Barbie: who cares?

So, this week I've been inundated with reminders that that blond bimbo who lurks on the boundaries of my childhood, is now 50 years old. I get that Toys R Us wants me to care. I don't get why the major news outlets are desperate for me to care, too.
Barbie was designed, if memory serves, after a German sexy-doll Lilli, and has been giving little girls completely unrealistic notions of what they should look like and what they should want ever since. Pink Corvette? Yes. Gunsafe? No. Not even with marabou trim. Be a stewardess? Yes. Be an investment banker? No. Get married? Yes, yes, yes! Find an independent identity that does not codependently anchor to a man? What kind of lesbo crazy talk is that?!
Now, what's weird is when I was young, GI Joe was one dude. He was a half inch taller than Barbie (b/c, like, god forbid a woman be taller than a man!). He also had 'fashion'--changes of clothes like his arctic parka and his desert fatigues. But when you stripped him down to change his clothes, you would discover this: SOMEONE had gone through a lot of trouble to injection mold plastic briefs onto Joe (including the seam details) and then paint it bright freakin' blue. No tighty-whiteys for Joe!
This detail haunted my early adolescence. Why is Barbie, when she's nekkid, *nekkid*, but Joe isn't? Why did Joe morph into a multicultural rainbow coalition of doomfighting? Why can't you take off his clothes any more? (I guess Barbie's stuck with that drip Ken, now).
HK, whose Barbie slept with her Joe for government secrets. Obviously nothing happened: he kept his drawers on. I suspect he needed Viagra. And if you need Viagra with Barbie, well god help us other girls.
Barbie was designed, if memory serves, after a German sexy-doll Lilli, and has been giving little girls completely unrealistic notions of what they should look like and what they should want ever since. Pink Corvette? Yes. Gunsafe? No. Not even with marabou trim. Be a stewardess? Yes. Be an investment banker? No. Get married? Yes, yes, yes! Find an independent identity that does not codependently anchor to a man? What kind of lesbo crazy talk is that?!
Now, what's weird is when I was young, GI Joe was one dude. He was a half inch taller than Barbie (b/c, like, god forbid a woman be taller than a man!). He also had 'fashion'--changes of clothes like his arctic parka and his desert fatigues. But when you stripped him down to change his clothes, you would discover this: SOMEONE had gone through a lot of trouble to injection mold plastic briefs onto Joe (including the seam details) and then paint it bright freakin' blue. No tighty-whiteys for Joe!
This detail haunted my early adolescence. Why is Barbie, when she's nekkid, *nekkid*, but Joe isn't? Why did Joe morph into a multicultural rainbow coalition of doomfighting? Why can't you take off his clothes any more? (I guess Barbie's stuck with that drip Ken, now).
HK, whose Barbie slept with her Joe for government secrets. Obviously nothing happened: he kept his drawers on. I suspect he needed Viagra. And if you need Viagra with Barbie, well god help us other girls.