This game, for some reason, got a lot of use in our house. This is an inane game, but for those of you who have ever longed to dye Barbie's hair green or give her a haircut without getting into massive trouble, this is practically heaven-sent. (I still dimly remember the storm and chaos caused by my, in my 4-year-old ruthlessness, one day giving every one of my sister's Barbies a massive haircut, and hiding the hair under the couch.)
This game demonstrates magnificent political incorrectness, portraying Barbie as nothing more than a brain-dead puppet who stands around the house, waiting for Ken to call. When he eventually does, and proposes a date, Barbie immediately runs for the car where she goes and does a tour of all the neighbourhood stores, buying an entirely new outfit. When she returns home an hour later to meet Ken, he invariably calls to say he couldn't make it, and could they change their plans and meet again in another hour. This means Barbie has to go and blow more money on a whole new outfit and hairstyle, only to find that plans have changed again.
Ken's insensitity used to anger me as a small child and I would often shout at the screen, telling him he was a bad boyfriend. Barbie, however, being the politically unenlightened pawn of egocentric male dominance that she is, never once does this. Instead she takes his abuse with good humour, invariably replying in the same brain-dead tone: "sounds like fuuun!"
Fortunately for Barbie, she seems to live in some kind of fantasy world where money exists not, which is for the best, really, as with Ken as a boyfriend, she can quite easily buy 8 outfits, hairstyles and shoes every single day. I think, however, that this is not a very good game for teaching children about the value of money; invariably we'll end up with a generation of young people who never realised that shoplifting was anything but normal. Donald Duck's Playground is a far better influence, where the kiddies have to carefully count out their one and two cent pieces to buy trampolines, horses and gymnasium sets; just like real life, really.
For ages we young players of Barbie couldn't get the speech clips to work; as such, we had no idea where Ken was proposing to go. This resulted in fancy dinners attended in bikinis, tennis dates in ball gowns, etc. Of course, once we actually did know what Ken was saying, we used to clad Barbie inappropriately anyway in the spirit of perversity. Ken never once registered any embarassment (or admiration, or indeed, a response of any kind), however, which makes one wonder exactly where the satisfaction in tailoring the perfect outfit is.
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