I had an entirely lovely posting prepared for today. But sometimes hard news has to come first; sometimes Official Bloggers must rise to the occasion and deal with breaking news in order to keep our readers fully informed.
You know Mattel pulled pregnant Midge, Barbie’s best friend, off the shelves, right? That’s is old news, happened a couple of years ago…as upsetting as it is, we’ve all learned to cope.
Yet it has troubled me ever since, and I am sure it has never ceased to trouble you. But with the spanking-new news concerning cloned meat being touched by the magic wand of the FDA, I started thinking about the whole cloning business and realized, suddenly, the real scoop: Midge is carrying a clone of Barbie.
That’s why they pulled her. We weren’t ready, as a nation, then —but we are now.
I know it’s hard to believe at first. After all, the implications are huge. Few lives will remain unaffected. And yet it explains so much in our universe that we must examine it in more detail.
It explains why all Barbies look alike except for make-up and hairstyles. Even international Barbies or Barbies of color look almost exactly like their Anglo sisters. It explains why Barbie never appears to age (obviously the elder Barbies are retired the moment they exhibit signs of maturity, such as laugh-lines or chubbiness, and new replacement Barbies are put into their place).
It explains why Barbie never needed any sexual apparatus. You might have your vinyl panties permanently sealed onto your nether regions, too, if you knew how the nefarious, secret process of your “reproduction” has been done all along.
It might explain why Barbie’s shady origins are often traced back to Germany just as World War II was ending. Some strange science went on back there, back then.
What it explains most clearly, however, is why Midge exists.
A lot of us could never figure that one out. Now we know.
Nobody ever wanted a Midge doll qua Midge doll. She was mealy-mouthed, awkward, clearly second string. Midge was only ever a helpmate to Barbie, a sort of flatter-chested, flatter-rumped accessory for whom you also had to purchase clothes (or else have Barbie’s wardrobe tailored to match Midge’s less bodacious figure).
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Midge may be in the wings, but we suspect she is central to Barbie’s future.
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Now the truth is obvious: Midge’s sole reason for existence is to aid and abet Barbie in the lofty pursuit of eternal and perfect Barbiedom. Now we see Midge’s heretofore unrevealed purpose, as illuminated by modern science: Midge exists to carry the next generation of Barbies. She hangs out at home, round as a paperweight, wearing tent dresses, only to have the Barbie-clones snap off at an appropriate time.
(According to old Mattel intel, the baby Midge carries is female. And what a huge shock that is. Tell you what, folks: Ken is an endangered species. He better find some useful skills fast.)
Naturally the fastidious, figure-conscious, freewheeling Miss B. could not expect to do this clone-carrying business herself. She’s busy. Barbie is perky and has passports. She’s a fashion model and a cheerleader, not to mention a baby-sitter (and here whole new avenues for concern arise: does she pay herself for minding herself? If she teaches the kids how to use cutlery and to say “please” and “thank you,” is she minding her own manners?).
No, it is Midge, a female with few other sources of income, who will have to be the surrogate. Midge will remain off stage while Barbie, as impenitent and as indifferent as ever, swoops in every few months to sprinkle her D.N.A. around like some kind of fairy dust, before she runs off to be a flight attendant or a veterinarian.
It is not the poor and downtrodden who will line up to be cloned.
Life will get a whole lot less interesting if the universe ends up being composed of sets of nesting dolls: a whole army of the same figure simply cast in various sizes, and all from the same dress sizes — and from the same zip codes — no less.
Photo from Amazon.com
