BarbieSince the dawn of time, toys have often been an indicator of how a society behaves and how it interacts with its children. For example, in ancient Greece, the discovered objects testify that children were simply not given toys to play with like in the modern world. The cruel ritual of leaving a sick child for dead on the side of a hill seems to indicate a lack of care for young people (Lord 16). The same is true in today’s society. As you can see from the number of toy stores in our society, we find toys of great value in our lives and love to give them to children as gifts. Ask any young girl what she wants for Christmas and you'll undoubtedly get the same answer: "A Barbie." But what exactly sparked this baby boomer craze for Barbie, and how did the world get so caught up in it? The answer lies in Ruth Handler's vision for the first adult doll for children. Ms. Handler's eleven-and-a-half-inch piece of plastic began causing problems even before its public debut in 1959, but managed to become one of America's favorite dolls. Ruth Handler and her two young children, Barbara and Ken, were simply sightseeing. in Lucerne, Switzerland, when Mrs. Handler first saw the doll she herself had tried to create (Lord 29). In the window of a small gift shop sat an eleven and a half inch tall plastic doll with a slim female body and a long blonde ponytail. Her name was Lilli (“Bad Girl” 1). She had been created from a cartoon character in a West German tabloid similar to the National Inquirer (Lord 8). Provocatively dressed and with a seductive look, Lilli had become a "popular pornographic gag gift for men" ("Bad Girl" 1). Excited to see her long-held idea become a reality, Ms. Handler purchased three of the dolls and hurried home to begin work on her own doll ("Bad Girl" 2). The year was 1956, and within three years, Mattel Creations began marketing the “teenage model” as “a new type of real-life doll” (Tosa 30). The new doll, called "Barbie", is named after her own daughter Barbara, who, after many years of playing with paper dolls, inspired her to begin designing the three-dimensional adult doll (Lord 30) . Although Ms. Handler's version of The Doll was not as racy or attractive as Lilli, her imitation of the "German streetwalker" would come back to haunt her many years later ("Bad...... middle of paper... ... body and a new direction, she intends to become even more spectacular with many new adventures and many new friends. Barbie's new look includes a wider waist, smaller hips, a smaller bust. torpedoed” and flat rather than pointed feet (“Bad Girl”)” 3). She also plays an active role in new research into prosthetics. Jane Bahor, a woman who makes replacement parts, experimented with the plastic knee joints of Barbie's legs. She discovered that they worked well as prosthetic fingers. his patients because they “are more realistic and more useful”. So far, Bahor has provided replacement joints for more than a dozen of his patients and has done extremely well in his studies ("Bad Girl" 27). As Barbie sees. ready to move up to the big 4-2, it's unreal to think she's completed her latest makeover. There is no doubt that as time changes and people's attitudes to..