The Real-Life Barbie & Ken Hated Their Claim To Fame
Given that director Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" hit $1 billion at the worldwide box office a mere two weeks after its July 21, 2023, release, it's pretty safe to say that most fans are loving the big-screen story about the iconic doll created by Mattel President Ruth Handler in 1959. The irony, however, is that the person that Handler named the doll after — her daughter, Barbara — has never been a fan of the fame the doll brought her.
In an interview with the BBC five years before her death on April 27, 2002, at the age of 85, Ruth Handler — played by Rhea Perlman in a vital and poignant cameo in the "Barbie" movie — said, "Barbara hated being known as the inspiration for the Barbie doll — it bothered her."
Also speaking with the BBC, Barbara Handler, who was 18 years old when the first Barbie doll was released, said she found it odd when fans would ask for her autograph because her mother named the doll after her. "When people came up and say to me, 'Oh, you're the real Barbie,' I couldn't understand it because that's just a name that was given to the doll, but a lot of people thought that they modeled it after me and they made it look like me, and that I was supposed to be it," Barbara Handler said. "That's not true."
The Ken doll was named after Kenneth Handler in 1961
Barbara Handler wasn't the only child of Ruth and Elliot Handler who took exception to having a Barbie doll bearing their name. The Ken doll, released in 1961, was named after Handlers' son, Kenneth Handler, and he had mixed feelings about the toy line.
Like the life of the doll named after his sister, Barbara, Kenneth Handler said he could not relate to the backstory invented for the doll that took his name. "[The] Ken doll is Malibu. He goes to the beach and surfs," Kenneth Handler told the LA Times in 1989. "He is all these perfect American things."
On the flipside, Kenneth Handler told the LA Times that in reality he "went to movies with subtitles" and played piano as a high schooler. "I was a nerd — a real nerd," he recalled for the publication. "All the girls thought I was a jerk."
Kenneth Handler, who had two daughters at the time he did the interview with the LA Times, said he would have been open to introducing them to the world of Barbie. "If they had asked for them, I would have bought the dolls for them,' he told the newspaper. "But they never did" he noted, since they wanted stuffed animals instead.
The Ken doll's namesake thought of Barbie as a 'bimbo'
Despite having nothing in common with the Ken doll, Kenneth Handler — who died in 1994 at age 50 — warmed up to the idea of the Ken doll because of the joy the toy line brought to young fans.
He recounted for the LA Times a story about a group of young girls who lined up outside of his mother-in-law's house in Wyoming in 1963 so they could meet the person whom the Ken doll was named after. "It was a kick," Kenneth Handler told the publication. "They were so sweet and so terrific. It was so important to them."
Ultimately, though, Ken's namesake admitted in the LA Times interview that even though it's made him a "millionaire several times over," he simply did not like the Barbie doll from a personal standpoint. "I think of her as a bimbo," Kenneth Handler said. "Like she hangs out at the beach and doesn't have a brain in her head."
Barbara Handler reportedly liked the first Barbie movie trailer
While Barbara and Kenneth Handler didn't react favorably to their mother naming the Barbie and Ken dolls after them, it didn't mark the end for Ruth Handler in naming other dolls in the Barbie line after family. According to The Washington Post, the Barbie inventor's grandchildren, Stacie, Todd, and Cheryl had dolls named after them as well.
As for her impression of the "Barbie" movie, TMZ reported that Barbara Handler appeared to like what Margot Robbie brought to the role of Barbie, at least after viewing the film's first trailer in April 2023.
In the film, Robbie's Barbie — aka Stereotypical Barbie — takes a bold step ahead in her life and ventures from the confines of Barbieland to Venice Beach, California, to confront the realities of being human. Tagging along with Barbie for her trip, Ken (Ryan Gosling) learns about patriarchy in the real world and returns to Barbieland with an idea of overthrowing the town's matriarchal structure.
"Barbie" is currently playing in theaters.