Competition from Bratz dolls.....

In June 2001, MGA Entertainment launched the Bratz range of dolls, a move that would give Barbie her first serious competition in the fashion doll market. In 2004 sales figures showed that Bratz dolls were outselling Barbie dolls in the United Kingdom, although Mattel maintained that in terms of the number of dolls, clothes and accessories sold, Barbie remained the leading brand.^[59] In 2005 figures showed that sales of Barbie dolls had fallen by 30% in the United States, and by 18% worldwide, with much of the drop being attributed to the popularity of Bratz dolls.^[60]

In December 2006, Mattel sued MGA Entertainment for $500 million, alleging that Bratz creator Carter Bryant was working for Mattel when he developed the idea for Bratz.^[61] On July 17, 2008, a federal jury agreed that the Bratz line was created by Carter Bryant while he was working for Mattel. The jury also ruled that MGA and its Chief Executive Officer Isaac Larian were liable for converting Mattel property for their own use and intentionally interfering with the contractual duties owed by Bryant to Mattel.^[62] On August 26, the jury found that Mattel would have to be paid $100 million in damages. On December 3, 2008, U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson banned MGA from selling Bratz. He allowed the company to continue selling the dolls until the winter holiday season ended.^[63][64]MGA is currently appealing against the court's ruling.^[65] In August 2009, MGA introduced a range of dolls called Moxie Girlz, intended as a replacement for Bratz dolls.^[66]

Collecting....!!!

Mattel estimates that there are well over 100,000 avid Barbie collectors. Ninety percent are women, at an average age of 40, purchasing more than twenty Barbie dolls each year. Forty-five percent of them spend upwards of $1000 a year. Vintage Barbie dolls from the early years are the most valuable at auction, and while the original Barbie was sold for $3.00 in 1959, a mint boxed Barbie from 1959 sold for $3552.50 on eBay in October 2004.^[53] On September 26, 2006, a Barbie doll set a world record at auction of £9,000 sterling (US $17,000) at Christie's in London. The doll was a Barbie in Midnight Red from 1965 and was part of a private collection of 4,000 Barbie dolls being sold by two Dutch women, Ietje Raebel and her daughter Marina.^[54]

In recent years Mattel has sold a wide range of Barbie dolls aimed specifically at collectors, including porcelain versions, vintage reproductions, and depictions of Barbie as a range of characters from film and television series such as The Munsters and Star Trek.^[55][56] There are also collector's edition dolls depicting Barbie dolls with a range of different ethnic identities.^[57] In 2004 Mattel introduced the Color Tier system for its collector's edition Barbie dolls, ranging through pink, silver, gold and platinum depending on how many of the dolls are produced.^[58]

Vintage #5 Ponytail Barbie from 1962 in original box

Parodies and lawsuits.....

Barbie has frequently been the target of parody:

• In 1993 a group calling itself the "Barbie Liberation Organization" secretly modified a group of Barbie dolls by implanting voice boxes from G.I. Joe dolls, then returning the Barbies to the toy stores from where they were purchased.^[36][37]
• Malibu Stacy from The Simpsons episode "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy".
• Aqua's song "Barbie Girl" was the subject of a lawsuit by Mattel.^[38][39]
• Two commercials by automobile company Nissan featuring dolls similar to Barbie and Ken was the subject of another lawsuit in 1997. In the first commercial, a female doll is lured into a car by a doll resembling GI Joe to the dismay of a Ken-like doll, accompanied by Van Halen's You Really Got Me.^[40] In the second commercial, the "Barbie" doll is saved by the "G.I. Joe" doll after she is accidentally knocked into a swimming pool by the "Ken" doll to Kiss's "Dr. Love".^[41] The makers of the commercial said that the dolls' names were Roxanne, Nick, and Tad. Mattel claimed that the commercial did "irreparable damage" to its products,^[42][43]but settled.^[44]
• Saturday Night Live aired a parody of the Barbie commercials featuring "Gangsta Bitch Barbie" and "Tupac Ken".^[45] In 2002, the show also aired a skit, which starred Britney Spears as Barbie's sister Skipper.^[46]
• The Tonight Show with Jay Leno displayed a "Barbie Crystal Meth Lab".^{[citation needed]}
• Mattel sued artist Tom Forsythe over a series of photographs called Food Chain Barbie in which Barbie winds up in a blender.^[47][48][49]
• In November 2002 a New York judge refused an injunction against the British-based artist Susanne Pitt, who had produced a "Dungeon Barbie" doll in bondage clothing.^[50]
• Mattel filed a lawsuit in 2004 against Barbara Anderson-Walley over her website www.barbiesshop.com, which sells fetish clothing.^[51][52]

Controversies...

Barbie's popularity ensures that her effect on the play of children attracts a high degree of scrutiny. The criticisms leveled at her are often based on the assumption that children consider Barbie a role model and will attempt to emulate her.

