To my shame, the news which got my blood rushing this past week was the announcement that Mattel, the Barbie makers, releases a Mad Men collection this July. My inner conflict was equally intensified by an obsession with the critically-acclaimed, fashion-forward (or backward?) television series and a general embarrassment over Barbie.
Betty (January Jones) and Don (John Hamm)
The latter reads like a feminist cliché: I deeply disapprove of the pressure Barbie places on women from childhood with her unrealistic body shape and unproblematic lifestyle. She’s got a slew of careers we get no sense she’s worked for and a boyfriend who is more a handsome accessory than an equal partner.
The problem is I played with Barbie until the ripe old age of thirteen. I couldn’t get enough of her. Worse, I’d probably still be playing grown up with Barbie and Ken if I had the right company and social approval.
But I promise that not even the guarantee of sworn secrecy would induce me to purchase a Don, a Betty, a Roger or a Joan. Why? It’s tacky.
The scandalous men and women of Madison Avenue manage to infuse their television roles with larger-than-life personalities usually reserved for the silver screen.
To reduce their images to waxen dolls at £50 a pop is nothing short of brazen marketing, unforgivable even for a show based on the 1960s advertising industry. It cannot but tarnish the ‘expensive’ feel of Mad Men.
Even if I could get it in my head that buying a miniature version of sexy, mysterious creative director Don Draper is acceptable, a glance at the product would bang it right back out again.
The dolls remind us that Barbie is ultimately a fashion product, much like the show. And, to their credit, with Don’s crimson-lined jacket and Joan’s elaborately pinned up hair they’ve managed to pull off the look.
Almost.
Barbie Joan has the skirt but not the curves
What the hell have they done to Joan? Ex-model Betty Draper is little larger than a Barbie doll anyway but putting Joan’s ma-hoo-sive curves on screen is a triumphant leap for real bodies.
Not only has Mattel chosen not to participate in this sociological landmark (perhaps that takes it a little far) but it and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner have completely misjudged the appeal that Christina Hendricks’ character has for fans. Why even bother to call the doll Joan? She’s just a random ginger chick in 60s get-up.
For that matter, the same can be said for all the characters. In attempting to retain the ‘wholesome’ Barbie image, Mattel’s dolls are smoke-free, teetotal, hollow takes on the originals. Betty go more than two minutes without pulling out a cigarette? Impossible! Don and Roger get through a working day with no drinks in hand? Not a chance.
The fags and the cocktails are a small matter but isn’t buying a wholesome version of these characters like listening to Bob Dylan without the lyrics?
The show’s success is rooted in its refusal to allow times gone by feel anything but contemporary.
It accomplishes this by presenting viewers with real people who commit adultery, fail in raising their children, disrespect and lie to each other, keep their childhood issues unresolved and are utterly self-involved.
In short, they’re more failed human being and less Barbie.
To turn these characters into uncomplicated Barbie dolls is, effectively, to reduce them to stereotypes. It’s an act akin to the Series Two bra ad strategy in which the ad men offensively categorize the women in the office as “either a Jackie (Kennedy) or a Marilyn (Monroe)”.
Honestly, what next? While Viv Groscrop’s suggestion for the Guardian that the show might as well launch “A Salvatore limited edition closet” nearly made me wet myself, it’s hard to see how any future merchandising venture could top the Mad Men Barbie dolls for tack.
Adèle Jarrett-Kerr
