Single Barbie finds new boy toy

By Dustin J. SEIBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer

AP Blaine, an Australian boogie boarder, is Barbie's new suitor.

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Barbie's got a new boy toy. His name is Blaine, and he's replacing longtime boyfriend Ken after the surprise ending of Ken and Barbie's 43-year relationship in February.

Blaine's welcome isn't especially warm among collectors and die-hard fans of the Barbie dynasty, but Margaret Voelker-Ferrier isn't buying the hype.

"Obviously it's a gimmick," says Voelker-Ferrier, 56, a University of Cincinnati fashion design professor. She has collected about 500 Barbies since 1987, including a 1960 model she kept from her childhood, and says she isn't bothered at all by her new beau.

"I think it's refreshing and new," she says.

Barbie fans picked Blaine, a blond Australian boogie-boarder, after a two-month poll in April on Barbie.com. The poll gave fans the opportunity to keep Ken and Barbie together, have her date one of three other dolls, or just be single.

Blaine is part of Barbie's new "Cali Girl" line, which debuted this summer.

Margie Schultz, the historian for the Queen City Barbie Doll Club, a 20-member group of adult Barbie collectors and traders in Cincinnati, believes Mattel shouldn't have released Blaine at the expense of Ken, a sentiment she says is shared by many collectors she encounters.

"They could have easily introduced him as a new friend without breaking up Barbie and Ken," says Schultz, 42, a columnist for Wisconsin-based Barbie Bazaar magazine. She believes the release of the breakup news two days before Valentine's Day was a publicity stunt to get Barbie back in the public eye.

Voelker-Ferrier also feels the campaign is meant to jump-start interest in Barbie.

"This [younger] generation is not as infatuated with Barbie as we were," she says. "Collection-mania has died down."
 
However, Mattel spokesperson Audrey Henderson says the Barbie line continues to outsell its nearest doll competitors 2 to 1, with sales of $3.6 billion in 2003.

Ken first hooked up with the plastic princess in 1961. Although Barbie has undergone more than 100 face, costume and body changes since her 1959 release, the Ken doll has not changed nearly as much, something Schultz says may help sales of Blaine.

"Many people will buy him just because he's a different face," she says.

Ken and Barbie never got hitched or had children, but Schultz believes the end of their long relationship will send the wrong message to young fans.

"[Mattel] is putting forth a bad image, with divorce rates being so high."

Voelker-Ferrier theorizes that Mattel never had Ken and Barbie marry because of perceptions about his latent sexual preference.

"What if Ken is gay and coming out?" she says, pointing out the 1993 "Earring Magic Ken" doll, which gave him a pierced left ear and had him clad in a lavender mesh vest. That Ken doll became extremely popular in the gay community.

Despite the breakup, Mattel says that Ken and Barbie will "remain good friends."