The Breakup

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to think that it is possible for couples to happily stay together for 50+ years. With the increasingly high divorce rates in this country, it's nice to think that there are still people that can support and love one another for the rest of their lives.

Most people don't like to see their favorite couples fail. We hate to see our friends that have been dating for years and years since high school finally hit a wall in their relationship and breakup. When those perfect couples can't make it together anymore, it makes us feel hopeless about the success of our own relationships, because those people were the epitome of the devoted and loving relationship we all desired.

This may be my traditional family-attitudes talking, but I think families should stay together. Kids have better childhoods and home lives when they have a strong parental support system and both parents are living under the same roof. For that reason I think that children should not only receive that kind of support during their years of development, but they should be encouraged to build those kinds of solid relationships when they get older. Children should be taught to value the people they are intimately involved with, they shouldn't be taught promiscuity or the unwillingness to create bonds with others.

There's enough instances of divorce and failed relationships in our society for children to witness, some of which may be occuring with their own parents. Not to mention every single drama on TV has characters with serious relationship and infidelity issues. Shouldn't there be at least one iconic relationship that shows children that successful long-term relationships are possible? That's what I always loved about Barbie. She had Ken, they were in love for years. Forty-three years in fact...

...Until Mattel decided that an iconic, universally recognized relationship isn't trendy anymore. And that's when Barbie dumped Ken, her beau of 43 years, on February 12, 2004, just 48 hours before Valentine's Day.

I couldn't believe it. Barbie and Ken were like peanut butter and jelly. That relationship was one of the only good values that Barbie demonstrated. Unlike her predecessor Bild Lilli, she had a decades-long relationship with her "soul-mate." Do you know how many times Barbie has married Ken over the years in little girls' bridal fantasies? Too many to count. Well, now they're added to the divorce list too.

Mattel took the shallow Barbie image to a new level when they offed Ken in 2004. They didn't just dump Ken and make Barbie an independent, single lady, they made her out to be a cheating, man-eating bitch. Poor Ken, after sticking by Barbies side for 43 years, he got dumped for Blaine, the "hot Australian surfer" doll. Barbie dumped her lifelong partner for the younger, cuter, more exotic Aussie doll. But I guess that's the thing to do now right? Always trade-up for the newer, more exciting version of everything. Way to be super trendy, Barbie.

Blaine, Barbie, and Ken

I like the statements Patricial O'Connell made in her 2006 BusinessWeek article about the breakup: "Barbie having a significant other never inhibited her before. In fact, having a constant steady seemed to suit Barbie just fine... [a theory is] all this is just a marketing ploy -- a publicist's dream -- to boost interest in the Cali Girl and Blaine dolls. After all, Demi Moore -- a woman of just about the same age as Barbie -- has taken up with a boy toy, Ashton Kutcher, and it has done wonders to keep her front and center in the gossip columns."

With the Barbie-Ken incident, Mattel has added another instance of betrayal to the long list of questionable relationships kids are exposed to in this society. That's all kids see in the media and TV and movies, right? Which is exactly my point. That's all kids ever see!! Why couldn't Mattel leave the one lasting relationship alone and let little kids see the possibility of strong, successful relationships in a barrage of ones that always fail?? The Barbie-Ken breakup was a ploy for media attention by Mattel, but what they either didn't realize or didn't care they were doing was promoting values, (dare I say suggestively promiscuous values,) through Barbie's actions.

I don't care how "trendy" or starved for publicity you are, STOP promoting values to kids, Mattel!