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    It’s Still Barbie’s World

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    A new exhibition reminds us that while the famous doll can now do any job, her greatest power is selling stuff — to children and adults alike.At the latest celebration of the world’s most famous doll, everything is pink.People speak in hushed tones, pointing out their favorite — the one they had, or wanted desperately — and laugh with childish wonder about the fantastical stories they used the curvy, 11.5 inch figure to tell. Strangers of all ages swap tales and compare models. Some recall being forbidden to own the doll, with its rather sexy adult body; some profess disinterest or even disdain; and others wonder about how sustainable it is to produce so many of the plastic figures that three are sold every second.Love her or hate her, Barbie — 65 this year and still basking in the glow of her recent Hollywood success — has a powerful hold on the cultural imagination of adults and children alike. At “Barbie: The Exhibition,” running through Feb. 23, 2025, at the Design Museum in London, 180 chronologically displayed dolls and accessories chart her aesthetic and sociocultural shifts.The show opens with the original: the first Barbie ever, spotlit on a pedestal where she turns slowly in her strapless black-and-white-striped bathing suit, her tiny feet wedged into precariously high kitten-heel sandals, her blonde ponytail coif immaculate. Nearby, the first commercial for the doll plays on a monitor, its sugary sweet jingle drifting through subsequent rooms: “Barbie’s small and so petite, her clothes and figure look so neat!” and “Purses hats and gloves galore, and all the gadgets gals adore! Barbie, beautiful Barbie …”By the last gallery, Barbie has a mansion, a camper van, a cabin in Aspen, a hot rod, a mini car and a pool with a slide.Benjamin Cremel/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel in 1945 and acted as its first president, conceived of Barbie in the early 1950s, it was as an alternative to the omnipresent baby doll, which she thought — watching her daughter play — automatically socialized young girls for marriage and motherhood.Barbie, launched to some skepticism from male executives in 1959, was an adult woman with a glamorous interchangeable wardrobe, offering more role play options. For parents spooked by Barbie’s maturity, Mattel developed more benign options, including a freckled best friend, Midge (1963) and little sister Skipper (1964). Ken, Barbie’s devoted boyfriend, appeared in 1961, with a head of strange velvet hair. And so, the franchise grew and grew.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Power of Cute: Sweet, Cuddly and Taking Over the World

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      There is plenty of fun and truly adorable stuff in “Cute,” a new exhibition in London. But there are some creepy and unsettling things, too.Try this: Ask someone you know to define “cute.” They are not allowed to simply give an example of a cute thing, so no babies or sweet little rabbits singing a song about being brave; they must try and give a definition for the adjective itself. See how long it takes before words give way to gestures (hands making clutching motions, arms squeezing tightly around invisible teddy-bear-size objects) or inarticulate noises (cries of anguished delight, high-pitched vowel sounds). See how long it takes before they are scrunching up their faces in what looks a lot like pain.It’s not just that the term is difficult to define, it’s that there is often a confounding gap between the smallness, or seeming irrelevance, of the cute object, and the strength and range of the feelings it invokes. Words alone don’t seem to cover it.Cuteness — its properties, its uses and its increasingly dominant position in culture — is the subject of a dazzling new exhibition in London called simply “Cute,” running at Somerset House through April 14. Not exactly a history of an aesthetic and not exactly, or not only, a collection of particularly cute commodities, the show explores the unsettling power of apparently powerless things, looking at the fantasies that cuteness enables and creates, and making us think about how and why it has come to saturate our world.“Go On and Hit a Lick of Benevolence” by Sean-Kierre Lyons. The exhibition features several works of contemporary art.David Parry/Press Association for Somerset HouseWhy does everything have to be so cute now? What does it mean that we have so enthusiastically allowed ourselves to be manipulated by an aesthetic that prioritizes the infantile, the teeny-weeny, the doe-eyed? Why, when I saw a can of Hello Kitty-branded motor oil in one of the show’s first rooms, did I desperately want to pick it up and give it a big hug while shouting, “Awwwwwww?” Why am I trying to buy one on eBay right now? I don’t even have a car.If these questions give off a strong smell of the seminar room, do not be cast down: There is plenty of fun, and truly adorable stuff, to be consumed. Just ask the group of girls who were giddily twirling around taking selfies in the Hello Kitty disco room on the morning that I visited. (The show, in fact, is sponsored by Sanrio, the Japanese company that created Hello Kitty, and is timed to coincide with her 50th birthday this year. She’s 50 years old! According to a sign at the show, she was born in London on Nov. 1, dreams of becoming a poet and is the height of five apples! She doesn’t have a mouth!)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More