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AIBU?

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Original poster

Barbie and Ken if you poor

142 replies

TkkkOnMe · 30/07/2023 19:28

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?

OP posts:
CoffeeRevelsForever · 30/07/2023 20:56

HippyChickMama · 30/07/2023 20:53

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 absolutely love this and the lesbian commune upthread. I had so much fun with imaginative play when I was young and my kids have never really wanted to do it at all. I feel a bit of a pang about that now!

ILoveMontyDon · 30/07/2023 20:57

It's a well-known fact that Barbie was shagging Action Man and Ken was her gay BBF... Isn't it?

Barbie is to feminism, what sugar is to diets. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy it?

Qwertyyui · 30/07/2023 20:57

I had 3 Kens. Not one of them would have been chasing misogyny as they were having their wicked ways with all the barbies. None of them were dying blond virgins!

chaosmaker · 30/07/2023 20:58

BestIsWest · 30/07/2023 20:41

This was mine, circa 1971. She came with a wedding dress which I thought was absolutely beautiful. I made most of her clothes or dressed her in Action Man’s outfits.
I made the Blue Peter doll’s bedroom for her too.

Ooh, she doesn't have the vacuous smile that later ones usually do. Awful body proportions though, built more like a triangle male body.

DrSbaitso · 30/07/2023 20:58

riotlady · 30/07/2023 20:48

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

Greta? Can we have this as the sequel?

CoffeeRevelsForever · 30/07/2023 20:58

thenewaveragebear1983 · 30/07/2023 20:55

@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.

That is the dark side and I felt that too - I wanted to be abnormal like Barbie or a Disney princess too and it seemed like being impossibly proportioned with huge eyes (preferably blue) and masses of perfect hair (ideally blonde) was the only real sort of beauty.

nonman · 30/07/2023 20:59

SpringIntoChaos · 30/07/2023 20:42

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 🤣)

Tressy was the it girl at my school, I was thrilled when I got her. Barbie was second best.
DD loved Barbie, we both enjoyed the film.

Saschka · 30/07/2023 21:03

LostFrog · 30/07/2023 20:28

OT but my Barbie had Sindy’s furniture anyway, it was way more tasteful.

Mine too! Barbie’s furniture was shit in comparison.

Smashedsmashed · 30/07/2023 21:04

I had an action man and a Barbie, with army jeep.
Then when I handed them down to my sister, I liked putting Barbie and Action man in bed together. To annoy my younger sister.

balatonbumm · 30/07/2023 21:04

One Barbie and 3 Sindys here, (2 with the older big heads and 1 of the newer, late 80s small heads more like barbie) I only had the outfits they each came with and some random barbie size home knits that I think came from church jumble sales 😂.

Callywals · 30/07/2023 21:04

I had Tressie, the doll that you pulled her hair out of her head? Handy , if like me, you were a budding hairdresser. I also had Jenny "my best school friend' doll, far more innocent than busty Barbie. I must admit though, that Barbie was my favourite. I always wanted her dream house but, somehow, I ended up with Sindy's big white wardrobe instead which, although roomy (especially as I had no outfits to put in it), wasn't quite the same. I had to resort to using the scissors yet again, on old shoe boxes, to make poor Barbie a house. I'm just amazed I never ended up in A & E!

IhaveanewTVnow · 30/07/2023 21:04

i wasn’t allowed baby dolls but did have a Cindy and a polly pocket. Cindy had elastic bands for joints and my dad was forever repairing her. My brother had Action Man.

chaosmaker · 30/07/2023 21:05

I cut the Sindy's hair off mostly, there was a Pippa too. About 3 Sindy's. When they went in to school for the toy day, other people's action men had sex with them. Think I preferred lego and fuzzy felt though for the imagination. Also enjoyed pulling the head off and putting it back on again.

