The Barbie doll and the column that never ran
In more than 35 years of writing for newspapers, I can remember only one occasion when a column was killed. It happened in 1997, but the episode came to mind this week when I read the news about the latest addition to Mattel's Barbie Fashionistas collection: a doll with Down syndrome.
"For the newest Barbie Fashionista, Mattel said it closely worked with the National Down Syndrome Society on the doll's shape, features, clothing, accessory, and packaging to ensure that it accurately represents a person with Down syndrome," CNN reported Tuesday. "The genetic condition affects cognitive ability, causing mild to severe learning disabilities and distinctive facial characteristics."
A Mattel executive told reporters that the doll reflects the company's mission "to enable all children to see themselves in Barbie, while also encouraging children to play with dolls who do not look like themselves." It has created an array of dolls with disabilities of one kind or another. There is a Barbie with a prosthetic leg, one with hearing aids, one that comes with a wheelchair, and even a doll with vitiligo, a disease that causes skin discoloration.
![]() Disability campaigner and model Ellie Goldstein holds the newest doll from Mattel, a Barbie with Down syndrome. |
CNN quoted Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, who rejoiced that "a big icon of society like Barbie now demonstrates or shows that there are different types of people . . . [who] can be attractive and something kids want to play with." Ideally, he added, the new dolls can remove stigmas surrounding disabilities so that children will know there is "nothing wrong" with people who have them.
I'm not sure I agree that children need to "see themselves in Barbie" or any other toy. Girls and boys have played forever with dolls and action figures that look nothing like them (or in some cases like anyone): Raggedy Ann and Andy, Kewpie Dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tickle Me Elmos, and countless others. On the other hand, if diversifying the look of dolls can help give children a more realistic view of the varieties of human appearance, why not do so? Considering the bigotry that Down syndrome triggers even in many highly educated people, anything that helps destigmatize the condition is to the good.
The new doll approximates the look of a young woman with Down syndrome, including a shorter frame and a longer torso. In CNN's description, "the face features a rounder shape, smaller ears, a flat nasal bridge, while the eyes are slightly slanted in an almond shape." There are pink orthotics to support the feet and ankles, and even the single crease across the palm that is often found in people with Down syndrome. Even Barbie's necklace has significance. It features three pink chevrons, representing three copies of the 21st chromosome. Most babies inherit 23 chromosomes from each parent, for a total of 46, but babies with Down syndrome have an extra chromosome at position 21. It's that genetic abnormality that triggers the development of the condition.
Which takes me back to 1997.
In May of that year, Mattel attempted its first foray into the realm of dolls with disabilities. It introduced "Share a Smile" Becky, a Barbie-like fashion doll in a wheelchair.
"Becky's bright pink wheelchair has purple shiny Mylar around the wheels and a white backpack that fits on the back of the wheelchair," the Chicago Tribune reported. "Becky sports a turquoise skirt and vest set with matching shoes, pink capri pants, and a necklace." Then as now, Mattel said its purpose was to help dispel stereotypes and teach children that someone can have a disability and still be beautiful.
But I had my doubts. Barbie had always embodied roles that girls might dream of for themselves — Ballet Barbie, Astronaut Barbie, Parisian Barbie, Miss America Barbie, Eskimo Barbie, even President Barbie. Putting Barbie in a wheelchair, I thought, amounted to treating infirmity as a source of entertainment.
But what really dismayed me was the company's press conference introducing the new doll: It was held in a room filled with girls in wheelchairs. I thought that was incredibly tasteless and exploitive. It provoked me to compose a satirical column in the form of a "confidential memo" to Mattel's board of directors from the head of the marketing division.
"The introduction of Mattel's new Wheelchair Barbie was a fantastic success," I wrote.
At the press conference on Wednesday, we hit a home run! Media coverage of the doll was glowing. . . . Filling the room with children in wheelchairs was a masterstroke. Great visuals for the TV cameras. Handicapped girls playing with our dolls — irresistible! Inviting James Brady, the former press secretary to Ronald Reagan who was shot and paralyzed during an assassination attempt, was another deft touch. Result: a tremendous PR coup for Mattel.
The "memo" went on to suggest that the company use the success of the wheelchair doll to launch other Barbies with other forms of disability or affliction.
That column never ran. It was edited and laid out for publication as usual, but when it crossed the desk of Editorial Page Editor H.D.S. Greenway, who oversaw the entire opinion section, he spiked it. "I'm killing this column," he told me, not unkindly. "Too many readers will think it's in bad taste and it will cause you more trouble than it's worth." He said the time would come when I would thank him for his decision. I groused, but I had reason to trust his good judgment. After all, he had hired me.
As it turned out, Mattel ran into problems with "Share a Smile" Becky. The wheelchair was too big to fit through the doors or onto the elevator of the Barbie Dreamhouse, the giant dollhouse that was the focal point of the Barbie universe. Rather than modify the dollhouse to accommodate the wheelchair, Mattel discontinued the Becky line altogether. It would be more than 22 years before the company would try again. In 2019, Mattel introduced a new Barbie in a wheelchair, which it said had become one of the most requested accessories from Barbie fans. This time it included a ramp compatible with the Dreamhouse. Mattel had learned from its mistake.
