Barbie has always been sold as a revolutionary doll and an icon of empowerment. However, the new book Barbieland: The Unauthorized History, by author Tarpley Hitt, presents a different counter-narrative.
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For Hitt, Barbie was not a revolutionary new thing. Rather, it is a “cheap imitation”, reinforced by strategic marketing, exploitation, intimidation, betrayal and espionage. “Mattel spent years hiding the Barbie story,” the author wrote.
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According to Tarpley, Barbie was not the first doll. Before 1959, when the toy was launched, there were already other dolls, such as the German Bild Lilli doll, who had a far greater influence on the creation of Barbie than the designer herself, Ruth Handler, would ever have admitted.
“Lilli began life as a racy comic strip in the German tabloid Bild. She became a doll in 1955, sold in tobacconists and toy stores across Europe. In 1958, she starred in her own film with real actors (65 years before actress Margot Robbie brought Barbie to the big screen),” said the author.
It wasn’t until several decades after Barbie’s debut that Ruth admitted to seeing Lilli in Switzerland in 1956. However, she insisted she had the idea for an adult doll years earlier.
Espionage
The author also reveals in the book that when Mattel engineer Jack Ryan went to visit some factories in Japan, Ruth allegedly put a Lilli doll in his briefcase. “See if you can copy this,” the businesswoman told him.
By the time the German company won approval of Lilli’s U.S. patent in 1960, Mattel had already sold “nearly $1.5 million” worth of Barbie dolls, Tarpley Hitt says. Eventually, the company purchased the worldwide rights to the Lilli doll and buried her.
“Investigations into Lilli had a habit of disappearing from public records,” Hitt explains in his new book.
A Mattel spokesperson told the Post that the company “is aware of the book.”
About The Author
