He is a stereotype of the queer ’90s, with a chiseled hunk of plastic. The doll was accidentally named Ken Magic Earring, which is the absolute best name for a gay doll.
He wore a necklace that was modeled after trend accessories and was decidedly sexual. It should be noted that his left ear is pierced, which is sometimes considered a covert way of indicating his queerness. His hair is expertly highlighted with chunky blonde streaks and perfectly quaffed. Ken Magic Earring rocks a lavender mesh shirt and a pleather vest.
A jewelry ring is what ten out of ten individuals knowledgeable about fashion will quickly identify as the necklace. Savage mentioned that the necklace is a round chrome charm hanging from a silver chain. In the narrative, Savage specifically emphasized the doll’s necklace. Following the doll’s release in 1993, advocate and author Dan Savage penned an article about the doll’s unmistakably “homosexual” appearance. Savage was employed by the queer-oriented newspaper The Stranger during that period.
“Savage wrote that it appeared the design team at Mattel spent a weekend in LA or New York, rushing from one rave to another, while documenting the experience with notes and Polaroids.”
“We do not engage in the practice of providing inappropriate jewelry to young girls,” expressed Lisa McKendall, who served as the marketing and communications manager for Mattel at the time, when she issued a statement that caused the unfortunate mistake.
“It’s a necklace. It carries trinkets he can exchange with Barbie. Come on, this is a doll created for young girls, something like that would be completely unsuitable,” McKendall also informed The Stranger.
“New Ken,” who was known as “Gay Ken” unofficially, sported a pierced left ear, donned a mesh lavender shirt, and flaunted a highly provocative necklace. Whether the concept of the pendant was suggested at a board meeting by an oblivious market researcher or if it was brought up by children surveyed by Mattel, it remained uncertain.
It is noteworthy that Mattel went so far as to recall the shelves of dolls. After the publication, historians consider this particular Ken doll to be the last straw for Mattel, leading to the discontinuation of the brand. In an article by Savage, it is revealed that many queer men flocked to stores to purchase the accidentally modeled Ken Magic Earring doll, which was intended for kids. Surprisingly, clueless moms also picked up this doll for their children.
Despite his best-seller status, Earring Magic Ken is not even included in the brand’s archive of historically significant dolls. Mattel won’t really discuss him, but some suspect that he may be the best-selling Ken doll of all time. Even though that title is publicly held by Totally Hair Barbie in 1992, the doll Ken Magic Earring may still be the best-selling Barbie doll of all time. It was only available for six months in 1993, but reportedly remains highly popular.
However, Ken Magic Earring did not mark the last encounter with queerness for Ken, as he was not pulled from the shelves due to his queerness, even though he is outrageously queer-coded in the “Toy Story” movies featuring The Ken doll. Many fans joked that Barbie’s former boyfriend had come out of the closet when Ken and Barbie broke up in 2004. Despite being surrounded by feminine hyper-affiliation with Barbie and his love for fashion, Ken is supposedly head over heels for Barbie.
Conversely, the material was being authored by queer individuals. Earring Magic Ken marked the initial instance where queer individuals were not the target of the “gay Ken” jest, distinct from these anecdotes concerning Ken’s sexual orientation.
It should not be illegal to simply date someone of the opposite gender, as 44 percent of the nation believed that gay marriage and relationships were rampant in the year after the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States. Certainly, Pride Month did not include brands decorating their products with rainbows. Virtually no brand was interested in aligning itself with the queer experience or investing in uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community, which is why Ken Magic Earring was not released.
In 1993, Mattel would never have knowingly released any other brand (or for that matter, any brand at all) that would alienate the conservative consumer core, who are married middle America moms buying Barbie for their children, because it is the brand’s intention to not release any product that would be queer for people.
We didn’t fully understand that people mistook a trendy chrome ring for a kid-friendly pendant, but it was just plain hilarious. Our aesthetic hailed it as the epitome of cool, but the general public was full of disdain for queerness. When it came to representing us, Ken Magic Earring likely struck a chord with queer people and gay men, as there was no one else who wanted to represent us.
Unintentionally caused him to become homosexual, but instead, Mattel desired for Ken to be sufficiently fashionable for Barbie, and it remains amusing even now.
A Creatable World doll, according to a November 2019 study of 700 shoppers, would only be considered for purchase by 5 percent of people. Despite increased acceptance from both brands and consumers since 1993, there is still room for improvement. Mattel now sells Ken dolls that are more openly gay than even Earring Magic Ken was, as well as Creatable World dolls that encourage gender exploration. As a result, the toy giant has adapted its brand to appeal to a progressively-minded consumer base and a world that is becoming more accepting of the queer community, nearly thirty years later.
All of us, including a Ken doll wearing a lavender mesh shirt with a necklace that symbolizes unity, and various individuals such as Audre Lorde and James Baldwin, politician Harvey Milk, as well as Stonewall activists like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who paved the way for us, it is crucial to bear in mind as the LGBTQ+ community strives for increased acceptance and inclusivity with each passing year.