Barbie Indian Doll (styles may vary)

Product Information

Barbie’s journey into India was not easy. “Mattel entered the Indian market in 1986-1987, but the foreign trade laws did not favour the presence of a multinational company like Mattel or its Barbie brand,” Nemani writes.

At that time, she was inarguably American. “Indian Barbie had the exact same physique as the standard blonde Barbie with the same height and circumferential measurements,” Nemani explained. “The doll’s pigmentation was deepened only by a slight degree, and her eyes were made hazel rather than blue. Yet Indian Barbie shared the same pink lips, coy smile, shining eyes, and fictitious physique as the American Barbie.”If you love playing new and old Barbie games, then you’ll probably like many of the games in these categories:

Priti Nemani, an attorney at law who wrote a paper in 2011 titled " A Case Study on the Failure of the Barbie Doll in the Indian Market", said, “One of the biggest criticisms Barbie faced is her hyper-sexualized physique.” Don’t get me wrong. Margot Robbie is no slouch as what the movie calls “Stereotypical Barbie” — the blond bombshell that kids in Mattel focus groups point to when presented with diverse Barbie dolls and asked, “Which one is Barbie?” Stereotypical Barbie starts the movie as a confident woman who knows exactly who she is, and doesn’t ever want anything to change. She lives in Barbieland, a fantasy realm conjured by Mattel that’s powered by the imaginations of kids who play with Barbie dolls. It’s a world ruled by Barbies, and unashamed of traditional feminine tropes. The president is a Barbie (played by Issa Rae, in a pink silk “President” sash). The Supreme Court is all Barbie. And every Nobel Prize winner in history is — you guessed it — a Barbie. Every pink-washed DreamHouse mansion in Barbieland is owned by a woman who makes her own money and spends her free time indulging in “girls’ nights” where everybody shares a glorious communal wardrobe. Barbie is an idea,” said Seema Chawla, the head of marketing of Mattel in India, where the new line is slated to arrive in April. “Her popularity was proof of the fact that she allowed girls to imagine what they could be. She was a fashionista, a family woman, a princess and the president. They wanted to be like her.” Natalie Diaz was born in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community. She earned a BA from Old Dominion University, where she received a full athletic scholarship. Diaz played professional basketball in Europe and Asia before returning to Old Dominion to earn an MFA. She is the author of the poetry collections Postcolonial Love Poem (2020), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; and When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012), which New York Times reviewer Eric McHenry described as an “ambitious … beautiful book.” Her other honors and awards include the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from Bread Loaf, the Narrative Poetry Prize, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. However, Chawla points out that Barbie was never meant to be an Indian Barbie. “It was a part of an International series of what would happen if Barbie went to India. It was meant more as a souvenir for NRIs and tourists.”Mattel, the makers of the doll, announced the new line with a story in Timeheadlined “Now can we stop talking about my body?” Stereotypical Barbie has no reason to leave this beautiful feminine realm. She’s forced to trek into the harsh world of Reality only because somewhere, someone is playing with her while experiencing such intense existential angst that their emotions are reaching Barbieland and drilling into Barbie’s psyche. Her real-world owner is inadvertently causing her to think about death, get actual cellulite on her thighs, and even develop articulated ankles that experience all-too-real pain when she stuffs her feet into stiletto heels. There’s a third rail that Gerwig and Baumbach scarcely dare to touch in Barbie: body image. Barbie designers at Mattel have struggled in this arena, too, as Barbie’s nonstandard but idealized body proportions have remained controversial, even as the company has introduced several variations in recent years. (They include a “curvy” Barbie, a “petite” Barbie, and a Barbie with articulated knees who can use a wheelchair.) Yes, Barbie can have every career imaginable — she can be president, even if real-life women can’t — but can she manage to rise above a size 6? Since people were so desperate to see desi celebs as Barbies, online fashion police Diet Sabya curated a list of female Indian celebs as Barbies and gave a funny twist to their characters. Priyanka Chopra’s Barbie is “Girl don’t yell, we are here for love.” Image Source Deepika Padukone’s Barbie is “Patchouli Pathaan.” Image Source Alia Bhatt’s Barbie is “Screaming Shivaaaaaa.” Image Source Katrina Kaif’s Barbie is “A Bhabhi.” Image Source Anushka Sharma’s Barbie is “Causing a traffic jam.” Image Source Sonam Kapoor’s Barbie is “OG fashion gworl.” Image Source Kareena Kapoor Khan’s Barbie is “A Bandra wali.” Image Source Natasha Poonawalla’s Barbie is “Mrs. Vaccine.” Image Source Kangana Ranaut’s Barbie is against “Bhikari movie mafia.” Image Source Urvashi Rautela’s Barbie is “Youngest human citizen universe winner.” In India, Barbie’s lifestyle, with her attraction to glamour and her relationship with her on-off boyfriend Ken, did not initially fit into the idea of a conventional Indian upbringing, says Nemani. “It is precisely the sexualised fiction of Barbie’s body that the Indian public repudiated. In India, hyper-sexualised depictions of females are often perceived to be obscene and are subject to censorship.”