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Welcome to the special episode of Amusing
Jews, where we celebrate Jewish contributors and

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contributions to American popular culture. With
the long awaited release of the Barbie movie,

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directed by Greta Gerwig and co written
by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, we

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thought it would be a good time
to revisit the perennial question, is Barbie

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Jewish? The simple answer is yes. Her mother, Ruth Handler, was

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the feisty Jewish co founder of Mattel
along with her husband Elliot Handler, who

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invented hot wheels. Barbie was named
Ruth and Elliott's daughter, Barbara, and

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Ken was named after their son Kenneth. But we're talking about toys, not

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people, so maybe Jewish by birth
doesn't really apply, or does it.

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I'm Jonathan Friedman and I'm Jolly Agelfield
producer engineer Mike Tomerin is working somewhere behind

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the scenes. Amusing Jews is a
project of a Dot cavere in Corregation for

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Humanistic Judaism, The Cool School Jewish
Cultural Community, and Atheists United Studios.

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Our special guest today is Helene Siegel, a Los Angeles food writer who runs

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the Pastry Sessions blog. She's the
author of forty cookbooks, including the Totally

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Cookbook series and Pure Chocolate. In
the early nineties, Helene produced a series

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of Barbie books for eight to twelve
year old girls in a time before gender

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neutrality, including the Barbie Party Cookbook. Helene, Welcome to Amusing Jews.

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Thanks, Thanks, that's good to
be here. So I had read that

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you had outgrown dolls by the time
Barbie was introduced in nineteen fifty nine.

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Then thirty years later you got a
job with Mattel producing Barbie books. You're

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right that your friends were shocked at
how quickly you set aside your quote feminist

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ideals and dove into channeling the empty
headed fashion model. Could you could you

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tell us more about this? First
of all, it was nineteen fifty nine

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when obviously when she was introduced,
and I didn't get to play with her,

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only because I was nine years old
and I was past dolls by the

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time I was in college, you
know, I was one of those I

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totally launched doctor feminism, and I
was like, I burned my bra I

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watched on Fifth Avenue with Gloria Steinem
so as a college student, I just

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saw this little sign up somewhere that's
a women's liberation meeting happening this afternoon,

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and I ran to it and I
was like, oh, this is a

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all true. I know this is
real, blah blah blah. So I

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take myself seriously, but I was
never an academic the way some of the

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women who really done much deeper,
I would say than Aigid and wrote very

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very serious books. And so what
I'm saying is I take my feminism seriously,

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but I didn't take Barbie seriously.
I didn't have a problem with doing

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the series at all, but my
friends, some of them are kind of

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snooty, kind of left wing or
granola quenching good friends of mine, political,

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you know, kind of political people, and they took offense because they

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didn't want their daughters to play with
Barbie. Would you tell us a little

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bit about the Barbie book series and
maybe how you got started on it or

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what it's all about. Well,
sure, it was a book club for

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girls. It's a mail order book
club. So once they signed up like

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they signed up at school, and
they got new books like every month.

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That's why they had to work very
fast in years. And I was invited

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basically because the publisher was East Coast
publisher Grolier in Connecticut, and they had

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a contract with Mitchel to do this
with the license to Barbie license, they

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needed a represent They needed a representative
on the West coast because Mitchell demands a

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lot of collaborations, shall we saying? So there's approval process on the story,

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on the photography, by the way, which was fine because I went

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to the phote. We did photo
realistic shoots at the Stupideo in the Jat

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and Sober California. That was really
fine. So they needed a representative here

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to show Mitchell that they were so
careful watching every team. And then I

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hired a team of writers and editors
all over the country because in order to

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do this you had to work so
fast. And they came, by the

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way from I had a career in
children's book publishing, so I was an

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expert in many things. Food and
Childer was publishing. I was published a

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company that specialized in children's pop up
books, and that was here in Los

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Angeles, and so there's the connection. People are sometimes surprised to learn that

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the creator of Barbie the Blond aryan
feminine ideal who's based on a German sexy

