Welcome to the special episode of Amusing Jews, where we celebrate Jewish contributors and
contributions to American popular culture. With the long awaited release of the Barbie movie,
directed by Greta Gerwig and co written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, we
thought it would be a good time to revisit the perennial question, is Barbie
Jewish? The simple answer is yes. Her mother, Ruth Handler, was
the feisty Jewish co founder of Mattel along with her husband Elliot Handler, who
invented hot wheels. Barbie was named Ruth and Elliott's daughter, Barbara, and
Ken was named after their son Kenneth. But we're talking about toys, not
people, so maybe Jewish by birth doesn't really apply, or does it.
I'm Jonathan Friedman and I'm Jolly Agelfield producer engineer Mike Tomerin is working somewhere behind
the scenes. Amusing Jews is a project of a Dot cavere in Corregation for
Humanistic Judaism, The Cool School Jewish Cultural Community, and Atheists United Studios.
Our special guest today is Helene Siegel, a Los Angeles food writer who runs
the Pastry Sessions blog. She's the author of forty cookbooks, including the Totally
Cookbook series and Pure Chocolate. In the early nineties, Helene produced a series
of Barbie books for eight to twelve year old girls in a time before gender
neutrality, including the Barbie Party Cookbook. Helene, Welcome to Amusing Jews.
Thanks, Thanks, that's good to be here. So I had read that
you had outgrown dolls by the time Barbie was introduced in nineteen fifty nine.
Then thirty years later you got a job with Mattel producing Barbie books. You're
right that your friends were shocked at how quickly you set aside your quote feminist
ideals and dove into channeling the empty headed fashion model. Could you could you
tell us more about this? First of all, it was nineteen fifty nine
when obviously when she was introduced, and I didn't get to play with her,
only because I was nine years old and I was past dolls by the
time I was in college, you know, I was one of those I
totally launched doctor feminism, and I was like, I burned my bra I
watched on Fifth Avenue with Gloria Steinem so as a college student, I just
saw this little sign up somewhere that's a women's liberation meeting happening this afternoon,
and I ran to it and I was like, oh, this is a
all true. I know this is real, blah blah blah. So I
take myself seriously, but I was never an academic the way some of the
women who really done much deeper, I would say than Aigid and wrote very
very serious books. And so what I'm saying is I take my feminism seriously,
but I didn't take Barbie seriously. I didn't have a problem with doing
the series at all, but my friends, some of them are kind of
snooty, kind of left wing or granola quenching good friends of mine, political,
you know, kind of political people, and they took offense because they
didn't want their daughters to play with Barbie. Would you tell us a little
bit about the Barbie book series and maybe how you got started on it or
what it's all about. Well, sure, it was a book club for
girls. It's a mail order book club. So once they signed up like
they signed up at school, and they got new books like every month.
That's why they had to work very fast in years. And I was invited
basically because the publisher was East Coast publisher Grolier in Connecticut, and they had
a contract with Mitchel to do this with the license to Barbie license, they
needed a represent They needed a representative on the West coast because Mitchell demands a
lot of collaborations, shall we saying? So there's approval process on the story,
on the photography, by the way, which was fine because I went
to the phote. We did photo realistic shoots at the Stupideo in the Jat
and Sober California. That was really fine. So they needed a representative here
to show Mitchell that they were so careful watching every team. And then I
hired a team of writers and editors all over the country because in order to
do this you had to work so fast. And they came, by the
way from I had a career in children's book publishing, so I was an
expert in many things. Food and Childer was publishing. I was published a
company that specialized in children's pop up books, and that was here in Los
Angeles, and so there's the connection. People are sometimes surprised to learn that
the creator of Barbie the Blond aryan feminine ideal who's based on a German sexy
doll intended as a gag gift for men. Was in fact Ruth Handler a
very highly driven, ahead of her time Jewish woman, maybe even a feminist,
who was a far cry from the nineteen fifties homemaker stereotype that Barbie sort
of emulated in those early days. Did you know about this aspect of Barbie
when you were getting involved with Mattel? Did that help kind of ease the
transition into that world. I did know the sort of Russie Handler, and
I knew she was Jewish, and I knew that the toy industry that she
came up and was also sort of a Jewish industry. I had had a
little experience with toys, So I don't know how much that influenced fact that
I guess what I thought is that Ruth was very, very smart, and
she was in it to win it, and she knew that the Glanders,
you know, the must climberous woman of the Jay were Marilyn Monroe and Bridget
Bardoux, and they were blonde, and they had big breasts at small waists,
and there were sort of a masculine ideal of a female. And she
just wanted to make money. I mean, I think it's as simple as
and I think she probably did good work with the money that some of the
money she made, I'm sure she did right. And there's that idea that
is floated in the movie as well, and I've heard it many times that
this was the first doll, you know, mainstream marketed for kids that was
not a baby, right, that was actually a woman. Yeah, yeah,
no, at the time it was really I didn't play with one,
but I was kind of titillated by it because one of them, my friends,
who was maybe more immature, got a doll and she had like the
dream house, which was a big thing where I was growing up in the
Bronx because we lived in small apartments and there weren't a lot of girls who
had the dream house and the Corvette and all that. And I mean,
I think I kind of wanted to touch the dollar. It was because we
would just entered puberty, like what is those It looked good. I mean,
I have to say that what she had looked good. The car,
you know, the apartment with a house sweating air, it looked great.
