Just Us: An American Conversation

by Claudia Rankine

See the essay by art historian Carol Ockman, “Barbie Meets Bouguereau: Constructing an Ideal Body for the Late Twentieth Century,” in The Barbie Chronicles: A Living Doll Turns Forty: “On a trip to Germany, Handler supposedly saw a doll called Bild Lilli, sold principally in smoke shops as a kind of three-dimensional pinup. Based on a comic strip character that appeared in the German newspaper Bild Zeitung, Bild Lilli had a ponytail, feet molded into high heels, and clothes for all occasions. The principal narrative of the comic shows Lilli, scantily clad, in situations were she is taking money from a man. Unlike Barbie, Bild Lilli was not made for children but for men, who displayed her on the dashboard of their cars and, more bizarre still, gave her to their girlfriends instead of flowers or chocolates. Handler decided to reinvent this pornographic caricature as the all-American girl.”