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doll intended as a gag gift for
men. Was in fact Ruth Handler a

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very highly driven, ahead of her
time Jewish woman, maybe even a feminist,

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who was a far cry from the
nineteen fifties homemaker stereotype that Barbie sort

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of emulated in those early days.
Did you know about this aspect of Barbie

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when you were getting involved with Mattel? Did that help kind of ease the

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transition into that world. I did
know the sort of Russie Handler, and

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I knew she was Jewish, and
I knew that the toy industry that she

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came up and was also sort of
a Jewish industry. I had had a

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little experience with toys, So I
don't know how much that influenced fact that

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I guess what I thought is that
Ruth was very, very smart, and

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she was in it to win it, and she knew that the Glanders,

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you know, the must climberous woman
of the Jay were Marilyn Monroe and Bridget

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Bardoux, and they were blonde,
and they had big breasts at small waists,

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and there were sort of a masculine
ideal of a female. And she

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just wanted to make money. I
mean, I think it's as simple as

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and I think she probably did good
work with the money that some of the

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money she made, I'm sure she
did right. And there's that idea that

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is floated in the movie as well, and I've heard it many times that

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this was the first doll, you
know, mainstream marketed for kids that was

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not a baby, right, that
was actually a woman. Yeah, yeah,

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no, at the time it was
really I didn't play with one,

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but I was kind of titillated by
it because one of them, my friends,

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who was maybe more immature, got
a doll and she had like the

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dream house, which was a big
thing where I was growing up in the

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Bronx because we lived in small apartments
and there weren't a lot of girls who

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had the dream house and the Corvette
and all that. And I mean,

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I think I kind of wanted to
touch the dollar. It was because we

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would just entered puberty, like what
is those It looked good. I mean,

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I have to say that what she
had looked good. The car,

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you know, the apartment with a
house sweating air, it looked great.

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It looked like fun. So I
think this has been sort of simmering for

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a little bit. Barbie has not
always been seen as a feminist role model.

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I am not a Barbie doll was
chanted by protesters at the nineteen seventy

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women Strike for Equality in New York. Barbie's image has changed over the years,

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with the doll taking on diverse shapes, colors, causes, personas,

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and occupations. And your Barbie books, were you able to introduce any complexities

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that maybe helped push Barbie in this
direction? Well, first of all,

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I have to say that the word
complex to me does not equate with the

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were Barbie, because to me,
it was It's a very simple idea when

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I worked on it, and now
it's evolved some. But when I worked

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on her, she was perfect.
She never had a problem. There's no

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problem Barbie can't can't solve. She
looks gorgeous in every picture, and she

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gets to have like a million careers. She didn't have to get a PhD.

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She never got rejected at a job
interview. I mean she goes to

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the top, like immediately at everything
from ice skating to parachuting. And she

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also has according in the books Weed, she had a heart of gold.

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So she was also always helping the
poor little girl who was maybe like overweight,

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or our parents were divorcing, was
going through a hard time. So

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when the stories we tried to interest, you know, age of twelve year

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old girls with a real story.
But she is almost like a unicorn Barbie

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or just a magic figure because we'll
like, she has a magic blond and

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once Barbie meets the little girl and
had a problem, she makes it go

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away. And I think I love
that it's not complicating, right, And

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I'm sure that you didn't have much
say in terms of that aspect of those

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stories. You were told by Mettell, which is a very sort of finely

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tu owned corporate entity. You have
to do it this way, but you

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said that you you kind of like
that aspect of it. Um is it

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estapism or is it something more for
these young girls who are maybe reading these

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books or playing with the dolls?
Well, you know, honestly, I

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think we made the books because the
word Barbie sell sells books. But but

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the good goal, the healthy goal, was give children something that they want

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to read. So I mean their
stories we helped pertain to their wives,

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like the divorcing, you know,
but they and they also reflect tempting issues

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out the day. Because I have
to laugh right now. But we had

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a disability Barbie well, I mean
she is a coach, but she's in

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a you know, the girls in
a wheelchair. So they were trying to