It looked like fun. So I think this has been sort of simmering for
a little bit. Barbie has not always been seen as a feminist role model.
I am not a Barbie doll was chanted by protesters at the nineteen seventy
women Strike for Equality in New York. Barbie's image has changed over the years,
with the doll taking on diverse shapes, colors, causes, personas,
and occupations. And your Barbie books, were you able to introduce any complexities
that maybe helped push Barbie in this direction? Well, first of all,
I have to say that the word complex to me does not equate with the
were Barbie, because to me, it was It's a very simple idea when
I worked on it, and now it's evolved some. But when I worked
on her, she was perfect. She never had a problem. There's no
problem Barbie can't can't solve. She looks gorgeous in every picture, and she
gets to have like a million careers. She didn't have to get a PhD.
She never got rejected at a job interview. I mean she goes to
the top, like immediately at everything from ice skating to parachuting. And she
also has according in the books Weed, she had a heart of gold.
So she was also always helping the poor little girl who was maybe like overweight,
or our parents were divorcing, was going through a hard time. So
when the stories we tried to interest, you know, age of twelve year
old girls with a real story. But she is almost like a unicorn Barbie
or just a magic figure because we'll like, she has a magic blond and
once Barbie meets the little girl and had a problem, she makes it go
away. And I think I love that it's not complicating, right, And
I'm sure that you didn't have much say in terms of that aspect of those
stories. You were told by Mettell, which is a very sort of finely
tu owned corporate entity. You have to do it this way, but you
said that you you kind of like that aspect of it. Um is it
estapism or is it something more for these young girls who are maybe reading these
books or playing with the dolls? Well, you know, honestly, I
think we made the books because the word Barbie sell sells books. But but
the good goal, the healthy goal, was give children something that they want
to read. So I mean their stories we helped pertain to their wives,
like the divorcing, you know, but they and they also reflect tempting issues
out the day. Because I have to laugh right now. But we had
a disability Barbie well, I mean she is a coach, but she's in
a you know, the girls in a wheelchair. So they were trying to
do everything correct and we had to hire a disabilities Hollywood disability consultant. But
the funniest one was when there was a doll there was also in a wheelchair,
but she was Barbie was going to teacher have ski And that was when
I felt they went like too far out. So here's the thing. We
came up with the ideas. So I had a team of writers and we
pitched, you know, we came up with the ideas and they said yes
or no. But just as when you channel any license character or make believe
character that stands to make a lot of money, if they don't give you
a bible the company that says he does this, he doesn't do that,
I'll never say this, blah blah blah. I think you have to just
know it and stinctually from the culture, and anything you do that breaks out
of that mold they will reject. It's very simple along those lines. I
just rewatched a really interesting episode of the Netflix show The Toys that made us
about Barbie which documentary, Yeah, a little documentary. It's a documentary series
on the history behind a lot of these really important toy properties. And it
did mention that, like the good positive decisions that have been made it in
the Barbie line at Mattel over the years have been women behind those good ideas,
and then some of the flops and the weirder things have been the male
executives kind of trying to imagine what girls might want or it's it's a real
disconnect. I don't know if you saw any of that. You know,
I didn't. But when I was working there, this was in the nineties,
and by the way, I wasn't hard by Mattel. Just for the
record, I was with the publisher on these couds. They hired me because
they needed a West Coast person. It was female executive sent it was a
female CEO, and the women running like the meetings I went to were on
the more creative side because it was back getting them to approve or story ideas
and then costumes and things like that. It was all women, and frankly,
yeah, they were tough of I mean, it wasn't like even know
come on by now, we all know that women were in industries and they
can be just as tough as smack. I don't think they were getting more
from any man on top, and so the movie got that wrong. But
it's very simple in the movie. I view the movie, and we'll get
to some movie specific things soon, but I view the movie is really a
live action cartoon in that way where everyone is a caricature by design. And
you know, we could be very critical of these aspects, but I think
in terms of cartoons and caricature and the immediacy of understanding who this character is,
that certainly comes through in the movie in a not so complex way.
