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Klimek: Barbie was always the star of the show. And in all her imaginary plotlines, Emily can only remember her Ken doll playing one featured part. Ken got eventually real hair (like Barbie doll) in the 1970s, one edition was the “ Now Look Ken” in 1975 and the other one was “ Sport and Shave Ken” in 1979. Groovy. The next Ken with real hair was the “ Totally Hair/Ultra Hair Ken” in 1991 and “ Shaving Fun Ken” in 1995 or 1996, then the Ken of “ Butterfly Princess Barbie” also had real hair and a late 90s version of the Shaving Ken too. All the other editions had painted hair. Ken was constantly available and a reliable companion until 2004. Suddenly Ken and Barbie were separated and Barbie got a new boyfriend called Blaine but their relationship did not last that long. At the begin of this decade there was a reunion of Barbie and Ken. Mod hair Ken prototype
Klimek: Has a slightly more animated facial expression than prior Kens. He looks like he maybe knows more than he's telling, and he's got, like, I guess I would've called it a leisure suit. They're making a line of toys that will go with the movie. And I'm curious to see how the Ken dolls do, you know? And also the discourse that comes out of the movie. What part will be about Ken? Tamkin: Right. And there have been moments where Barbie's been in a more regressive space, like in her earlier years she had a “How to Diet” book. And there have been moments where Barbie's been more progressive, when they've really tried to offer different body types for Barbie and sell Barbie in different races, or have Barbie have these amazing careers. From the original Ken doll to the latest special edition, these valuable dolls offer a glimpse into the evolution of fashion, culture and design over the years. We can't list them all here, but this is what you'll get for some of your favorite childhood toys (depending on their condition, of course). Klimek: I noticed that too. Yeah, olive-skinned. Boy, that poor man is just not going to have any skin left on his face.
20. Horse Lovin' Ken
The tale of Ken’s tortured existence began, as many a toy’s, with a board meeting. Two years after Barbie’s breakout debut, Mattel’s financial advisors sought to convince cofounders Ruth and Elliot Handler to expand the brand into the profitable world of product licensing, according to Barbie Bazaar, a 1990 series of articles by the doll collector A. Glenn Mandeville. Save for the presence of Ruth, it’s easy to imagine this discussion resembling the roundtable of male executives in suits who represented Mattel’s top brass in the Barbie movie. The Handlers were initially concerned that assigning Barbie a fixed biography might limit children’s imaginations during play. They nevertheless agreed, per Mandeville, that “select firms would be allowed to develop the personality of Barbie, under the watchful eye of management of Mattel.” With that obstacle cleared, the floodgates opened. Out came vinyl record totes, Barbie novels, and, crucially, Ken. Several years ago, almost a decade ago now I think, there was a big push to put out Barbie dolls of different body shapes, and breaking with this idea that “Oh, she has this perfect unattainable figure.” I think Barbie has been used as a stand-in. I was at a women's rights protest, this is several decades ago, and there are signs that are like, “I'm not your Barbie doll.” Like, this is a certain kind of hair that is being held up as, “Look how wonderful this is.” And I honestly had this Totally Hair Barbie in 1992. I had the same thought where it's like, “Oh, look how long the hair is.” I will be very interested to see sales from the Barbie movie. Because what I think is really funny about the way they're doing this is that Ryan Gosling is imbuing his Ken with such personality. Even as he's saying, ‘Nobody ever thinks about Ken,” clearly he’s made a very memorable Ken.
It's not only a Barbie world — Ken dolls have been an iconic part of popular culture for decades, too, with certain editions becoming exceptionally valuable among collectors. These prized dolls often possess unique features, limited production runs or significant historical significance. Totally Hair Ken looks like he's up for a night of clubbing, and with hair like that, who wouldn't be? Ein Beitrag geteilt von Mandy G (@my.dreams.are.pink) am Apr 18, 2018 um 4:34 PDT Ken got real hair Tamkin: In the ’90s, when a sexual harassment case came before the Supreme Court, I somehow as like a 9-year-old found out about this and had my Barbie take her boyfriend Ken to court for sexual harassment. By 1965, the dolls of the Barbie universe had bendable appendages, and Ken's friend, Allan, was no exception. His clothes were also more fashionable.
