Barbie's Take the Gold

As discussed in my media journal, here is a link to Ken and Barbie on ice, a toy from 1998 that I owned. Created by Mattel to capture the buzz of the winter Olympics, this add has Tara Lipinski, and apparently we're cheering for her. And I assume we were given it was the 1998 Olympics.  I'd wager that a few toys and fast food promotions were attached to those Olympics in the same way they are today.

This commercial has all the toy marketing essentials: lights, music, happy children, celebrity endorsement, and toys that spin. Now, the happy children are all squealing girls, which potentially leaves out the demographic of young figure skating boys who might have wanted this doll set. As many articles including one from the BBC acknowledge, toys started getting more gender-fied in the 90's, and from my reading it seems that the push for gender neutral toys starts gaining speed post 2012. Which means, I grew up in a time where seeing just girls in Barbie commercials was probably the norm. I'm not sure if they are today; I don't spend enough time watching children's commercials to know if anything has changed or if Barbie's are still marketed for the girls.

Lastly, the message being sent. Well, it's probably to buy more toys. It is a commercial after all. But as the commercial states, "It's Barbie. Anything's possible." Staring in 1985, the slogan "We Girls Can Do Anything" and all the ones that followed were meant to encourage young girls to follow their dreams to become doctors, lawyers, etc. And despite the fact that I'm a little older and a little more cynical, the idea that anything is possible is still heartwarming.