Mattel’s Dolled-Up Capitalism

If you’re one of those people for whom Toys R Definitely Not Us, then you may not be aware of the latest breakthrough in the world of dolls. But I think it’s culturally significant, and everyone ought to know about it. Personally, I couldn’t be more thrilled. You see, Barbie has a new friend. Her name is Share a Smile Becky. Becky looks a lot like Barbie. She has long auburn hair and a cute little turquoise denim outfit, with teeny little matching turquoise stud earrings, a backpack and pink tights. And a wheelchair. A pink wheelchair, naturally.

When I first heard about Share a Smile Becky, I was so excited that I had to call my sister in San Francisco. “Have you heard about this new doll with her own wheelchair?” I asked. “Can you imagine how much fun we would’ve had playing with a doll like that?”

“The first thing we would’ve done was reenact ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ ” my sister said. “ ‘It’s a rat, Blanche!’ ” I hissed back in my best Bette Davis impression. “And then all the TV movies would’ve been up for grabs,” my sister said. “Think of all the tear-jerking scenarios we could’ve invented.”

“Not to mention the real movies,” I added. “ ‘With a Song in My Heart,’ ‘An Affair to Remember,’ ‘Sunrise at Campobello’--with that bear doll, the one we used to make be the boy, sitting in Becky’s wheelchair!”

“Maybe not that one. Nobody wants to see FDR in a wheelchair,” my sister commented. “On the other hand, ‘Love Story’ would’ve been a natural.”

But the ultimate excitement for my sister and me surely would have come from bringing Share a Smile Becky and her wheelchair into contact with Wednesday, the wicked little girl doll from the Addams Family. “Yes, it’s a cliff, and I’m pushing you off it!” is the phrase that for some reason echoes in my brain.

I guess you can gather that the kind of smiles my sister and I shared when playing with our extensive doll collection tended toward the sardonic rather than the sentimental. And I feel sure there still are kindred spirits out there. I mean, not everyone loves Barney, right? Why, only last week I caught my friend’s cherubic golden-haired little 4-year-old singing “I love poo” to the tune of the Barney song. So there’s still hope that the world of children today is not universally awash in icky-sticky dewy-gooey lovey-doveyness.

Share a Smile Becky was launched officially last month in Washington, evidently the new hot spot for the caring-sharing-family values sensibility. A lot of people were there, both in and out of wheelchairs, including former presidential Press Secretary Jim Brady, not hitherto known as a Barbie fan. Mattel and Toys R Us, the exclusive outlet for Share a Smile Becky, presented checks for $10,000 apiece to two organizations dealing with the needs of people with disabilities.

Since then, they’ve sold more than 6,000 dolls at $19.95 apiece, which makes--oh, you do the math. And that’s just in the first three weeks. And then there are the new wheelchair-accessible Barbie accessories in the works. First to appear, this fall, will be the new Fold ‘n’ Pretty House. Zero percent of the purchase price of Share a Smile Becky or any of her goodies goes to help the disabled. So at 10 big ones per for goodwill, I’d say the twin toy titans got off easy.

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Of course, that’s not the point. The point, according to Mattel, is that now kids in wheelchairs will have a doll that looks like them. But does anyone really look like that? Most people, in or out of wheelchairs, don’t have Barbie feet. You know what I’m talking about: the kind of feet that fit only into high heels.

It’s not clear whether Becky has been using a wheelchair since birth, but if so, her unusual feet certainly could be one explanation. And if not, anyone trying to carry that top-heavy torso around on those elongated legs certainly would be in for some severe back problems. It’s actually amazing that Barbie herself hasn’t ended up in a wheelchair way before this.

Initially, USA Today was spreading the rumor that Becky was less busty than Barbie, which seemed wrong, given that many people in wheelchairs develop better-than-average upper body strength. But I checked with Mattel, and Becky has exactly the same body type as the bendable Barbie. So I guess little girls in wheelchairs now can have the opportunity to be just as insecure about their body images as the rest of us who were raised with the Barbie ideal. And that’s what true democracy is all about.

Mary Verdi-Fletcher, principal dancer and founder of Cleveland Ballet Dancing Wheels, a company of able and disabled dancers, hails Barbie’s new friend as a breakthrough. “People with disabilities are looked on as asexual,” she says. “Becky has a beautiful and very feminine sexual identity.”

I think Verdi-Fletcher might have hold of the wrong end of the stick here. Becky is supposed to be sharing a smile with Barbie, not Ken, who remains forever Barbie’s personal property. Becky’s sexual identity may have to remain unexplored until Mattel starts marketing Share a Smile Kevin in a wheelchair of his own--in some other color, one hopes, than pink.

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Don’t get me wrong. I adore Barbie. Barbie is as American as violence and cherry pie, to paraphrase H. Rap Brown. But I’m a little bit worried. How come Becky isn’t a real Barbie? Is she a second-class citizen of Barbie World? Like Barbie’s sad sack friend Midge, the doll that parents tried unsuccessfully to fob off on Barbie lovers when real Barbies were in short supply?

And then there’s that “Share a Smile” sobriquet. Barbie’s other friend is Share a Smile Christie, who’s African American. Is that akin to being disabled? I mean, what are they trying to imply here? Are people who are African American or in wheelchairs somehow supposed to smile more? The stereotype of the jolly fat girl comes to mind. But it seems unlikely that Mattel will be introducing Share a Smile Two-Ton Tessie any time soon.

However, the good folks at Mattel acknowledge that they are “looking into the possibility” of creating additional differently abled dolls. So, perhaps we can look forward to Barbie’s new friends in the Share a Smile series: Dyslexic Debby, Hearing-Impaired Helga and Vision-Impaired Vicki, with her adorable little white cane. Or perhaps even Clinically Depressed Cindi, with her own eensy bottle of doll-size-dosage Prozac. As for me, I’m hoping for Mentally Challenged Mindy, who will be able to say “Math is hard” with an impunity that the real Barbie was unable to enjoy.