But there are some like deeper themes that are hidden beneath that superficiality. This
may be controversial, but I have to admit that the classic Barbie doll with
her blonde hair, her little nose and that swimsuit figure sort of looks like
the nineteen sixties Jewish suburban ideal, with rhinoplasty being so common in blonde hair
and blue eyes being idealized for better or worse. Of course, you know,
blonde Jews aren't so uncommon anymore through you know, Jews by choice and
in her marriage and so forth, and so on. But in your opinion,
even that like idealized Barbie of the early days, does that seem like
a Jewish doll to you? Absolutely not. I never thought about it,
but I think the doll is secular. Have this one theme that has never
come up, has anything to do with any church or religious you know,
any anything to do with religion. I don't even remember whether we did a
Christmas story, but I don't think we did. I think the one we
did was set in colonial America and they were trying to say whatever, telling
that the British Barbie was selling people the britishal Company. Yeah, here's my
answer, because I thought about this. I never thought about it before.
But frankly, I hate to say it. I don't think she's Jewish.
I don't know any doubt in my mind. But if she word you a
Jewish woman of that period, unfleshalist, she would be the start typical jab
which I hate to say because I would never use that word, you know,
the Jewish American prince vass. Because everything Barbie has is the best,
she must have the best, and I mean, honestly, she's a very
ambitious driver. She seems to hardly have to break a sweat. That's what
makes herm that Jewish and before Loovy, she never worried about anything, and
she certainly never cried, and that doesn't seem very chews either. There's no
dark past. You know, she's in the moment as she just wants the
best of everything, and if she can go to Blooming Girl's, you know,
it's a good day. So we talked about Ruth Handler a bit,
and you know, we're trying to keep this spoiler free, but Ruth Handler's
ghost, who apparently lives on the seventeenth floor of the Mattel building, makes
an appearance in the movie. I will say that it was refreshing to see
her played by a Jewish actress, Rihah Perlman. That's that's very rare,
and there's a lot of criticism around actors being cast who are not Jewish playing
Jewish roles. In fact, the other movie that's big now Openeira open Ira
himself a jew played by an Irish actor, Killian Murphy, So that I
thought was delightful and refreshing. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on the
portrayal of Ruth Handler, who I was happy to see in the film.
But you know, it's a version of her, and and I feel like
I'm so critical, such a critical Jew, but I mean, honestly,
it was really bothered by her. But it was interesting because a lot of
my friends and I think my husband were like, oh, it was so
nice. You know, there was you know, a little Jewish lady.
Yeah. I guess I'm a stickler, and I kind of have a hunch
of a kind of person she was, because I think Luce was out of
the house, you know, built a giant corporation. She was in boardrooms
and I so, yeah, I think Raya Roman was very cute and it's
sort of stereotypical maybe you know, Jewish grandma. And even the little advice
I just the stick felt for me didn't do justice to do. I think
she was yeah, And I think you know, she mentions, which is
again nice, that they were able to slip it, and she mentioned tax
evasion and such, and that's a big part of Ruth Handler's story. But
the real Ruth was ruthless. I mean, that's the reputation right Well,
there's no question. I mean, I don't know the personal stories, but
there's no doubt in my mind. I haven't worked in some competitive industries that
you have to rule you can't rise to that level. And certainly the women
I knew at the child the world was very out of It's not Colin Wood.
I mean they're tough, of course, of course. I mean I
don't think she would. She just ye wasn't that person. And I kind
of painted that whole nostalgic thing. I don't know. I wasn't crazy about
it, but a lot of people I know my friends were very sweet and
just given Barbie advice. I think whatever it is, I don't even remember.
