I will confess that, as a young boy, I played with dolls. With my sister’s permission. I was about seven years old, and she was eight.
She owned the dolls — Barbie, Midge, Skipper, and Ken — and ultimately controlled the script. I was always delegated to handle Ken, having been qualified for that role by my possession of a Y chromosome.
To be honest, I would have preferred to play with GI Joe. But I couldn’t imagine myself walking into the toy store and buying a doll. Even if the doll came with a machine gun and hand grenades.
And my sister, the pacifist, would never think of buying a GI Joe doll. So I played with Ken, and learned how to ask Barbie out on a date, or to the prom. Even though Ken actually had a thing for Midge. Those freckles! What was it about a girl with freckles that turned Ken on? I can’t really say.
I’ve never made this confession publicly before, but I determined that the time is right, because of the tariff controversy going on.
Almost all dolls, these days, are manufactured in China or Vietnam or the Philippines.
Back when I was a kid, Barbie and Ken were made in Japan, as were the stylish outfits that they wore for maybe an hour at the most, before changing into something more comfortable. As I recall, my sister amassed a walk-in closet (made of cardboard) full of Barbie outfits, but I think Ken had only a couple of suits, one of which as a bathing suit. He might have also had a tennis outfit.
Our President, Donald Trump, addressed the ‘doll issue’ rather succinctly last week.
“You know, someone said, ‘Oh, the shelves, they’re going to be empty.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. But we’re not talking about something that we have to go out of our way. They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which — not all of it — but much of which we don’t need. And, we have to make a fair deal.”
Before I go any further, I want to note that my sister had four dolls — Barbie, Midge, Skipper and Ken — and could play for hours with those four dolls. I don’t think any child needs 30 dolls. But perhaps, more than two?
Those freckles!
I also want to file an official objection to the implication that we don’t need the things we get from China. Girls need dolls. (Boys, not so much. But plastic guns are also made in China.)
Yes, we need deals, and I have no doubt we’re going to get some deals. But we also need dolls.
White House aide Stephen Miller followed up on President Trump’s suggestion, last week, proposing that parents will be “willing to pay more” for American-made dolls. But maybe fewer of them?
Mr. Miller was asked about dolls by a reporter. Specifically, about the President’s suggestion that dolls made in America would cost more.
“He was making the point,” Mr. Miller explained, “that I think almost every American consumer agrees with. What — if they had a choice between… a doll from China that might have, say, lead paint in it, that is not as well constructed as a doll made in America, that has a higher environmental and regulatory standard, and that is made to a higher degree of quality, and those two products are both on Amazon, that yes, you’d probably be willing to pay more for a better-made American product.”
On Monday, Mattel, the purveyors of Barbie and Ken, said it would raise prices on U.S. toys because of the President’s tariffs. I got that news from the New York Times.
The reporter had written:
On Monday, Mattel, the U.S. toy company and maker of Barbies, said it would raise prices on U.S. toys because of Mr. Trump’s 145 percent tariffs on imports from China.
But I prefer to refer to Mattel as the “purveyor of Barbie” rather than as the “maker of Barbie”, because Barbie is made in China.
Political commentator and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly opined that President Trump doesn’t carefully consider his statements, about dolls, or about anything, really.
“There is no strategy. Donald Trump is not a calculated speaker. He doesn’t sit around with his advisers asking, ‘What should I say?’ He says anything he wants to say.
“Rich guys say anything they want to say, OK? And since he fits into that category from the time he’s been seven years old, he said whatever he wants to say.”
Did Donald play with Ken when he was seven?
Impossible. He was born in 1946, and would have been 13 years old when Mattel’s Barbie first hit the toy store shelves, and was 15 years old by the time Ken was introduced.
Also, the President doesn’t seem like the type who would play with Ken.
But maybe with GI Joe?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.