/sindy furniture and a car. They were all really tatty and crap though, and had birdsnest hair. There were a couple of nice (pretty) ones that we would fight over. I don’t ever recall being bought a new Barbie ever. I bought camping sindy once with my birthday money from Argos.

my brother got some action man stuff, I was probably 13/14 by then but I would still secretly play with them, I was quite young for my age and action man definitely hooked up with a few barbies after their long, Ken free drought.

writing this, yeah I think a few of my body image hang ups came from this early interaction . Unsupervised, my sister and I would play and there was definitely lots of division between ugly ones/pretty ones and clear parameters of what defined you as which one. I distinctly remember playing with barbies shoes trying to get them on Sindys feet and my sister saying that if your feet were big you were ugly.

I haven’t seen the Barbie movie so apologies if I’ve hugely missed the point of the thread.

Talk about overthinking stuff! I never had a Barbie, didn’t care, loved the film.

Me too!

And my brothers Action Man, quite a family.

I made a tent for them, from cutting up a PVC pinafore dress and making a frame from a coat hanger - all so that they could go on a family camping trip. They travelled in Action Man’s military jeep!

Nobody has mentioned Daisy.
I have no memory of asking for her, but she l8ved with us, unplayed with and unwanted for years.
IIRC, she had yards of blonde, curly plastic hair

I had a couple of barbies and Sindy's and a few cheap ones, one of which I cut the hair off and dressed in trousers and pretended was a man. He got the two teen Sindy's pregnant (rolled up home made dolls clothes shoved up their tops) and the barbies were horrified! I was about 12/13 when I played with them!

The way I played with my Barbies wasn’t so much feminist as downright misandrist 😂I had about 15 Barbies and only one Ken, so of course he had to be the “baddy” (who was always defeated) while the Barbies all lived in a lesbian commune and raised Shelly and Stacey together

writing this, yeah I think a few of my body image hang ups came from this early interaction

This was always my issue with them all, even long before I could articulate it. If they had just looked normal, I'd have liked them far more. I like the fact that Barbie had a life, a boyfriend, a family, an amazing wardrobe and many successful careers. I just wanted her to have normal proportions too. It was obvious she'd be a freak if she was real. I saw an article once that showed her to scale against Naomi Campbell. It was terrifying.

I had 1 doll.

Not sure if it was a barbie.

We uses to play with my brothers terminator figure, and lots of small toy cars

@TkkkOnMe YABU Sindy was much better!

I had zero Barbies. My parents bought me a Woolworths doll for 11p who was a similar size because they had no notion of branding . But my best friend had show jumping Barbie with horse and paddock, and an entire vanity set of Louis XV white and gold furniture boudoir Barbie crammed with different outfits. Her Barbie also talked but mainly just asked if we were going to Ken's BBQ tonight. I was dizzy with envy.

We had a patterned carpet. And used the pattern as roads. And any squares or other shapes between the 'roads were buildings.

E.g. police station. Petrol station. Hideout.

And the cars and action figures all had different roles to play. E.g. the car that worked in the petrol station was a bad guy

I had a Cindy. I googled the other day and Cindy was more popular in the U.K. in the 80’s. She’s got an odd face when you google her, nothing like perfect Barbie. I certainly didn’t have any those Barbie’s / Ken’s but point is you know about them which is why it’s amusing.

Sindy, Pippa and a massive evil looking action man horse that was my favourite.

Oo shelly and Stacey! I completely forgot about those until you said their names!

I used to get so pissed off when my sister nicked my Action Man so he could marry Barbie. As if Action Man was the marrying type!

I had a Sindy and a house with working lights, a ringing phone and working taps and a Crystal Barbie. My older (spoilt) cousin gave me a three storey Barbie house, horses, a car, a swimming pool and a Ken. Sindy was married to Ken and lived in the Sindy house but he had an affair with Barbie (who lived next door in the mansion), Sindy discovered the affair and threw herself out of the lift in Barbie's mansion (after attempting to drown Barbie in our bathroom sink. I promise I grew up to be a normal, balanced adult and not a psychopath 😂

i had a sindy-then got her the swimmingpool for my birthday i thought i was so posh

I really don’t remember being aware of Barbie when I was a kid, but we didn’t have a TV (my parents were a bit ‘good life’). I did have Sindy doll though- possibly because a friend had one. I don’t think I played with her much; I liked making things and playing out.

I had Sindy, Pippa, a doll that was baby sized for Sindy and my brother's action man. He had far more about him than Ken. He had a string and when you pulled it he told you what he did (I remember he was periodically an army man, a fireman or a diver).

@DrSbaitso I don’t think it is obvious to young children that she’d be abnormally proportioned if she was real. I think because we were left to play our own games unsupervised and without a feminist thinking mother supporting our play- we formed our own rules about women that then became the basis of our selves. My sister and I both have terrible body image and lifelong ‘perfection issues’ and this sort of play can’t have helped. I never wanted her to be more normal- I wanted to be as abnormal as she was.