This week Mattel unveiled Bedford Avenue tokidoki Barbie, who has her very first tattoo. And with said “funky” tattoo, she’s “always ready for cutting-edge fashion!” And, boy, if I know one thing about high fashion, it’s that you need to “get ready for” it.
Predictably, parents are peeved. The tentposts of moral standards that Barbie has always upheld are crumbling beneath the crumbling Planned Parenthood sign. The end is nigh. Our children are doomed.
Only it’s not the first time Barbie got a tattoo — or the first time parents got pissed. No, as one astute Nylon commenter pointed out, it was Totally Stylin’ Tattoos Barbie who first sold our daughters up the river in 2009.
Except it wasn’t even Totally Stylin’ Tattoos Barbie who first tramp-stamped her way to wholesale ignominy. Apparently, it was Butterfly Art Barbie, who “came with a permanent tattoo on Barbie’s stomach.”
I love that THIS is where parents take a stand. Apparently, the message about body image sent by her absurd proportions alone wasn’t quite enough.