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do everything correct and we had to
hire a disabilities Hollywood disability consultant. But

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the funniest one was when there was
a doll there was also in a wheelchair,

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but she was Barbie was going to
teacher have ski And that was when

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I felt they went like too far
out. So here's the thing. We

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came up with the ideas. So
I had a team of writers and we

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pitched, you know, we came
up with the ideas and they said yes

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or no. But just as when
you channel any license character or make believe

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character that stands to make a lot
of money, if they don't give you

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a bible the company that says he
does this, he doesn't do that,

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I'll never say this, blah blah
blah. I think you have to just

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know it and stinctually from the culture, and anything you do that breaks out

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of that mold they will reject.
It's very simple along those lines. I

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just rewatched a really interesting episode of
the Netflix show The Toys that made us

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about Barbie which documentary, Yeah,
a little documentary. It's a documentary series

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on the history behind a lot of
these really important toy properties. And it

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did mention that, like the good
positive decisions that have been made it in

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the Barbie line at Mattel over the
years have been women behind those good ideas,

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and then some of the flops and
the weirder things have been the male

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executives kind of trying to imagine what
girls might want or it's it's a real

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disconnect. I don't know if you
saw any of that. You know,

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I didn't. But when I was
working there, this was in the nineties,

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and by the way, I wasn't
hard by Mattel. Just for the

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record, I was with the publisher
on these couds. They hired me because

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they needed a West Coast person.
It was female executive sent it was a

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female CEO, and the women running
like the meetings I went to were on

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the more creative side because it was
back getting them to approve or story ideas

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and then costumes and things like that. It was all women, and frankly,

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yeah, they were tough of I
mean, it wasn't like even know

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come on by now, we all
know that women were in industries and they

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can be just as tough as smack. I don't think they were getting more

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from any man on top, and
so the movie got that wrong. But

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it's very simple in the movie.
I view the movie, and we'll get

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to some movie specific things soon,
but I view the movie is really a

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live action cartoon in that way where
everyone is a caricature by design. And

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you know, we could be very
critical of these aspects, but I think

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in terms of cartoons and caricature and
the immediacy of understanding who this character is,

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that certainly comes through in the movie
in a not so complex way.

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But there are some like deeper themes
that are hidden beneath that superficiality. This

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may be controversial, but I have
to admit that the classic Barbie doll with

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her blonde hair, her little nose
and that swimsuit figure sort of looks like

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the nineteen sixties Jewish suburban ideal,
with rhinoplasty being so common in blonde hair

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and blue eyes being idealized for better
or worse. Of course, you know,

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blonde Jews aren't so uncommon anymore through
you know, Jews by choice and

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in her marriage and so forth,
and so on. But in your opinion,

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even that like idealized Barbie of the
early days, does that seem like

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a Jewish doll to you? Absolutely
not. I never thought about it,

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but I think the doll is secular. Have this one theme that has never

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come up, has anything to do
with any church or religious you know,

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any anything to do with religion.
I don't even remember whether we did a

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Christmas story, but I don't think
we did. I think the one we

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did was set in colonial America and
they were trying to say whatever, telling

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that the British Barbie was selling people
the britishal Company. Yeah, here's my

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answer, because I thought about this. I never thought about it before.

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But frankly, I hate to say
it. I don't think she's Jewish.

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I don't know any doubt in my
mind. But if she word you a

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Jewish woman of that period, unfleshalist, she would be the start typical jab

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which I hate to say because I
would never use that word, you know,

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the Jewish American prince vass. Because
everything Barbie has is the best,

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she must have the best, and
I mean, honestly, she's a very

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ambitious driver. She seems to hardly
have to break a sweat. That's what

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makes herm that Jewish and before Loovy, she never worried about anything, and

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she certainly never cried, and that
doesn't seem very chews either. There's no

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dark past. You know, she's
in the moment as she just wants the

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best of everything, and if she
can go to Blooming Girl's, you know,

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it's a good day. So we
talked about Ruth Handler a bit,