You don't have to be perfect. Maybe I'm wondering too, with the
work that you did on those books, if you saw any influence or any
direct connection with the stories that you were hired to do reflected in the film
in any way. Well, the funny part for me because I did that
cookbook you know that total Barbie Cooper, and and I just gave them recipes,
my recipents. I was just think Barbie didn't get that too. But
then what has interested me was the change in Barbie through the years from the
time I work. Weren't it Because one of the things I'll ever forget is
that when I worked on the storybook series where we had to come up with
a million careers and when we were like running out about ideas and I wanted
to do what was her names Fields, Cookie, kind of a rep boss
with missus Fields, a cookie entrepreneur lady. And now they have a doll.
They have several cupcake Barbie Cookie Barbie who are entrepreneurs. So back in
the day when I worked on the State Killed Dot story idea and I'll never
forget what they said the executives of my talent, and he was, there
are some things probably will never do. And she will never sweep before,
she will never wash the pot. And she didn't say it this way,
but she's never near Schmutz. Okay, no, no dirt and no sweeping
and no cookie. And the other thing is she will never get mapvery so
whereever he asked, what happens with Aaron Kang like nothing, that's a part
of the myth. The myth with Can has not changed. But I'm the
cooking thing. Oh my god, I was shocked when I looked recently,
there's almost like ten different cookie bombies and a little chef racket, you know,
not a little cut can. Are you tempted to purchase one of those
parties? Well, no, because I don't play with dollars. But my
granddaughter is well now she's a lark, but when she was growing up,
when she was slid alert, I had these collectible barbies from when I worked
on it. But when I worked on her, we made some special editions
and they were very special at the time. One was like a cool guy
a going to the mask ball in Venice where there was a stolen jewel,
and she was like tind to sleep it out. Okay, So I saved
them for my granddaughter and when I get to her, she was just being
kind to me. I guess, oh, very nice grandma. And from
all I know, she just threw them in the closet. She never played
her down and sometimes I said, you remember those bobbies are oh yeah,
yeah, I remember, so she could have cared less. Yeah. My
daughter was the same way. Actually we got her barbie just to see what
would happen, and nothing happened. And I had sons and neither of them
ever asked. I mean they asked. We would have had dollars in the
house, but they didn't. And I have a friend of just thinking about
my friends, you know, these left leaning who A couple of the felt
strongly they didn't want that girls to Playbot Barbie. But one of them told
me that she started getting them as birthday gifts, and what was she going
to do take the birthday gifts away from the kids. She didn't, and
she said so she just had to kind of sip it up, and her
daughter played, and then she got tired of them, and now she's a
genius, brilliant in our eternity. But it's interesting for the women who had
the politics where they really didn't like that, what they would decide, I
think it would always be a bad idea. Frankly, to forbid a joys,
you're almost asking for trouble. You know, Barbie has become much more
diverse in the last twenty years or whatever, with the different shapes and sizes
and ethnicities and different historical figures that she inhabits and so forth. So there
is an awareness that it leaves on some level that stereotypical Barbie as it's called
now is not tenable in many ways, and that with the diversification of the
consumer base. And you know, progress never perfect, but progress made in
you know, women's choices of career and so forth, that that's reflected I
think very positively in Barbie. I think there's it's a it's not a terrible
thing to have a Barbie though, And no, I don't think so either
in it and it's kind of a creative person. And she made the interesting
in fashion and all that. I mean, what's the danger. I mean
she's looking at the at mean, I was really into the objects. I
thought they were really cool. It reminded me of something when you talked about
diversity. Now, remember I've worked on these in the nineteen nineties, social
at term that thinks that change. But shubbing this was starting to be you
know, Barbie was being criticized for the bad body image by the feminists of
their doctors, etc. And they wanted a chubby story. They wanted more
than one, but they wanted to show that Barbie accepted chubby. It's called
a special ballerina and you won't be able to charl but one of these little
dolls is considered chubby because her waistline is kind a bit larger, you know,
like m skipper or whatever. But it was they were so compromised,
like they couldn't really act chubby, you know what I mean, the same
thing, and when they did Kurby Barbie that was supposed to be but chubby
or one. Maybe they were like Latina or something, but it was very
compromised. Maybe not today, but back then in the nineties they were treading,
were like new territory. So, Helene, you're a prolific author of
cookbooks, could you tell us about your cooking philosophy and what goes into making
a cookbook? So, cookbook, anything to do with food, it's very
hard work. It's like opening a restaurant. We're opening the bagel shop.
