The secret, salacious world of Barbie and Ken

Photo: Getty Images

Though Barbie and Ken have been held up as the poster couple for traditional All-American values for nearly half a century, we know better. There's always been something a little bit -- or a lot bit -- off about the plastic pair and a new book due out next month confirms our suspicions that things in the Mattel universe weren't exactly as wholesome as they seemed.

In Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel, Jerry Oppenheimer claims Jack Ryan, the Yale-educated designer who popularized Barbie, was a "full-blown seventies-style swinger" with "a manic need for sexual gratification."

Among the juicer bits to look forward to (courtesy of the NY Post):

> Ryan supposedly kept himself surrounded by Barbie clones including Gwen Florea, who was the "voice of Barbie" in a line of talking dolls. She's quoted in the book as saying, "He once said to me he loved me being tall so he could stick his nose in my boobs when he hugged me."

> Ryan's friend Stephen Gnass claims, "When Jack talked about creating Barbie ... it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode, almost like listening to a sexual pervert ... " and that Ryan patronized "high-class call girls (and) streetwalkers."

> Ken Handler, the son of Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot Handler and the doll's namesake, "grew up embarrassed and humiliated by having an anatomically incorrect boy doll named after him ... [with] no hint of genitalia."

> Though he married and fathered three children, Oppenheimer claims Ken Handler was gay. "To all those who knew him Ken Handler was a wonderful father, a loving husband ... But there was another side to Ken. And in 1990 he was formally diagnosed with AIDS. His parents and wife were shocked." He died in 1994 in Greenwich Village, but obits didn't mention the disease.

It just goes to show that when something seems too good -- or perfect or proportionate -- to be true, it probably is. And while Barbie and Ken have been cast as everything from zoo keepers to dental hygienists, we're still waiting for Stone Butch Barbie and Castro Ken (though Earring Magic Ken is pretty damn close).

-- NOAH MICHELSON

Previously > 16 going on gay

Comments

[cb]

better buy the book before mattel gets it removed from the market.

[Cand86]

Stone Butch Barbies:

http://www.dykedolls.com/

And they're so cute!

[Cand86]

Stone Butch Barbies:

http://www.dykedolls.com/

And they're so cute!