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August 17, 2005
The Origin of the Barbie Doll
While not related to video games directly, this article is an interesting tidbit about the cultural evolution of objects from risque to mainstream.
"Ruth Handler had noted that her daughter Barbara preferred playing with paper dolls that looked like adults rather than like children. During a trip to Europe with her daughter, Handler noticed a German doll named Lilli and bought it for Barbara.
"In fact, the Lilli doll was based on the character of a prostitute in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for die Bild Zeitung. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955. The dolls were manufactured in Hamburg, where legal, licensed prostitutes are ubiquitous. The doll was marketed to adult men in bars and tobacco shops, not to children. M. G. Lord, in her Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll, characterized the original doll as a 'gag gift for men, a pornographic character.'"
Posted by BrendaBrathwaite at August 17, 2005 04:56 PM | Discuss this post on our forums