Arewehumanorarewecupboards · 30/07/2023 21:08

I loved my Barbies and all of the accessories. 80’s powersuit Barbie was inspirational to me. I used to pretend that I was a really important office worker 😂

Justashley · 30/07/2023 21:10

Of course a company that makes toys wants to make money, that isn't really a surprise, surely. Barbie was still the first doll that wasn't a baby, it was still very unusual to have women in popular culture let alone in the hands of young girls who had aspirational careers, their own home, their own cars etc. Sounds silly nowadays but it was quite something at the time. The film is also to make money of course but the director has made films about female empowerment and with female centred narratives which is quite rare in cinema really which is to be commended.

Barbies motive can be to make money whilst also being empowering in its own way. I know lots have issue with her body but I don't feel like any other toys are put under as much scrutiny, ironic I suppose as women in real life always face much more scrutiny than men.

Theimpossiblegirl · 30/07/2023 21:12

My daughter (age 20) was so happy to see the pooping dog that she'd had as a child. She loved that dog.

I had a mix of Barbies and Sindys in the eighties, shared with my sisters, most second hand. It would have been fab to see a homemade house in Barbie land.

ditalini · 30/07/2023 21:19

I had blonde and brunette Sindies. I only had the blonde (ballet Sindy with weird bendy legs) my Grandma cajoled my very anti feminist mother to let her buy it for my Christmas.

The Sindies were getting it on with sub aqua Action Man, but mostly they were getting into lots of trouble in various high peril situations that didn't do their hair any good.

CathyorClaire · 30/07/2023 21:23

Never wanted a Barbie and never got one.

Action Man all the way and can still remember the joy unwrapping him on Christmas Day 😍

Boys got all the fun way back when 😡

AliceMcK · 30/07/2023 21:25

Never had one nor did any of my friends as no one I grew up with could afford them. You were obviously not that poor if you had so many.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 30/07/2023 21:26

I had a lot of second hand barbues, cindies and whatever the little mini versions were called. One or two new ones but I don’t remember them having professions.

They may have been one Ken but alot of them were married to he-man figures and the like 😂

One Barbie was a queen and they lived in an imaginary country where they were forever being kidnapped by the evil bedside lamp…

Original poster
TkkkOnMe · 30/07/2023 21:28

CathyorClaire · 30/07/2023 21:23

Never wanted a Barbie and never got one.

Action Man all the way and can still remember the joy unwrapping him on Christmas Day 😍

Boys got all the fun way back when 😡

Actions man's hair was so creepy and his eyes. Not fun

OP posts:
elliejjtiny · 30/07/2023 21:28

I had 2 sindy's and a barbie. I also had the Barbie film star set with the lights, dressing table and directors chair. One of my sindy dolls was a princess sindy and if you took the bottom half of her skirt off and changed her shoes she could be a ballerina and if you turned her skirt inside out she could be a bride. My granny knitted her a jumper and leggings so she could have something to wear when she was cleaning the house! I wasn't that into Barbie and sindy, I preferred playing with my cabbage patch dolls and sylvanian families but I did really like my princess sindy.

Original poster
TkkkOnMe · 30/07/2023 21:29

AliceMcK · 30/07/2023 21:25

Never had one nor did any of my friends as no one I grew up with could afford them. You were obviously not that poor if you had so many.

Mine were gifts from my auntie.

OP posts:
zzzexhaustedzzz · 30/07/2023 21:30

Nagged and nagged and got Sindy. My dad made a house for me for Christmas! Once I discovered Barbie though.. and the fact they had Ken… well that was ideal, so I used to pester my sister to get her friend to come round with all her Barbies and Kens. Played for hours, their lives were heavily inspired by Dallas/ Dynasty. There was a lot of shagging (missionary only! As per how babies are made book) and cheating and flouncing around in designer dresses.

RichardsGear · 30/07/2023 21:30

My mother thought Barbie was tarty so I had Sindy dolls - my favourite was a very classy brunette. My brother's Action Men were the love interests and I also remember a rather handsome Bionic Man figure whose arm skin rolled down to expose his bionic-ness 😁.

My Sindy was very wholesome with her Golden Retriever, red Land Rover and sturdy horses. No pink tat for her!

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