Jazz Doll To Be Introduced At NY Toy Show

I had the pleasure of meeting Jazz Jennings and much of her wonderful family back in 2012.  I have loved her ever since we trans elders first became aware of her amazing self thanks to a 20/20 Barbara Walters interview when she was just six.

Now Jazz is 16, and the trailblazing firsts for her just keep coming as the first out trans person to have a doll modeled on her.

At the Toy Fair in New York that starts today and runs until February 21, the Tonner Doll Company will unveil a prototype of the doll modeled on our fave trans teen.   The dolls are set to do a limited production run starting in the late spring or the early summer

“Ever since I was little, I always loved playing with dolls,” Jazz said in an New York Times interview. “It was a great way to show my parents that I was a girl, because I could just express myself as I am. So this really resonates with me, because it was something so pivotal in my own journey.”

The company markets collectible dolls to adults, and the Jazz dolls will sell for $89.99.  Another version of the doll in a white party dress will sell for $100    A portion of the proceeds from the sales of the dolls will go toward helping trans kids

With the numbers of trans kids increasing every day, this is a BFD to have a doll that is modeled on a trans person
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I Love This Afrocentric Barbie!

This is the 50th anniversary year of the birth of Mattel's iconic Barbie doll.

Barbie has had a somewhat interesting relationship with Black women and the Black community. The first Black Barbie dolls weren't created until 1980, although Christie dolls were available starting in 1968. The Oreo Barbie was a PR disaster, but the AKA Barbie they created for the sorority's Centennial celebration last year was a big success commercially and PR wise.

However, the reviews inside and outside the Afrosphere about Mattel's announced intention to make their iconic doll more Afrocentric have been mixed as well.

I own nine Barbies of various shades, but they still have the same Eurocentric Barbie nose and lips. In addition, the dolls have substituted light brown, brown and green eyes for blue.

Well, if they want a better idea how to do it besides take their stock Eurocentric doll with straight hair and make it slightly darker, they need to surf on over to Tabloach Productions and peep the retooled custom Barbies Loanne Hizo Ostlie does.

It may seem insignificant to some of you reading this post, but when you are a minority, you have to constantly be on guard against the negative messages that the dominant culture constantly and insidiously bombards at us and our children.

So yeah, I'm definitely loving and feeling these Afrocentric Barbies.

H/T Womanist Musings

Oreo Barbie

Last year Mattel hit a marketing home run when they created an AKA Barbie doll in honor of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority's centennial celebration.

I'm a Barbie fan and own a few of my own, and in this 50th anniversary year I thought I'd mention a Barbie design that didn't go over so well with a segment of the public.

Usually the Mattel folks are pretty savvy and on target when it comes to creating various Barbies, but on this one they missed badly. Somebody either wasn't paying attention or they didn't have any African-Americans in the R&D department to tell them how problematic having a Black Oreo doll would be.

In 1994 as part of a store cross promotion with Nabisco, they created a white Oreo cookie Barbie that was sold in grocery stores. The doll flew off the shelves and in 1997 they decided to produce a Black version of it.

While I understand what Mattel and Nabisco were trying to do in cross promote the world's most famous doll, the Oreo cookie line and creating as diverse a lineup of dolls for it as possible, Oreo has another connotation in the Black community beyond just being a slammin' cookie.

Calling someone an 'Oreo' is fighting words. It means that you are calling them Black on the outside and white on the inside. Translation, you call a Black person an Oreo, you are accusing them of being a sellout or an Uncle Tom to the race.

It's an image that is so ingrained in the African-American community's mind Michael Steele tried to seize on it by claiming that progressive Blacks threw Oreo cookies at him handed out by Democrats during a 2002 Baltimore debate appearance for the Maryland governor's race, a claim which has largely been debunked.

Predictably the doll sold so poorly it was recalled. It's ironically a highly sought after doll by Barbie collectors.

By the way, has anyone sent one to Condoleezza yet?

Happy 50th Birthday Barbie!

Happy 50th birthday to Barbara Millicent Roberts. Even though we share the same last name, we aren't related. On top of that, Barbara's plastic and way shorter than me at only 11.5 inches tall.

Today is the 50th birthday of the most popular toy line ever conceived, the Barbie doll. Mattel has sold over a billion dolls since it was introduced at the New York Toy Fair on this date in March 1959. I can vouch for that since I own nine of them in various skin tones plus one that honors a certain sorority that has salmon pink and apple green colors.

Of course, since this was the 50's, the sistah Barbies didn't debut until 1980, but they did produce an African-American Christie doll starting in 1968 that was Barbie's girlfriend. But once they debuted, those sistah Barbie's eventually encompassed the rainbow of skin tones prevalent with African descended women over the years. Latina and Asian versions were produced along with a line of Barbies that wore various national costumes.

Barbie was also ahead of the curve in terms of depicting women performing various jobs in society.

An astronaut Barbie was sold in 1965 despite the fact the first US woman in space didn't happen until the shuttle program blasted off in 1979. Barbie's also been an airline pilot, flight attendant, ballerina, teacher, gymnast, skater, NASCAR driver, WNBA ballplayer, cowgirl, a cheerleader for various colleges, politician (stop snickering), doctor, surgical nurse, a member of all branches of the military and Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.

As part of the US bicentennial celebrations in 1976 there's even a Barbie that was placed in the time capsule that will be opened in 2076 for the US tricentennial.

'Barbie doll' has even become a part of our lexicon, humor, academic and general societal discourse. Ask anyone who majored in women's studies and a certain Alaska governor about that.

She has even joined a sorority. Last year a collectors Barbie was created for Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. in honor of their centennial celebration last year. It was the first Barbie that Mattel had created that honored any sorority, Black or white. The AKA Barbie also has the distinction of being the first doll created to honor any historically Black organization as well.

Of course, Barbie has always been synonymous with fashion, as witnessed by the various collector Barbies that sported clothes designed by Bob Mackie and Byron Lars and the runway event held during New York's Fashion Week last month as part of the Barbie 50th anniversary celebrations.

So Happy Birthday to a timeless and iconic slice of childhood, the Barbie doll.