Barbie's waist has been widened in more recent versions of the doll

• One of the most common criticisms of Barbie is that she promotes an unrealistic idea of body image for a young woman, leading to a risk that girls who attempt to emulate her will become anorexic. A standard Barbie doll is 11.5 inches tall, giving a height of 5 feet 9 inches at 1/6 scale. Barbie's vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (chest), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches (hips). According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki,Finland, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate.^[13] In 1963 the outfit "Barbie Baby-Sits" came with a book entitledHow to Lose Weight which advised: "Don't eat."^[14] The same book was included in another ensemble called "Slumber Party" in 1965 along with a pink bathroom scale reading 110 lbs.,^[15] which would be around 35 lbs. underweight for a woman 5 feet 9 inches tall.^[16] In 1997 Barbie's body mold was redesigned and given a wider waist, with Mattel saying that this would make the doll better suited to contemporary fashion designs.^[17][18]
• "Colored Francie" made her debut in 1967, and she is sometimes described as the first African American Barbie doll. However, she was produced using the existing head molds for the white Francie doll and lacked African characteristics other than a dark skin. The first African American doll in the Barbie range is usually regarded as Christie, who made her debut in 1968.^[19][20] Black Barbie was launched in 1980 but still had white features. In September 2009, Mattel introduced the So In Style range, which was intended to create a more realistic depiction of black people than previous dolls.^[21]
• In July 1992 Mattel released Teen Talk Barbie, which spoke a number of phrases including "Will we ever have enough clothes?", "I love shopping!", and "Wanna have a pizza party?" Each doll was programmed to say four out of 270 possible phrases, so that no two dolls were likely to be the same. One of these 270 phrases was "Math class is tough!" (often misquoted as "Math is hard"). Although only about 1.5% of all the dolls sold said the phrase, it led to criticism from the American Association of University Women. In October 1992 Mattel announced that Teen Talk Barbie would no longer say the phrase, and offered a swap to anyone who owned a doll that did.^[22]

Oreo Fun Barbie from 1997 became controversial due to a negative interpretation of the doll's name

• In 1997 Mattel joined forces with Nabisco to launch a cross-promotion of Barbie with Oreo cookies. Oreo Fun Barbie was marketed as someone with whom little girls could play after class and share "America's favorite cookie." As had become the custom, Mattel manufactured both a white and a black version. Critics argued that in the African American community Oreo is a derogatory term meaning that the person is "black on the outside and white on the inside," like the chocolate sandwich cookie itself. The doll was unsuccessful and Mattel recalled the unsold stock, making it sought after by collectors.^[23]
• In May 1997 Mattel introduced Share a Smile Becky, a doll in a pink wheelchair. Kjersti Johnson, a 17-year-old high school student in Tacoma, Washington with cerebral palsy, pointed out that the doll would not fit into the elevator of Barbie's $100 Dream House. Mattel announced that it would redesign the house in the future to accommodate the doll.^[24][25]
• In March 2000 stories appeared in the media claiming that the hard vinyl used in vintage Barbie dolls could leak toxic chemicals, causing danger to children playing with them. The claim was rejected as false by technical experts. A modern Barbie doll has a body made from ABS plastic, while the head is made from soft PVC.^[26][27]
• In September 2003 the Middle Eastern country of Saudi Arabia outlawed the sale of Barbie dolls, saying that she did not conform to the ideals of Islam. The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stated "Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful."^[28] In Middle Eastern countries there is an alternative doll called Fulla which is similar to Barbie but is designed to be more acceptable to an Islamic market. Fulla is not made by the Mattel Corporation, and Barbie is still available in other Middle Eastern countries includingEgypt.^[29] In Iran, Sara and Dara dolls are available as an alternative to Barbie.^[30]
• In December 2005 Dr. Agnes Nairn at the University of Bath in England published research suggesting that girls often go through a stage where they hate their Barbie dolls and subject them to a range of punishments, including decapitation and placing the doll in a microwave oven. Dr. Nairn said: "It's as though disavowing Barbie is a rite of passage and a rejection of their past."^[31][32]

A Barbie with a lower back tattoo was released in 2009.

• In April 2009, the launch of a Totally Tattoos Barbie with a range of tattoos that could be applied to the doll, including a lower back tattoo, led to controversy. Mattel's promotional material read "Customize the fashions and apply the fun temporary tattoos on you too", but Ed Mayo, chief executive of Consumer Focus, argued that children might want to get tattooed themselves.^[33]
• In November 2010, Mattel released "Barbie Video Girl", a barbie with a pinhole video camera, enabling clips of 30 minutes each to be recorded, viewed and uploaded.^[34] At least one expert is concerned that some of these videos could be "inappropriate."^[35]

Biography....!

Barbie's full name is Barbra Millicent Roberts. In a series of novels published by Random House in the 1960s, her parents' names are given as George and Margaret Roberts from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin.^[9] In the Random House novels, Barbie attended Willows High School, while in the Generation Girl books published by Golden Books in 1999 she attended the fictional Manhattan International High School in New York City (based on the real-life Stuyvesant High School^[10]).

She has an on-off romantic relationship with her boyfriend Ken (Ken Carson), who first appeared in 1961. A news release from Mattel in February 2004 announced that Barbie and Ken had decided to split up, but in February 2006 they were hoping to rekindle their relationship after Ken had a makeover.^[11]

Barbie has had over 40 pets including cats and dogs, horses, a panda, a lion cub, and a zebra. She has owned a wide range of vehicles, including pink Corvette convertibles, trailers and jeeps. She also holds a pilot's license, and operates commercial airliners in addition to serving as a flight attendant. Barbie's careers are designed to show that women can take on a variety of roles in life, and the doll has been sold with a wide range of titles including Miss Astronaut Barbie (1965), Doctor Barbie (1988) and Nascar Barbie (1998).

Mattel has created a range of companions for Barbie, including Hispanic Teresa, Midge, African American Christie and Steven (Christie's boyfriend). Barbie's siblings and cousins were also created including Skipper, Todd (Stacie's twin brother), Stacie (Todd's twin sister), Kelly, Krissy, and Francie. Barbie was friendly with Blaine, an Australian surfer, during her split with Ken in 2004.^[12]

See List of Barbie's friends and family