A surprising joy my roommate and I found during the lockdown phase of the pandemic was the discovery of the adult Barbie Youtube community. These are adult collectors who make videos for other adult collectors. They are passionate, fun, and their videos cover everything from tours of their pink Barbie themed homes to their favourite dolls. They added some light hearted fun in a time we really needed it. Some of our favourites were Beauty Inside a Box, the Drag Queen Trixie Mattel, and Azusa Barbie who always ended her video with a “stay home, stay safe, and have a pink-tastic Barbie quarantine!” So when one of them made a video on the top Barbie controversy that featured a Girl Scout Barbie, I knew I needed that doll in my house.
In 2014, Girl Scouts of America joined with Mattel, their first ever corporate sponsor to bring the “Barbie Loves Girl Scout’ doll to toy store shelves across the country. Real life Girl Scouts could earn a Barbie “Be anything, Do anything” participation patch by completing program work. The doll wears a mostly pink Girl Scout inspired outfit with badge sash, beret, and logos. She even comes with mini boxes of cookies to sell. The two organizations were overjoyed to produce a doll that would inspire young girls to follow their dreams. Feeling confident in the partnership, Girl Scouts and Mattel were not ready for the backlash they would receive.
Mattel has seen controversy before and even though this was no Earring Magic Ken, people still had a lot to say about it. This was just months after Barbie had been on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and many felt this was a poor follow up. People criticized Girl Scouts for using Barbie as a role model for their youth and questioned how Barbie could even live up to the Girl Scouts principles of strength, courage, and female empowerment. Susan Linn, a director for the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, argues that at worst, this doll sexualizes the youth in the movement through a role model with a impossible body size and at best turns its youngest members into walking billboards with the additions of a Barbie logo on their badge sash.
Girl Scouts defended their three year and 2$ million partnership with Mattel. Kelly Parisi, a spokeswoman for the movement, reflected on the shared values that this doll had with the Girl Scouts of America. Families would associate this doll with camping, community service and friendship. Barbie who at the time held over 135 different careers would show Girl Scouts that they could be anything which was the main focus of the tie-in badge work. Girl Scouts hoped this doll would be an inspiration not just to current members but to those who were not yet involved to check out their local troop.
Barbie and Scouts are both experiences aimed at children, so what did the Girl Scouts think of the doll? Unfortunately, I don’t know. While researching this Barbie, it’s very easy to find articles discussing how adults and parents felt about it but almost impossible to find interviews with youth members. Often when researching the history of Girl Guides or Girl Scouts the voice of the girl is lost. Historian and author, Kristine Alexander encountered a very similar issue while doing archival research for her book, ‘Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire, and Internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s’. She found that unintentionally, the Guiding archives of England, India, and Canada had an emphasis on materials created by its adult members and less that was actually produced by its youth. Alexander finds that too often, that history of children becomes overshadowed by adults. Moving forward with this blog, this is something I want to be mindful of and to keep trying to find the story of the Guides within the history of the movement.
I’m not sure about my own thoughts around this Barbie. As a collector I wanted her because of the controversy and I’m not sure I can see past that to form any other thoughts. It’s such a weird piece of both Mattel and Girl Scout history and I wish I knew more about Girl Scouts better to understand the context this deal was created in.Until then, I love this Barbie and it will always remind of the fun part of lockdown when we were introduced to this amazingly fun Barbie loving side of Youtube.
Thanks for reading and as Azusa Barbie would say “stay safe and have a pink-tastic Barbie day.”
Em
(P.S. Yes, Barbie is going to stay in the box because I watch too much of the show “Are you Afraid of the Dark,” as a kid and if she comes alive in the middle of the night I want her to be trapped.)
December 2020 Update
My niece joined Scouting and Guiding last year and is really enjoying it. She also loves Barbie; so it really became a goal of mine to track down another Barbie loves Girl Scouts doll for her Christmas gift this year. I went on Ebay and found one with brown hair since it looks the most like her. I decided to get her one out of the box since I knew she was going to take it out of the box anyways and I didn't want to take a boxed item away from a collector. I made a box instead and had a really fun night of crafting! I used some of the current Canadian Girl Guide Cookie boxes and even added some crests to the gift. I really hope she likes it!
