A\M S I IA IK
Barbie’s fate is ud to the child
Forget the Barney brouhaha,
Barbie’s coming to town.
And she’s getting “all dolled
up” to meet me.
Barbie is appearing—in person—
at Lincoln’s new Target store, 56th
Street and Highway 2, Saturday. Tar
get’s advertisements for this land
mark event say, “Meet a woman who’s
a real doll.”
You got that right, baby, we’re
talking about Barbie here.
The idea of meeting Barbie, the
childhood actor of all my dreams, is
enticing.
Because I couldn’t wait to find out
more about America’s sweetheart, I
called Mattel.
Lisa McKendall, manager of mar
keting communications for Mattel,
said the visit was part of a national
“Real Kids Star with Barbie” contest.
She said it would be an opportunity
for kids to meet Barbie and win a
chance to star in a commercial with
her.
I’m too old to participate.
I asked how Mattel could possibly
find someone to personify Barbie and
I found out a ghastly truth: There’s
more than one Barbie in America.
McKendall said Mattel selected
Barbies — ooh, the plural is painful
—who project a wholesome, positive
and enthusiastic attitude and who en
joy children.
But her “likeness” to the toy Barbie
ends there.
They don’t select her for her im
possible measurements, and none of
the Barbies have little tiny feet that
can barely keep hold of the high
hcclcd, slip-on sandals.
I myself struggled to keep Barbie’s
feet in her shoes during my many
years in Barbiedom.
It was an odd phenomena at my
house. I was the most hyperactive
child — except when I had a book in
my hands or my Barbie kingdom all
over my bedroom floor.
When I got Barbie-busy, it was
impossible for my mom to walk
through my bedroom without putting
her adult feet in peril. I didn’t have the
Barbie townhouse or anything like
that, but what I had was so much
better.
Barbie didn’t have much to do
with men, partly because of my
lack of male dolls, but also
because she had better things
to do.
My parents had purchased a World
Book Encyclopedia set that came with
a special set of Childcrafl Books.
Volume Nine was my treasure chest
of “make and do.” It had pages of doll
decorating tips, such as how to make
doll furniture with old thread spools,
cardboard and cloth scraps, and how
to make homes for my Barbie land.
My Barbie kingdom was decked
out, not from department store acces
sories, but ones I made myself.
I loved my Barbie kingdom.
My mom found an old Barbie doll
at a garage sale. She wasn’t blonde
and blue-eyed—I already had one of
those, the one with a diamond ring
with matching earrings—but she had
hair the color of sun-kissed wheat and
eyes of brown. I named her Honey,
half for her hair and half for the char
acter out of my Trixie Belden mystery
stories.
I also had the Wonder Woman
“fashion doll” and that crazy two
toned dol 1. FI ip the top of her head one
way, she’s blond, the other, she’s
brunette.
My Wonder Woman doll married
my brother’s G.I. Joe doll, and they
took off in Joe’s yellow helicopter
with the golden Buddha filled with
rubies. When they came back, Joe
stayed home and took care of the
Treehouse Gang kids and Wonder
Woman went back to her work at the
mil itary base by day, crime-busting at
night. Joe retired.
Barbie didn ’ t ha ve m uc h to do w ith
men, partly because of my lack of
male dolls, but also because she had
better things to do. She boogied to
Led Zeppelin and the Eagles while I
listened to the old KPMQ—that was
before they turned traitor to country.
She worked at various jobs, but once
my mom picked up the Barbie air
plane at yet another garage sale, Barbie
became a pilot and clocked in a lot of
air time.
Even when I received a male doll
that had a full set of shining armor, I
never let my Barbie be whisked off by
a knight. He only put that on to go to
work, otherwise he was hanging with
the Sunshine Family and spending
time with Barbie when she was in
town.
Unlike last year’s talking Barbie,
my Barbie never thought math was
hard, and she never thought shopping
was all that much fun. Of course, that
might be because I didn’t have any
stores for her to shop in and she was
too busy conquering the world to do
algebra, but in retrospect, I’d like to
think it was my inherent feminism
already taking hold..
I don’t think Barbie is the bane of
feminism. Last year’s Barbie-que —
the Barbie-burning after Mattel’s re
lease of the talking doll—was funny,
but I don’t know if the statement was
altogether necessary.
Yeah, her measurements are ridic
ulous, but that never made me think I
was inadequate for being over 5-foot
5 and 105 pounds, and having less
than a C-cup bra. And I never thought
math was hard or clothes shopping
was the only fun activity for females.
