The toy firm unveiled its Kahlo Barbie after striking a deal with the Panama-based Frida Kahlo Corporation, which got the rights to Kahlo’s image from one of her nieces, Isolda Pinedo Kahlo, more than a decade ago.... Other members of the family have long been against this commercialization of the distinctive, uni-browed Kahlo image. Last year they accused the Corporation of a breach of contract that AFP now reports (details were held back at the time) was the result of the Corporation “failing to inform Kahlo’s relatives about the uses of her image.” This breach, they say, nullifies the Corporation’s right to continue licensing the image.I have no opinion about this other than... families, fighting each other over the remains of a loved one. But if money is to be made, people look to see if they can get a cut. But maybe it really is about lofty ideas about the dead artist's image and how it should be used. And yet you signed that power away, didn't you?
Barbie litigation. It's a legal specialty. I was just reading "When Barbie Went to War with Bratz/How a legal battle over intellectual property exposed a cultural battle over sex, gender roles, and the workplace" by Jill Lepore in The New Yorker (January 22, 2018 issue).
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It is due to all sorts of evil bigotry that no-one has even mentioned a Diego Rivera doll.
"Capitalist peegs!"--Frida Pablo from Commie Hell
Or a Pancho Villa doll.
That would be very interesting actually.
Would drive all sorts of people nuts.
And then there is the insurmountable evil of white people buying an image of a half-Mexican woman in a semi-ethnic costume.
Inaccurate likeness without the mustache. Must be an accessory that costs more.
And Bratz were sleazy.
Expert opinion there from brilliant daughter.
This reminds me of when I make a video game character to play. I want her interesting and special, and yet I always end up with a version of the same face because certain traits are beautiful to me.
Barbie gonna barbie.
Ah, ha. Another "brown"person doll.Trump will of course immediately refuse them entrance into the USA, while he praises the Norwegian look of Stormy Dolls that are statuesque blondes.
Does she come with her wheelchair?
buwaya wrote, It is due to all sorts of evil bigotry that no-one has even mentioned a Diego Rivera doll.
HAHA. I would love to see Matel to make a line of fat Kens.
It appears the doll designers chose to stay closer to the Salma Hayek 'Frida' than the real one.
You can't really get a good look at the breasts of the doll in the picture, so I can't tell how accurate the resemblance to Hayek is overall.
The Germans have a word for this.
The dispute over the Phyllis Diller Barbie Doll was much less contentious.
Is there a matching Squeaky Fromme doll, part of the mass murderer groupie collection?
Licensing agreements are hard...
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), a film in the Ben Still oevre, features a character done up to look like Kahlo. I wonder if the family got a cut.
The family disputes among the descendants of Martin Luther King Jr. are legion and legendary.
How can you own an image of someone?
If a photographer takes a picture of Barbie, er, Pamela Anderson (punching Barbie!) and makes money off it, how is that different than Mattel?
Obviously, IANAL.
_XC
I could understand paying for the face of a "Marylin Monroe" Barbie, but why would Mattel pay to make a doll that looks a bit like a slightly funny-looking person who almost nobody heard of? And who paints bad paintings.
My guess: the doll would be a racist caricature if it weren't (supposedly) a representation of an actual person, it doesn't really matter who.
I used to work for Barbie back when He-Man was the big dude on the block and Teddy Ruxpin had just assaulted the toy aisle unannounced. One small part of my job was hiring girls to pay Barbie at special events. I ca't imagine having to find a Frida lookalike to make a mall appearance! (Guys hired to play He-Man just had to don a giant rubber suit.)
Good times until the Great Toy recession of '86 kicked in. Then I went to work for Pepsi...
Does it come with Kahlo’s boyfriend, Trotsky doll?
Unibrow Kahlo and ice pick through the eye Trotsky.
Commie “action” figures. My GI Joe with the kung fu grip kicks their ass.
If the family really wanted to honor Frida, they'd give the rights to the state. Then half of them would stick ice picks in their heads and the other half would move to northern Alaska and eat roots while wearing rags until they died of exposure or starvation.
> Unibrow Kahlo and ice pick through the eye Trotsky.
