The Banality of Evil: Barbie Edition

Right, so it’s not like anyone would actually turn to the Barbie product line for an accurate depiction of … well, anything, but this infernal little whittle-waisted doll still finds a way to stick to many girls’ formative years like a bad gel manicure.

And clearly, she and her makers at Mattel haven’t learned much from her brush with the Barbie Liberation Organization, for example, as they’ve cooked up yet another way for her to effectively bleat “math is hard” before hunting for some boys to sweet-talk into handling her own business.

In the deceptively titled “Barbie i can be… a Computer Engineer,” Barbie demonstrates that she cannot, in fact, be a computer engineer, at least not on her own — but she can mess everything up and still steal the credit for what she manipulates Brian and Steven into doing for her.

This all drove Gizmodo’s Pamela Ribon to post a funny and appropriately expletive-riddled takedown, as she has a daughter still in her toddler years, precariously poised on the brink of prime susceptibility to Barbie’s plastic charms:

I recently paid a visit to my sweet friend Helen Jane and was excited to find this book at her house.

(The second book of the “2 Books in 1!” is “Barbie [i can be…] an Actress.” We’ll get to that later.) Helen Jane has two little girls under the age of six. I have a daughter who is almost two.

“This is great!” I said. “Barbie wants to be a computer engineer! And fifty stickers!”

“Yeah, I was really excited at first, too,” Helen Jane said. “Because, like you, I believe in the good of people. But then, like I’m sure you’ve experienced a million times, I was reminded you should never believe in the good of people.”

“Oh, no. Should I read it?”

“You must. Immediately.”

It’s even worse than you might imagine. As for Barbie, she’s well on her way to a successful career in upper management somewhere in Silicon Valley. Lean in, girls.

–Posted by Kasia Anderson