barbie goes global

I love it. At Barbie.com, you (our your son or daughter, if you like), can play "happy family games", decorate your computer, be phone friends with Barbie, and of course SHOP with Barbie.

I bring this up because the darling little girl sitting on her mother's lap, next to me in this internet cafe in Buenos Aires, is navigating the Barbie web as we speak. Mom made her type in the address ("look what you've got, honey: barbi.comm") but now mom is translating the page out loud from English. Mom doesn't realize, I guess, that Barbie is now available directly in Spanish (and Italian, German, Swedish, Portuguese, Dutch, British...).



I'd navigated the Barbie web myself, a few months ago, with a 5-year-old from Philadelphia named Meghan:


This time I investigated the international slant a bit further, and found that Barbie isn't as international as you'd think. The American Barbie is quite American, sporting some casual blue pants (below left), but there is only one Barbie for all the rest of the countries. She's blonde, of course (even the Latina Barbie), and she's got this hideous pink dress on.


I know they make darker Barbies (or at least ones who aren't blonde), so what's up with the photos, Mattel? Not all posh princesses are blonde. Some of them don't even want to be.

previously there was Cow Tools
afterwards you have Diccionario

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