Ice axe to the rear of the head. Where did that "icepick" meme come from?
The Barbie Stormy Daniels doll is goimg to be a full-employment act for lawyers.
Also that New Yorker article was excellent. There's book on the same subject. Mattel claims to own every idea their employees come up with whether the idea is acted upon or not. So even thought the designer of Bratz left the company before sketching out his ideas, Mattel went to (legal) war on Carter Bryant. They got a sympathetic jury in Riverside County (where I am now) to rule in their favor and fine Bryant $100M but after three years of appeals Bryant won a judgement of over $300M against Mattel. California law is very protective of IP and wary of restraint of trade. One of the few bright spots in our socialist paradise.
Anyway the entire story is fascinating for a marketing professional like me. The toy industry was (when I was in it) very cut-throat and secretive. It was easier to get into Lockheed's Skunk Works than the design basement in Mattel's Hawthorne HQ. They now claim El Segundo has corp site. Maybe the city boundaries changed.
Thank Goodness they make these Powerful Women Barbies, so I can buy them for young girls *and* simultaneously demonstrate my awareness to women's causes.
"Yes, I let my daughter play with Barbies, but they're historical strong woman figure Barbies. So it's all right"
Life is Good.
Would it damage the reputation of Marelene Dietrich if the historical record revealed that she gave Goebbels a blow job? ........Frida is justly celebrated for some of her qualities, but she did have an affair with the mass murderer, who, after Lenin, had the most to do with the triumph of the Bolsheviks. That should be the most significant fact of her life and disqualify her from Barbie Doll status. Let's save Barbie Doll status for women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Janet Reno, women who truly deserve that honor.
Rejected Mattel Barbie dolls:
1. The Klaus Barbie - for loads of Nazi fun!
Barbie litigation. It's a legal specialty.
So if Mattel decided to stop producing Barbie dolls would the lawyers in that specialty have standing to sue because not dropping Barbie from their toy lineup would deprive them of a lucrative income?
Asking on behalf of a friend.
Let's save Barbie Doll status for women like ... Janet Reno, women who truly deserve that honor.
Yup. Janet was the person in charge when her FBI killed 76 people in Waco, including 21 children (11 aged 3 or younger), many burned to death, not to mention the wife and son of Randy Weaver a year earlier at Ruby Ridge. If that many dead bodies doesn't qualify a woman for being honored, then nothing does.
Mike said...
"The toy industry was (when I was in it) very cut-throat and secretive."
Murderous even:
"A toy designer at Marvin Glass and Associates killed three of the concern's employees and himself today and wounded two other persons, the police said.
The police identified the gunman as Al Keller, 33 years old, who had worked for the toy concern for four years."
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/28/archives/toy-designer-kills-three-in-chicago-plant-shootings.html
It was a big story at the time in Chicago and I remember it clearly but there is virtually nothing on line about it.
I'll wait for "Movie Frida Barbie," who looks like Salma Hayek--as opposed to "Real Life Frida Barbie," who looks like . . . well, real life Frida. (Who holds a paintbrush in one hand, and a copy of the Communist Manifesto in the other hand.)
Every time I see Giada de Laurentiis on one of the cooking shows, I always compare her to Bratz dolls. Head way too big for her body and dressed in tight, low cut clothes.
Has Barbie ever honored an overweight or homely woman? Is Frida being honored for her artistic (kind of) achievements or for her (kind of) good looks? Is it even possible for Barbie to make a statement that doesn't have a subtext of sexism?......I've got nothing against sexism. It's one of those things that gives life its savor and significance, but the hypocrisy is irritating.
Half Price Books sells a brown Che Guevara doll, even though he was of Irish and Basque blood. His hair was dark, maybe black, but no darker than many an Irishman's hair. His name wasn't even Che; that's just what every Latino calls anyone from Argentina, the whitest country in Latin America.
He wasn't blond, that's true, and he was tanned when he out fighting in wild tropical lands, but it seems communism, third-worldism, and Anti-Americanism can turn a white man into a POC, if he speaks Spanish, I suppose.
Oh, and the Frida doll has twice as many eyebrows as the woman.
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