It sounds better in fact than it is because so much work. I mean,
I have to say I enjoyed those two years. You know, I
did it for about twenty five years, and my decision to do that was
an outcroft by the way of my life at the time, where I was
working full time out of the house. When once again this goes way back.
So my first son was boring one in nineteen eighty one. Okay,
So I was juggling. I had a career in publishing. Well, you
had to be at the office every day, you know, nine to five,
and I had a commute, and I had a kid at her and
I wanted to stry to figure out how it could back then and work from
bound, you know, really at a decent job and still see my kid.
I wanted to see my kid. I didn't want to do the communing.
So basically it started with that. And I had a lifelong interest in
food. I just like to eat, and I was kind of self taught
as cut I mean, I never did cooking school or anything like that,
sort of a typical English major, but it was always a passionate love to
eat out. And so what happened in the eighties here in California. We
had lived from New York, where had worked in publishing, and in the
eighties it was a big way of what was called California cuisine, and so
Tree became suddenly very important. And the publishers on the East Coast, we're
looking for chefs on the West coast to write cookbooks. And so that's how
that all happened for me was I got invited so right to be the writer
of the cookbook that was with the hottest restaurant in town in Los Angeles,
like the biggest Hollywood resh book. It was called ma Maison and this chef
was Wolfgang Park who went on in huge fame, but they couldn't get it
together to do the book. They had signed a contract and gone a bunch
of many because they were busy, Like Joel Reshiant, right, it's a
lot of work in the cookbook. So that's how I entered that field.
I got hired for my editorial skills. Well what happened is as a result
of that, they put me in a kitchen with a real chef for about
a year. So I almost had a private cooking lessons and they were like
really great chefs and recipes and I loved it. So then I became a
full on and that's whenever on my own books. Yeah, I developed us
expertise and I would occasionally mere like for my chocolate book, Pure Chocolate Is
with a real chocolate to Europeleance of Business in Seattle, and I did the
writing, she did the cooking. So basically when I do my own books,
it's a crazy amountable. I mean, I can't rarely recommend this as
a profession. What I was doing it, I'll just say at the hidable
because I was writing them really fast, I would test about four recipes a
day, which meant early in the morning, very early in dust. Shopping
was like every day was a genner party at w because I would have to
work like a cater or basic cooking and taking notes or recording de chanels dechails
details like all day and then my family had to eat. I mean that
was kind of funny because whatever I was working on is what they at night.
And it was really some Crazyfully, my philosophy for now, after many
many years and I stopped writing cookbooks is for my home cooking, which I
do look cooking stove is to keep for home cooks to cook simply do what
you know, occasionally try something new, but don't labor too much over these
crazy recipes, you know, red Hab like twenty eight in Green Years.
I mean I fear about that, like I love if I'm a follower of
like or Lange. I don't know. I think that was cookbooks the Middle
Eastern pieces. Rarely there's a Middle Eastern I mean they're just like three pages
long. Yeah, I think it's great for him and some people like it,
but I don't recommend that for our audience's sake. What's the best place
to get started if someone would want to delve into your world of cooking.
She's my recommendation. I did a blog gets still up called The Pastry Sessions.
It's just called the Pastry Sessions dot com and it is all baking.
I love baking, and I did baking classes with my granddaughter during COVID so
she lives in Austin. We did it on soon and the you know,
they're they're cute little essays. But the thing is, these recipes are the
standard things that people why you know, brownies, homemade, have fudge,
sauce, strawberry shortcake, things that you can get your kids to participate in.
Basically, I see it also as a family activity. And just to
go back, part of the reason that I it became a profession is that
I wanted to be home to meet Jennier from my family. I would just
spend a few authors. If you know what kind of foo would you want
to cook? Like, let's say Italian, you would start with a woman
na Marchelata's arm. If it's Jewish, maybe Claudia Rodin. His food is
Middle Easter, and I'm not too complicated. I don't just keep it easy.
This is great stuff for free on one I would say the New York
Times. This is my favorite their recipes. Well, thank you so much
Hellen for joining us. Are you what her? And to our audience,
now back to your regularly scheduled lives. Amusing Jews is here to amuse you.
If you like being amused, go ahead and click like and subscribe,