I really feel for Ken, the poor sap.
It’s not his fault. Not likely. There are forces at work within the universe we’re powerless towards. I can converse with some authority on the topic – being a member of the male species my total life – once I say that each man, plastic or in any other case, has made a idiot of himself over a reasonably face.
And Barbie, Ken’s longstanding girlfriend, is unquestionably a reasonably face. She began life as a teenage style mannequin, for crying out loud. Ken was doomed from the beginning. And it’s solely gotten worse.
Vintage Dealer file photograph
Right this moment, Barbie is the world’s most well-known doll with the world’s most popular movie. Think about attempting to maintain up with that as a boyfriend.
Whereas it might be true that Barbie has had just a little, um, plastic work executed over time, she nonetheless seems marvelous for somebody “born” in 1959. Make no mistake about it, that is Barbie’s world and we’re all simply friends at her fabulous Dreamhouse.
All of which implies that Ken, her long-suffering, doofus of a boyfriend is destined to additional embarrassment within the Barbie-verse. Too harsh? I don’t suppose so.
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Look no additional than Ken and Barbie in their matching golf outfits from 1971. No approach that was Ken’s concept. Certain, Barbie seems nice in her yellow shirt, plaid skirt and matching plaid cap, turquoise knit knee socks and matching tennis footwear. Sporting and trendy. That’s Barbie.
As for Ken? Please. No self-respecting man – plastic or in any other case – reveals up on the native nation membership in a plaid shirt, crimson pants, yellow tie(!), plaid brimmed cap and white sneakers except he’s trying ahead to 18 holes of ridicule. I don’t care how fairly or convincing your girlfriend could be, you simply don’t do this. No, Ken. Simply no.
Do you suppose for a second G.I. Joe can be caught useless sporting that? After all not. However then once more, G.I. Joe was launched in 1964 as an “motion determine.” Ken was launched in 1961 as a Barbie “accent.” Large distinction, that.
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G.I. Joe was rugged. He was a soldier, a Marine, a sailor, a pilot. He had scuba gear and carried a knife. He got here out of the field with a freaking scar on his face. And he went off to war, always going undefeated in untold backyard battles. If G.I. Joe wore an identical outfit, it was camouflaged and got here with boots and canine tags. Hooah!
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Ken came into the world with delicate carpet fuzz hair, crimson swim trunks and a tag on his wrist that learn “Real Ken,” in order to not be confused with different slender, boyish trying dolls destined to be made enjoyable of by G.I. Joe and his ingesting buddies. As a substitute of yard battles, Ken went off to the native rink sporting a lamé ice-dancer outfit that coordinated completely with Barbie’s.
Sigh.
Nonetheless, Ken had a girlfriend and G.I. Joe didn’t. That ought to depend for one thing. And it does, simply not that a lot.
Ken met Barbie in 1961 on the set of his very first commercial. Her profession as a style mannequin was already nicely established. As for Ken? He might be something Barbie – and the thousands and thousands of little women all over the world – wished him to be. So sure, from the very begin, Ken was compliant. The ultimate body of the Mattel industrial that launched Ken to the world reveals the pair dressed as bride and groom whereas a narrator suggests we “see the place the romance will lead.”
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Ken and Barbie had been inseparable. Till they weren’t.
In 2004 – after 43 years of courting! – Barbie dumped Ken. The cut up was lined within the tabloids with all of the rigor of an A-list superstar breakup. Mattel claimed Barbie and Ken merely wished to “spend some high quality time — aside.” Concern not, Mattel promised, Barbie and Ken would “stay mates.”
No man, plastic or in any other case, desires to “stay mates” with a girlfriend who brushed him apart for another person. Barbie’s new love? An Australian boogie boarder named Blaine. Ouch!
As a result of Barbie and Ken dwell within the plastic world, the place hearts are simply mended, they got back together seven years later – on Valentine’s Day, naturally.
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The query shouldn’t be whether or not the romance will final – it can – however whether or not the romance ought to final?
I do know what G.I. Joe would do. He’d get a Barbie tattoo on his chest within the form of a barbed-wired coronary heart with a knife thrust by it and transfer on. And let me let you know, Ken, at this level, that’s one thing any smart man, plastic or in any other case, ought to take into account.
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