Mattel, Inc. recently announced the addition of a blind Barbie doll, created to allow even more children to find a doll that represents them and inspire all children to tell more stories through play.
To create a doll that is both accessible and faithfully depicts individuals with sight loss, Mattel worked with several charities including the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).
Mattel was committed to represent individuals with blindness and low vision throughout all stages of the design process, from the doll’s sculpt to the dress pattern:
Accessories: The doll comes with a white and red cane with an identifiable marshmallow tip and includes stylish and functional sunglasses. With some blind or low-vision individuals sensitive to light, the lens provides additional eye protection.
Elbow Articulations: The blind Barbie doll includes elbow articulations to ensure comfortable cane use.
Textured and Vibrant Fabrics: Barbie conducted testing with blind and low-vision children to ensure that the doll provided an accessible and satisfying play experience for kids with blindness or low vision. With AFB’s guidance, Barbie designed the doll’s fashion to include a satiny pink blouse with a textured ruffle skirt for tactile interest. Additional details include a brightly colored high-contrast hook and loop fasteners for closure on the back of the doll’s top, as well as an elastic skirt waistband to make swapping outfits easier.
Packaging and Design: Barbie worked with AFB to create accessible packaging for the doll, including the placement and writing of ‘Barbie’ in braille on the package.
Eye Gaze: The doll is designed with an eye gaze facing slightly up and out to accurately reflect the sometimes-distinct eye gaze of a blind individual.
Doll play has proven to help develop empathy and social processing skills among children, fueling social skills needed to excel in their futures as they imagine they can be anything. As the brand's most diverse doll line, the Barbie Fashionistas series offers more than 175+ looks in a variety of skin tones, eye colors, hair colors and textures, body types, disabilities and fashions. This includes dolls with vitiligo, dolls that use a wheelchair or a prosthetic limb, a doll with hearing aids and a doll without hair. The 2024 Fashionistas dolls aim to advance Barbie’s continued goal of reflecting a multi-dimensional view of beauty and fashion, allowing more children to see their world reflected through play. In the Inspiring Women line, Barbie also offers a deafblind Helen Keller doll.
As of this writing, the blind Barbie doll is available at Walmart Canada now and will begin appearing at other major retailers both online and in store.
What about Ken you might ask? Well, there is a wheelchair Ken and a Ken with an artificial leg. There is also a Ken doll with hearing aids and one with vitiligo. We can only assume that if blind Barbie sells well, blind Ken may come along as well.
From other doll and action figure companies, the Marvel Comic Universe has ten characters, heroes, villains, and mentors who are blind or have vision loss including Daredevil, Blind Al and Shroud. You can read about them all here https://www.cbr.com/daredevil-other-blind-marvel-characters/
The GI Joe series has “Blindmaster,” a blind ninja, and several companies out of China and Japan sell blind action heroes and villains. Here’s a neat article on the coolest blind fictional characters: https://www.ranker.com/list/badass-blind-fictional-characters/lisa-waugh
AEBC is pleased about the release of the new Barbie doll. In fact, our Advocacy Committee Chair, Dean Steacy, has already ordered one for his granddaughter!
FEATURED IMAGE ALT TEXT: Picture of the new blind Barbie