And I learned from mine. I still think that filling a room with disabled children to promote a new doll was disrespectful and in poor taste, but perhaps my own leap to mock Mattel's efforts was off-base too. In retrospect, I recognize the benefit in producing dolls that depict disability as just another of the varieties in which humans appear.
That is especially true of the newest Barbie.
In Europe and the United States today, a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis nearly always leads to abortion, even though the overwhelming majority of people with Down syndrome express contentment. Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston reported in 2011 that "the experience of Down syndrome is a positive one for most parents, siblings, and people with Down syndrome." In three linked surveys, the research team found that 79 percent of parents of a child with Down syndrome reported that their outlook on life was enhanced because of their child, while 94 percent of brothers and sisters of someone with Down syndrome expressed pride in their sibling. As for the Down syndrome respondents themselves, an astonishing 99 percent said they were happy with their lives.
Perhaps if more children, while still young enough to play with dolls, absorb the lesson that individuals with Down syndrome — or in wheelchairs — are a source of joy and radiance, the popular prejudice against them will diminish. I'm not sure I grasped that 26 years ago. I know better now.
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Unpatriotic millionaires
Patriotic Millionaires is a group of a few hundred superrich liberals who support — or claim to support — higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Their mission is to amplify progressive talking points and they hold themselves out as "patriots" because they are prepared to forgo more of their wealth to taxes for the good of the country.
Last month, on Tax Day, a dozen or so members of the group held a press conference on Capitol Hill to repeat their familiar argument. They were led by Morris Pearl, a former managing director at BlackRock, and Abigail Disney, an heiress to the Disney fortune, and were joined by several members of Congress.
Pointing to the US Capitol building, Pearl declared that he and the others had "one request for members of Congress in there: Tax us. We want to pay higher taxes, and everyone else wants us to pay higher taxes as well." In an op-ed published at the same time by CNN, Pearl and Disney endorsed a return "to the top rates we had through the most prosperous decades of the 20th century" which would raise the ceiling on marginal tax rates "to 90 percent for people making more than $100 million a year."
![]() Investor Morris Pearl, the founder of Patriotic Millionaires, speaks at a Capitol Hill press conference. |
Of course, talk costs nothing. But these self-described patriots could exercise real moral authority by putting their money where their mouths are and cutting a check to the IRS for the taxes they say they ought to be paying. Are they prepared to do so?
Economist and conservative activist Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, decided to find out. He showed up at the millionaires' press conference and when questions were invited, he invited them to sign a pledge promising to voluntarily turn over up to 90 percent of their wealth to the US government.
Needless to say, no one signed. While they are happy to call for higher taxes in theory, actually forking over the money to set a example for others to follow isn't on their agenda.
"We want to change the system," Pearl explained. Added Disney: "The voluntary paying of more is not going to answer the question."
There is a word for someone who loudly calls for sacrifices he or she has no intention of making. That word isn't "patriot." Genuine patriots lead the way with deeds, not words. I would be first in line to salute the patriotism of the Patriotic Millionaires if they were reaching into their own pockets and contributing generously to help pay down the federal government's debt. It isn't hard to do. Since 1843, as the Treasury Department notes on its website, the government has maintained an account "to accept gifts, such as bequests, from individuals wishing to express their patriotism to the United States." The federal government is happy to accept contributions — by credit card, debit card, PayPal, or check — from anyone who wishes to make a voluntary payment.
Apparently stung by Moore's question, Patriotic Millionaires subsequently posted an essay on its website titled "Why We Don't Just Send a Check to the IRS."
Their explanation is that voluntarily paying more taxes "wouldn't fix anything that we want fixed."
We need mammoth redistributions of wealth and income to even begin to scratch the surface of fixing our current levels of inequality. Voluntary checks would be a drop of a drop of a drop in a very large bucket here. . . . If we thought paying more in taxes voluntarily would fix our country's problems, we would do it in a heartbeat. . . .
Saying "if you want to pay more tax, then write a check to the IRS" is lazy. It is on par with saying "If you don't like things in America, then leave."
That gets it exactly backward. If the Patriotic Millionaires are sincere in urging higher tax payments from ultra-wealthy people like themselves, the most convincing way to demonstrate that sincerity would be to make such a payment, then urge others to follow suit. But they're doing the opposite, refusing to pay more until everyone pays more. By their logic, no patriot should enlist in the military until the draft is restored. No one should reduce their carbon footprint until there's a law forcing everyone to go green. No one should donate blood until doing so is mandatory for all.
What Patriotic Millionaires is peddling isn't patriotism. It's just cheap virtue signaling, and it fools no one.
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The Last Line
"On the horizon outside the window, in the direction of Saro City, a crimson glow began growing, strengthening in brightness, that was not the glow of a sun. The long night had come again." — Isaac Asimov, "Nightfall" (1941)
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(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
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