The Uncomfortable Reasons These Barbie Dolls Were Discontinued
Barbie’s been around for a long time, and now she’s a movie star. The Greta Gerwig-directed Barbie film was a massive hit across all demographics, hailed for its feminist themes and impressive visuals. And it’s also got people talking about one overlooked aspect of the Barbie legacy. What about all the discontinued Barbies, Kens, and friends, the dolls too controversial or too dangerous to have remained on the shelves? Barbie the movie gathers some of these forgotten dolls together for one scene: here are their true — and sometimes unbelievable — stories.
Teen Talk Barbie
Teen Talk Barbie is possibly the most well-known of the discontinued dolls, because the controversy around her spawned a whole episode of The Simpsons. Yep, the 1994 episode "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy” is actually all about the Teen Talk Barbie scandal. During the early ’90s people were very displeased that when Barbie learned to talk via a voicebox, she could be heard saying, “Math class is tough!” It was considered that this particular Barbie was a terrible role model for young girls.
“Math class is tough!”
To be fair to Teen Talk Barbie, though, she did say other things too. Every voicebox was programmed with four phrases out of 270 written, so perhaps another girl’s Teen Talk Barbie would have said, “I’m studying to be a doctor” instead. But such was the backlash to the comment about math that Mattel pulled every doll with that phrase from the shelves, and as a result, getting hold of one of those original talking Barbies will today set a collector back about $500. Now that’s math!
Pregnant Midge
Midge was marketed as “Barbie’s best friend” and she was meant to be, well, the more “ordinary-looking” version of Barbie. She could still share all of Barbie’s clothes and accessories, though! The original Midge wasn’t expecting, but now she’s remembered primarily for being the pregnant doll, because in 2002 Mattel tried something new and unusual with her. They decided Midge should have a family, and this meant giving her a little detachable pregnant stomach with a baby inside.
Promoting teen pregnancy
Customers were not happy with the idea of a pregnant doll. Some of them claimed that Midge’s existence glamorized teen pregnancy, even though Midge was never marketed as a teenager. By Christmas 2002 the dolls had gone from the shelves, but luckily, Midge herself got to live on. It took a while for her to make her return, but in 2013 she appeared on the popular Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse show and got a couple of new dolls made of her. This time, Midge actually was presented as a teen.
