OHIO police are still searching for The Barbie Slasher, so called for his obsession with ripping the clothes off Barbie dolls in toy shops and carving incisions across their chests and between their legs. 'He's caused quite a big shock around here,' says Detective Timothy McClung, who refused to let the Sunday Morning Post Magazine publish a photo lest it spark copycat crimes.
During the height of the investigation, Detective McClung says he received at least 100 calls from around the US with names of men suspected of similar Barbie-related offences. In Indianapolis, a man with seven Barbie heads glued to the dashboard of his car was detained.
Who would want to hurt Barbie? The FBI's psychological services unit was able to provide a character profile: white, male, 15-35, lacking social skills with women, active fantasy life, Barbie fixated, power/control complex, possibly motivated by shock value or sexual predilections, deeply affected by a relationship with a dominant woman, maybe his mother. 'Did you see Silence of the Lambs ?' says Detective McClung. 'The report was done by the same unit.' It was the FBI's fifth investigation into crimes against Barbie. In previous cases the dolls were either mutilated, burned or blown up.
As if there aren't enough ways to have fun with Barbie. What with her fabulous wardrobe, cool friends and that hot tomato Ken, she's the doll who has everything.
But that's the issue. Is Barbie a happy and healthy role model with 5,000 pairs of shoes, or another absurd female icon of exaggerated curves? As she enters her 35th year, the myth and meaning of history's favourite doll is undergoing wholesale deconstruction. What message transmits from those blank blue eyes? Those perky breasts? That stiff-limbed perfection? Poets, psychologists, film-makers and editorial writers - many of them former Barbie owners - are intrigued. After all, what other toy can fuel the twisted sexual fantasies of certain adult men and the innocent playtime of little girls? Little girls, however, are capable of vigorous deconstruction themselves. 'People were telling me they used to slice Barbies up, or hang them by their necks from banisters, or chop them up and bury them in the yard,' says Professor Allyson Booth, an American pop culture enthusiast. The confessions came during research for 'Barbie Dolls as Monsters', her thesis on the doll as a physical ideal.
Her report also documented an early instance of Barbie backlash, in which the doll fell victim to the bruised and frenzied ego of a McDonald's burger-flipper and ended up wrapped in a burrito - breastless, grilled and covered with condiments - a gift to his former girlfriend, an order taker.