Hindsight is 20/20. And if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t!
Germany, 1952. “Reinhard Beuthien had been hired by the company Axel Springer SE to draw a one-panel comic for their brand new tabloid, Bild.”1 On his second attempt, he drew a character who was to be known as Bild Lilli.
Lilli, as she came to be known, was anything but a modest lady. The cartoon exaggerated her form and dressed her in skimpy, tight clothing. The dialogue was full of sexual innuendo and suggestive depictions.
By 1953, Lilli had jumped from the pages of the tabloid into the stores as a plastic replica of the cartoon. However, the buyers were not primarily children. It was grown men who would purchase these dolls in tobacco stores, adult magazine shops, newspaper kiosks, and other adult establishments. The doll would be given at bachelor parties and guys would put them on their dashboard or hang them from the rearview mirror.
Advertisements encouraged men to buy these for their wives and girlfriends as subtle suggestions of what they were looking for. Rather than being offended or repulsed, women started buying the dolls, creating similar outfits for themselves, and copying the excessive makeup styles. The sexual explosion had begun.
Ruth Handler, an American businesswoman and her husband, Elliott, were on vacation in Switzerland. Lilli had made it to that country and Ruth thought this would be a great gift for their preteen daughter. Ruth purchased rights to Lilli, thinking she could do something with it, and on this day in 1959, the Barbie doll was introduced.
About 350,000 Barbies sold in the first year.2 Today, 58 million are sold to people in 150 countries.3 
Though Mattel would disagree, comparing the two dolls side by side reveals that very little has changed over the past 65 years. While the makeup is toned down and the face doesn’t look quite as hard, the features are still disproportionate and many of the outfits are still immodest.
The Barbie has long been ridiculed for its unrealistic depiction of women. In fact, studies have found that if you kept the proportions the same and grew Barbie into a life-size woman, “she’d be forced to walk on all fours and would be physically incapable of lifting her over-sized head – perhaps a far cry from what the designers of Mattel envisioned… Her 16-inch waist would also be four inches thinner than her head, leaving room for only half a liver and a few inches of intestine. Like her fragile 3.5 inch wrists, her 6-inch ankles would prevent her from heavy lifting. Then, as far as holding up her entire body – despite so much of it missing – it’d be an entirely impossible feat requiring her to walk on all fours.”4
As a dad and a guy, I plead utter ignorance. Nobody thought about this when my girls were little. There were no warnings coming from ANYWHERE – not from the pulpit, not from the pew, and not from any Christian books. Girls play with dolls and do the whole “dress-up” thing. They always have. We never purchased a Barbie with immodest clothing and no “naked” Barbies were allowed to be left laying around. They had to be fully clothed. So, it was just the next step away from the doll babies the girls played with when they were little.
Had we known the history of this doll and really thought about the ramifications of the imagery, these vile things would have never come into the house!
This is just one of the many evidences of the truth found in 2 Corinthians 11:14-15. “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. (15) Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”
If Satan can take a sexually provocative and risqué cartoon, lift it from the pages of a tabloid, transform it into a plastic “adult” doll, bring it across continents, and introduce it into a nation that once had fairly high standards and morals, Satan can do 
just about anything to deceive others. But Satan didn’t stop there. He brought Barbie to life through animated cartoons.
Then, last year, Ryan Gossling and Margot Robbie starred in the Barbie movie. The language was crude and profane and there are plenty of sexually suggestive comments made.5 How many parents subjected their kids to this movie despite the adult theme?
Beware of the ways Satan tries to sneak into your life. He won’t typically come as a fire breathing horned goblin with a sinister voice. He will sneak in as an angel of light saying sweet things and appearing harmless.
As for Barbie, you decide. Seems to me, though, that having an adult doll as a child’s plaything sends the wrong message to raising Godly girls. I didn’t know these things back then. Now, you do.
1https://hobbylark.com/collecting/The-Stolen-Legacy-Of-Bild-Lilli
2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie
3https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/barbie-by-numbers
4https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2308658/How-Barbies-body-size-look-real-life-Walking-fours-missing-half-liver-inches-intestine.html
5https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/barbie-2023/
Images are taken from https://pixabay.com/, https://www.pexels.com/, or https://unsplash.com/images. According to the websites, they are Royalty Free and free to be used for our purposes.