Ein Beitrag geteilt von The Barbiest (@thebarbiest) am Jun 7, 2019 um 12:12 PDT The first afro-american friends I think moving forward, what I don't know that we've seen enough of is: Barbie and Ken come from a time in which we thought of gender as pretty binary. It's a very heteronormative project. You have Girl Barbie and you have Boy Ken, and the assumption is that they're going to date. And so I don't know that we've seen Mattel play with Pride, you know, as much as one might think, given where we are culturally in this moment, or as people increasingly publicly identify as nonbinary or as gender fluid. Tamkin: It's Day to Night Barbie, so she has a pink suit and she can wear it to the office and then she can wear it out on the town.
Since the convention was at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida, Ken was dressed as a Disney cast member. 9. King Ocean Ken Merman Doll Kens made in other countries don't differ much from those produced in the U.S. This Ken, however, has a "made in Japan" stamp, which makes him all the more valuable. Tamkin: OK, what I want listeners to know is that having just watched that ad, Barbie looks great, and early Ken was looking kind of rough. The plastic hair and … We can get into the feminism of Barbie if you want. But her point has always been that Barbie is meant to suggest that girls can be whoever they want to be. As we know, Ken takes his job, "beach," very seriously. So, there's no reason he shouldn't be a representative of the most well-known beach area in the country — Malibu, California.I should also say that the postwar period is one of great ambivalence of gender roles for American Jews. This is the period where the development of the idea of the Jewish American Princess comes up, of the American Jewish man as being like nerdy and whiny compared to the strong Israeli.
Klimek: Yeah, but they're accompanied by their fathers, presumably. We see two adult men, kind of, yeah. Is there anything to … Jarossi’s description seems to capture the essence of Ryan Gosling’s very Method press tour for Barbie, during which he has been exceedingly deferential to Barbie and offered himboism after himboism. “Very little is known about Kenergy,” he told ET. “And we don’t have the funding for the research. We know that it’s real. In my case it came on as a rash, and then it turned into a tan. And then suddenly you’re shaving your legs, and you’re bleaching your hair, and you’re wearing bespoke rollerblades.” He admitted to BuzzFeed that letting go of the Ken role was “a bit like that Pillsbury dough—go with me on this—Cinnabon mix? Like once you open that canister you’re making Cinnabons. And you’re loving it. You’re loving making Cinnabons.” Tamkin: With euphoria, with obsession? No, I think it's great. I think they're really playing on the sort of, not tension, but the twist of the trope, which is that very often we have superhero movies or we have, whatever the story is, and it's all about the guy. The Earring Magic Ken-fuffle may have forced Mattel into a hetero corner, but it also proved to the company that its dolls’ personal lives could win it free press. As the company moved into an era of stunt-based PR, it decided Ken was more valuable as a punching bag than an accessory. In February 2004, the company announced that Ken and Barbie had broken up. The event was covered in the tabloids with all the rigor of an A-list celebrity breakup, including a VP of marketing at Mattel telling Today.com that Barbie and Ken remained just “friends.” Soon after, the company linked Barbie with a new male doll, an Australian surfer named Blaine. The implication, of course, was that switching out Kens was easy.
15. Totally Hair Ken
Tamkin: It's exactly as you're saying. It's the ’80s. It's this moment of, like, the businesswoman, like, working. Klimek: To get a better understanding of where Ken has been, and where he might go in the future, Emily and I sat down together and watched some ads for different Ken dolls over the years. We started with Ken’s debut in 1961. Klimek: Yeah. What this makes me think about is, you know, someone who grew up playing with superheroes and reading comic books and stuff. When you and your sister were playing with your Barbies and then subsequently as an adult, I read about how all of the superheroes who are, you know, dominant in the culture now, all created by Jewish writers and artists. He even comes with a small tube of Dep to keep every hair in place while dancing the night away. 14. Talking Ken
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