This Barbie Dream Girl Is a Movie Star
how Barbie collectors are reimagining bold new personas for Anna May Wong
I squealed like any other fangirl when I heard the news that Mattel was releasing a Barbie doll inspired by Anna May Wong. It was another welcome sign, along with the quarter release and biopic, that Anna May is being restored to her rightful place in Hollywood history and popular culture at large.
As a little girl, I loved Barbies. I loved dressing them, brushing their hair, and sending them out on imagined adventures. Maybe I loved them a little too much. I once declared to a childhood playmate with a flick of my ponytail: “I’m a Barbie and you’re not.” I don’t know where I got off making that assertion! I’m not even blonde.
Of course, I placed my order for the Anna May Wong Barbie as soon as I heard the announcement. (Plus, as AMW’s biographer, I knew I could claim it as a legit expense.) And good thing I did because the dolls sold out at Target, Walmart, and on the Mattel website within a week. The only place to get an AMW Barbie now is through resellers on eBay and Amazon, where the going rate ranges from $40 up to $100; the original MSRP was $35. I’ve heard rumors that Mattel might produce a second run of the dolls in the future, but there’s no telling when that will happen.
A strange thing happened once the Anna May Wong Barbies were shipped out into the world. They started re-appearing on eBay without any clothes on. Completely butt naked. Trawling eBay for AMW-related memorabilia, as one does, I scrolled past several listings with seemingly lewd headlines like “STUNNING NUDE ANNA MAY WONG BARBIE.” Included were photos of the doll posed in various stances, all of which looked absurd sans clothing.
My worst fears began to take over. It’s no secret that in life, AMW was stereotyped as the China doll and made to portray the helpless plaything of careless white men all too often. Here we go again, I thought. Now they’re selling her naked for the pleasure of some sick perverts.
Anne Anlin Cheng writes in her book Ornamentalism, “There are few figures who exemplify the beauty of abjectness more than the yellow woman, whose condition of objectification is often the very hope for any claims she might have to value or personhood.” No sooner had the AMW Barbie been released than she was reduced to her basest state of being: an exoticized, eroticized plastic body form.
Forget objectification. Unclad and exposed, the naked doll staring back at me on my computer screen had transformed AMW into a literal object. This was exactly what her detractors had always criticized her for. Major General Tu, dispatched to Hollywood on behalf of the Chinese government to consult on the authenticity of MGM’s The Good Earth, once explained in the pages of Script magazine that, “Whenever she appears in a film, the newspapers print her picture with the caption: ‘Anna May Wong again loses face for China.’ . . . It is the parts China objects to. She is always a slave—a very undressed slave. China resents having its womanhood so represented.”
My curiosity got the better of me and I reached out to one of the sellers: “Can I ask, why are you selling the doll without its clothes?”
dreamjeanie responded almost immediately:
I've been selling on eBay for over 20 years and I've never had anyone to ask me that question. I have always offered Nude dolls to my customers so they can take them and dress them as they please. That's why I also offer many beautiful fashions for sale that customers can dress these dolls.
dreamjeanine didn’t sound like a pervert. She sounded like a small business owner who is passionate about selling Barbies. I told her I was caught off guard because I’d never seen a Barbie sold that way before. She kindly responded:
I guess after 23 years of doing this, I forget that not every single person who crosses my path is a Barbie collector! You've really made my day, because you've opened my eyes a bit to an experience I haven't had before!
But let me tell you this.....15 years ago if you'd told me I'd ever be taking Barbies out of the box, I would have said you were insane. But times change, collectors change, and I have to change along with them to keep my business thriving!
Scrolling through the #annamaywong hashtag on Instagram, I began to see evidence backing up dreamjeanie’s claim. From what I gleaned, Barbie collectors are all about dressing and posing their Barbies in novel ways. Most who share their photos of the AMW Barbie have ditched the Chinese dragon lady outfit that came with her. (I can’t ding Mattel’s outfit too much because it’s a clear homage to AMW’s famous black satin dress with a wraparound dragon made of gold and silver sequins, a brilliant design created by costume designer Travis Banton for one of her dance numbers in Limehouse Blues (1934).)
Instead, collectors have reimagined Anna May Wong in iconic new ways:
A biker bitch in black leather.
A genderbending, tuxedoed cabaret act.
A lady in red.
A kungfu action hero.
An Elvira-esque vamp.
A prim and proper lady, ready for high tea.
A casual, Friday-night millennial chillin’ with her homies over Chinese takeout, sushi, and boba.
A candy-cane striped homebody decorating the Christmas tree.
A Hollywood leading lady walking down the red carpet.
Browsing through these pictures, the possibilities are suddenly endless and thrilling. The opposite of what I originally thought was true—Barbie collectors don’t objectify the women their dolls are meant to portray, they revere them. In fact, they’ve given Anna May Wong a new lease on life. As a Barbie doll, she can finally try on all the personas she was denied in her career as an actress.
Perhaps it’s true what the fictionalized Ruth Handler, inventor of the Barbie, says in Barbie the movie: "Humans only have one ending. Ideas live forever." Mattel has immortalized Anna May Wong in more ways than one. Here’s to her memory long outliving us all.
Updates in Brief
Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s screening of Pavement Butterfly (1929). I waited with bated breath as the lights went down and the curtains parted in the historic Castro Theatre—and I was not disappointed. The film, one of Anna May Wong’s rare European ones, was absolutely radiant. Though I had previously watched a low-quality VHS version at BFI, nothing compares to seeing this beautiful silent film restored by Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum on the big screen with live musical accompaniment by the Sascha Jacobsen Ensemble. It gave me chills! And the best part was being in a theater full of people who laughed and sighed and clapped along with the film and enjoyed it the way it was meant to be. What a magical night.
For those of you in the New York area, MoMa will be hosting an encore screening of Pavement Butterfly on January 20. Tickets go on sale on January 13.
In book related news, Publishers Weekly named Not Your China Doll one of its top 10 picks for Memoirs & Biographies in Spring 2024! Following fast on their heels, Entertainment Weekly listed the book as one of the titles they’re most excited to read in 2024! Have you pre-ordered your copy yet?
As another year winds down, I want to thank you for reading Half-Caste Woman and following along on the book’s journey. You’ve made this newsletter such an amazing community and home for an Anna May Wong obsessive like me. Publication day is less than three months away and I’m so excited about all the goodies I’ll be sharing with you in the days to come. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
And while we’re on the topic of Barbie, I’ll leave you with this special Christmas recording from Ken.
I'll admit this article took me for a spin I wasn't expecting. I certainly learned something about Barbie collectors. Nice read!
I really enjoyed this one! What an interesting peek into Barbie collecting culture.