Forever Barbie_ The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll - Lord [109]
After some reflection, however, she discerned what really bothered her. "Giving little girls anything that makes them want to emulate a totem or an individual—rather than a generic idea of girlhood or womanhood—seems to be very unhealthy," she said. "It's like bad karma. If the greatest destiny is to find your own unique path, then one of the worst things you can do is suggest that people follow your way. I am not a totem. I have three younger sisters that I helped to raise, and when I started modeling, I wouldn't let my mother put my pictures up anywhere in the house."
Hutton was sixteen when Mattel brought out Barbie, a doll that didn't exactly win her heart. "I thought it was even creepier than the larvae I had beheaded," she said. "But when Brigitte Bardot came out, I remember thinking that she and the doll were sort of similar. You could say the first great international icon was Bardot. She was always pictured in a bouffant gingham skirt—spaghetti straps, big bouffant, and a tiny, tiny waist. She had that long fine neck and these long, long bones. And she'd be up on real high heels. And we were all trying to look like that."
Except that unlike most of her peers, Hutton was successful at it—which galled other women. "I would have women be incredibly rude to me right to my face. Rude and feline and mean—when I was as innocent as a lamb, just standing there. I've always liked women, so when they were rude, I would assume I'd misheard them." But as Hutton's celebrity grew, she had to acknowledge that her ears worked fine: "You'd go to dinner and the wife would shake your hand and her opening words would not be, 'Hello, how are you?' They would be, 'Oh, I hate you. When my husband said you were going to dinner, I said, Oh, my God, not her.
Yet when Hutton herself matured, she understood the resentment. "It took me about seven years to turn forty," she said. "I went from thirty-eight to forty-five and it was so horrible and so painful. I had been a celebrated 'girl,' and suddenly I was a woman and there was no place for women in our society— unless they had made some incredible mark, usually by imitating a man, in a business way. When I was turning forty, sometimes I would see a beautiful young girl and I would get so confused I'd want to hide. I suddenly understood what a lot of the feelings toward me had been about. And I had real sympathy. I would feel jealousy deep inside—and I would be very ashamed of myself because I've always loathed that in me, at any time about anything. I was seeing someone young and beautiful and I didn't feel that I was young and beautiful. And in fact, I wasn't: I was no longer a girl."
"But you were still beautiful," I couldn't help blurting.
"The beauty of women was not accepted or celebrated," Hutton explained. "It had no credentials, was not certified, was not allowed, did not exist in our society. It's a brand-new idea and it's just happening now in America."
If Hutton is right, this could mean a new challenge for Mattel: Mature Barbie. Not Crone Barbie or Decrepit Barbie, but a Barbie who's been around the block, and looks better for the wear.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE BARBIE
Cindy Jackson, the Fremont, Ohio-born founder of the London-based Cosmetic Surgery Network, may be the ultimate Barbie performance artist. She has had more than twenty operations and spent $55,000 to turn herself into a living doll. She has had chemical peels, tummy tucks, facelifts, eye-lifts, breast implants, and liposuction. She has even had two nose jobs.
"I'm registered with the British Internal Revenue as the Bionic Woman," she explained. "I run my cosmetic surgery bureau as a firsthand experience, so all my operations are tax-deductible. . . . The BBC even paid for my boob job." But no longer is she satisfied merely remaking herself. Her mission, which evolved while assisting other women through Barbie-izations, is to create "a bionic army."
In Barbie's early years, Mattel struggled to make its doll