Time to gripe: everyone hates Frida

Time to talk about Barbie again.  Barbie is releasing a series of dolls based on inspirational women, and I'm tickled pink to see some of the people they're representing.  Bindi Irwin will be in the lineup, as will Amelia Earhart and this super-neat lady that I'd never heard of named Katherine Johnson.  Miss Katherine was a math teacher and a worker for NASA, at a time when women and people of color tended to be overlooked for such positions, and I love that.  Her doll is epic.  I also find Miss Katherine's story inspiring from a personal standpoint, as she proves one can be a scientist and still have a relationship with God (she's a Presbyterian).  It can be lonesome and frightening sometimes when you're a Christian and a science major, so I enjoy Katherine's story.

Also among the dolls to be represented is Frida Kahlo.  She is the center of this post, so here's a picture of her.

Frida was a danged communist, usually wear a scarlet letter in my book (I despise communism).  However, I love Frida's emotionally charged (occasionally graphic) paintings and her refusal to adhere to conventional beauty (she had a unibrow and a mustache), so to me she seems like a rational and original addition to the Barbie lineup.  Unfortunately...here comes the controversy.  Mattel apparently didn't get permission from Frida's family...wait a minute...she has surviving family???  Must be great nieces and nephews, as Frida was unable to carry a child due to a very unfortunate accident during her youth.  Anywho, Mattel didn't get permission from the family to use her image, and now they're mad about it.  They're also upset that Mattel tweaked the doll's appearance, doing away with the unibrow and the mustache.  I can understand that, because no Frida Kahlo doll is accurate without a unibrow and a mustache.  I give the family and the critics that.  Apparently Frida was also a rather voluptuous woman, and Mattel chose to give her a skinny body instead of the curvy one that they have available.  Mmmkay...that criticism is justified as well, particularly since Mattel has the resources to make the doll more accurate.

The intellectuals on Tumblr have dragged race into the mix and used a lot of ugly language to do it.  I don't blame folks for being mad about this doll's inaccuracy, but what does race have to do with it???  There are more minorities than whites planned in that inspirational women line, so how on earth does race factor in there.  Quite a bit of ignorance was perpetrated with Frida, yes...but racism?  No.  There is a lot of cash-grabbing here; Mattel wanted to appeal to the trendy "girls can do anything" tagline, and so they rushed a doll into production without covering their butts.  Mattel's failure to cover their butts surprises me since the designers worked closely with Katherine Johnson to make sure her doll was right.  But I fail to see the racism here.  I just see a doll company making a bunch of silly mistakes in order to heed the call of the holy dollar.  And Mattel NEEDS the holy dollar; Barbie's sales continue to slump, and I doubt the line of inspirational dolls will help, particularly since so many are now upset over Frida.

I personally am delighted to see Frida represented by a doll, flaws or no, and since she's controversial I want her.  Don't I always?  I can just hear my grandmother hollering "You ornery thing!"  But what say y'all?  Racist or just stupidly inaccurate? 

Cordially yours,

RagingMoon1987