So far Mattel has resisted, stating they don’t generally send unsolicited toy ideas to their toy designers. There has even been a Facebook petition drive going on to persuade Mattel to do so. Recently there has been a lot of buzz about Mattel possibly mass producing a Cancer Bald Barbie.
It’s entirely possible for girls to survive, grow up and turn out just fine without ever owning a Barbie! It really is.Īnd for the record, I’d also like to mention I do have a daughter. If they are/were your or your child’s forte, that’s fine with me. Hmm…īarbie on the other hand, well we’re all familiar with Barbie and her fine attributes.īut I’d like to stress here, I’m not opposed to Barbie dolls. Like Barbie, she too had a younger sister, but interestingly enough, she did not have a boyfriend like Barbie’s Ken. Tammy had a noticeably (yes, my sister and I definitely noticed) thicker figure, smaller breasts and larger feet. Could it be because Tammy looked more realistic, more ordinary, more normal? I guess Tammy didn’t catch on like Barbie. Me, I received a Tammy doll that same year. I guess it was the pecking order of things at my house. The primary reason being one of my older sisters got a Barbie for Christmas one year, so therefore she had a claim on the Barbie brand.
Since childhood toys teach societal norms just as much as media or pop culture, it's important to see companies like MGA and Mattel taking a positive step to show kids in unusual circumstances that they’re normal, too.I’ve never been a Barbie kind of gal for many reasons. For every doll purchased, MGA will donate $1 to cancer research at City of Hope cancer center in Duarte, Calif. In February, rival toy company MGA Entertainment announced it would produce a hairless line of "Bratz" and "Moxie Girlz" dolls called "True Hope" (see above) for Toys 'R Us. Joe Movement" for young boys with hair loss. Offshoots have sprouted from the original campaign, including the " Bald G.I.
The Facebook page has 158,000 "likes" and shows no signs of slowing down. Bingham is lobbying Mattel to sell the doll in stores. A few months later, they changed their minds: Now the limited-edition hairless dolls-which will come with accessories like hats and scarves-will be passed out at hospitals in 2013 and donated to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. But when Sypin’s campaign suggested they make a bald doll for commercial sale, Mattel initially told her they did not accept ideas from outside sources, Sypin says. Mattel had previously made a one-of-a-kind bald doll for a girl going through chemotherapy in New York City. "Their beauty and their self-worth is not dependent upon their hair." "One of the major reasons was to reduce the stigma for women and children who have hair loss-being not accepted to be able to go out in public without something covering their head, whether it be a wig or a scarf or that sort of thing," Bingham told NPR’s All Things Considered. Syprin told ABC News that "the hope is that a bald Barbie will help children with cancer and others who have lost their hair due to illness-such as alopecia and trichotillomania-cope with their conditions." Photographer and co-founder Jane Bingham also lost her hair during treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Beckie Sypin, co-founder of the cause, has a 12-year-old daughter who lost all of her hair after chemotherapy treatment.