I never conformed my self-image
or goals to their limitations. My
Barbies reflected my aspirations—it
wasn’t the other way around.
Steyer ii a seaior Eagttsb aid history
uajor, a Daily Nebraska* arts aad eatertaln
neat seaior reporter aad a colunaist.
M \ I I XIMMI KM VN
Soldier token of political games
Anew strain of Gulf War Syn
drome reared its ugly head
this past week, once again
proving that seriously dealing with
any kind of military activity is not
among the strong suits of the Ameri
can public.
In the midst of the escalating con
flict between master strategist/clan
leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid and
U.N. forces, which has already seen
the deaths of dozens of peace-keeping
personnel and hundreds of Somalis,
American attention was deeply fixed
on the fate of captured helicopter pilot
Michael Durant. Keeping matters well
in perspective, we responded in the
only way we knew how. As the saying
goes, when the going gets tough, the
tough put up yellow ribbons.
Apparently, the theory behind the
yellow ribbons is they let the troops
know that we here at home are pulling
for them. All well and good, I sup
pose, but for many of us, the 1 ingering
image of yellow ribbons that the Gulf
War left us with is that supporting the
troops also rrtbans checking your crit
icisms at the door. Argue before the
troops are in the field, they said, but
shut up once they are out there. A
great moral lesson nad been learned in
Vietnam, we were told, and that was
that we must, no matter what we
thought of the motives behind the
conflict, support our boys.
Funny what a little thing like a
change in the administration makes
us forget The true partisan nature of
foreign affairs is becoming more and
more apparent as the weeks drag by.
History’s supposed lessons are quick
ly being discarded as the traditionally
hawkish Republican representatives
line up against the president without
the slightest appearance of having
wrestled with any moral demons.
Haven’t they heard that it isn’t patri
otic to criticize military operations?
Patriotism and morality are put on
a back burner when we aren’t able to
I’ve heard no one admit it, but
by the most conservative of
estimates, everyone knows
that CBS’s movie of the
week, “Terror in the Desert:
The Michael Durant Story”
will be out by at least Easter.
drop those neat smart bombs down
exhaust ports. Who can blame them,
though, when the Somalia operation
has stumbled as badly as it has? Con
gress hates putting up with failed mil
itary policies as much as the public
does. Everyone likes a winner, so no
one really wants to put their principles
on the line for something like this.
We have the uncanny ability to
make the best out of bad situations,
though. And for some odd reason,
captured U.S. servicemen seem to lift
our spirits when we’re feeling a little
down on our international luck. I’ve
heard no one admit it, but by the most
conservative of estimates, everyone
knows that CBS’s movie of the week,
“Terror in the Desert: The Michael
Durant Story” will be out by at least
Easter. I’m rooting for Tom Cruise to
play the lead role and for Wesley
Snipes to play Gen. Aidid. Watch for
it. It should at least be up to par with
the David Koresh movie.
Conveniently forgotten, of course,
arc the millions of Somalis who arc
merely a few short weeks away from
returning to the disastrous, inhuman
conditions we supposedly went there
to correct. Also forgotten are the im
ages of the dead American helicopter
pilots being dragged through the streets
of Mogadishu. But I guess that’s the
point. It leaves you with a sick feeling
in your stomach, though, when you
think of public policy being dictated
by aesthetics.
I have a great deal of sympathy for
Durant and his family. Seeing a loved
one taken prisoner by enemy forces
has got to be one of the most difficult
situations imaginable. What is dis
concerting, however, is the knee-jerk
reaction of the American public. We
jump up and down and wave (lags and
throw our support behind things be
fore we have a chance to think about
what's going on.
Thousands of people have been
waiting at every stop of Durant’s trip
back home. How many people were
waiting for the coffins of his fellow
helicopter pilots when they arrived
back home? Who knows the name of
even one of them? Does surviving an
attack makes you a hero? Does being
killed in one do the same?
The sympathy I feel for Durant is
not so much for the injuries he has
received as for how he has become a
Ewn of the political games that are
ing played out over Somalia. He
symbolizes American courage, he
symbolizes the weakness of our posi
tion. He symbolizes American resolve,
he symbolizes the failure of Clinton’s
foreignpolicydecisions. Pardon me if
1 don’t go out and tie up a ribbon, but
something about this just rubs me the
wrong way.
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