In the toys stereotypes' history Mattel is one of the major leaders. This company produces indeed the Barbie dolls since 1959 and her lover Ken since 1961. Barbie and Ken in addition to be the perfect man and woman, they are supposed to embody the perfect couple: they both are beautiful, rich and smart and sincerly love each other. It has always been a challenge for Mattel to keep them up to date.
In 1993 Mattel decides to interrogate several little girls to know what they expect about the Barbie and Ken couple. Mattel asked them a simple question : do you think that Barbie should have another boyfriend or should she stay with Ken ? The girls answered that she should stay with Ken but that Ken should be cooler. This is how a new Ken, baptized Earring Magic Ken has been launched.
The Earring Magic Ken
As you can see, the Cool Ken wears a purple vest, a purple fishnet T-shirt, has an ear piercing and is blond. It seems therefore that the new Ken... is gay. At least this is was the public opinion's mind. A lot of journalists wrote and talked about it, from the New-York Times to People Magazine and CNN. A columnist wrote an article in a gay journal, The Stranger, talking about how heterosexuals had begun to take the homosexuals codes. Later in his article he also explains his point of view concerning this (bad) marketing choice. According to him the little girls' "cool" concept was not coming from the boys from their environment like their fathers, brothers or uncles. They were actually looking at MTV, Madonna's dancers clothes, or at these guys on TV parading for the rights equality.
After a few times where Mattel did not know what to do (criticism was going on but they couldn't take Gay Ken out of the shelves without being seen as homophobic) they finally decided to stop its production after the The Stranger's edition.
Mattel's mistake has been not to understand where this "cool" concept was coming from, and to forget that even if the dolls are designed to be liked by little girls, parents actually buy it so they must be convenient for them as well.
However the Gay Ken had a lot of success in the gay community and is now a collector item, being sold around 50$ on Ebay.
Today the Mattel's dolls are convenient for everyone and the new dolls range, High Monsters, is the latest brand's success. Mattel is still one of the toys brand leaders next to Hasbro and Lego.
Morale of the story: One man's meat is another man's poison!
This "mistake" made by Mattel is quite funny. But parents do overreact a bit.
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