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and you know, we're trying to
keep this spoiler free, but Ruth Handler's

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ghost, who apparently lives on the
seventeenth floor of the Mattel building, makes

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an appearance in the movie. I
will say that it was refreshing to see

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her played by a Jewish actress,
Rihah Perlman. That's that's very rare,

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and there's a lot of criticism around
actors being cast who are not Jewish playing

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Jewish roles. In fact, the
other movie that's big now Openeira open Ira

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himself a jew played by an Irish
actor, Killian Murphy, So that I

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thought was delightful and refreshing. I'm
wondering if you have any thoughts on the

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portrayal of Ruth Handler, who I
was happy to see in the film.

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But you know, it's a version
of her, and and I feel like

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I'm so critical, such a critical
Jew, but I mean, honestly,

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it was really bothered by her.
But it was interesting because a lot of

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my friends and I think my husband
were like, oh, it was so

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nice. You know, there was
you know, a little Jewish lady.

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Yeah. I guess I'm a stickler, and I kind of have a hunch

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of a kind of person she was, because I think Luce was out of

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the house, you know, built
a giant corporation. She was in boardrooms

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and I so, yeah, I
think Raya Roman was very cute and it's

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sort of stereotypical maybe you know,
Jewish grandma. And even the little advice

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I just the stick felt for me
didn't do justice to do. I think

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she was yeah, And I think
you know, she mentions, which is

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again nice, that they were able
to slip it, and she mentioned tax

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evasion and such, and that's a
big part of Ruth Handler's story. But

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the real Ruth was ruthless. I
mean, that's the reputation right Well,

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there's no question. I mean,
I don't know the personal stories, but

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there's no doubt in my mind.
I haven't worked in some competitive industries that

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you have to rule you can't rise
to that level. And certainly the women

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I knew at the child the world
was very out of It's not Colin Wood.

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I mean they're tough, of course, of course. I mean I

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don't think she would. She just
ye wasn't that person. And I kind

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of painted that whole nostalgic thing.
I don't know. I wasn't crazy about

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it, but a lot of people
I know my friends were very sweet and

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just given Barbie advice. I think
whatever it is, I don't even remember.

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You don't have to be perfect.
Maybe I'm wondering too, with the

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work that you did on those books, if you saw any influence or any

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direct connection with the stories that you
were hired to do reflected in the film

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in any way. Well, the
funny part for me because I did that

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cookbook you know that total Barbie Cooper, and and I just gave them recipes,

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my recipents. I was just think
Barbie didn't get that too. But

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then what has interested me was the
change in Barbie through the years from the

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time I work. Weren't it Because
one of the things I'll ever forget is

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that when I worked on the storybook
series where we had to come up with

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a million careers and when we were
like running out about ideas and I wanted

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to do what was her names Fields, Cookie, kind of a rep boss

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with missus Fields, a cookie entrepreneur
lady. And now they have a doll.

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They have several cupcake Barbie Cookie Barbie
who are entrepreneurs. So back in

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the day when I worked on the
State Killed Dot story idea and I'll never

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forget what they said the executives of
my talent, and he was, there

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are some things probably will never do. And she will never sweep before,

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she will never wash the pot.
And she didn't say it this way,

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but she's never near Schmutz. Okay, no, no dirt and no sweeping

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and no cookie. And the other
thing is she will never get mapvery so

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whereever he asked, what happens with
Aaron Kang like nothing, that's a part

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of the myth. The myth with
Can has not changed. But I'm the

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cooking thing. Oh my god,
I was shocked when I looked recently,

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there's almost like ten different cookie bombies
and a little chef racket, you know,

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not a little cut can. Are
you tempted to purchase one of those

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parties? Well, no, because
I don't play with dollars. But my

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granddaughter is well now she's a lark, but when she was growing up,

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when she was slid alert, I
had these collectible barbies from when I worked

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on it. But when I worked
on her, we made some special editions

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and they were very special at the
time. One was like a cool guy

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a going to the mask ball in
Venice where there was a stolen jewel,

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and she was like tind to sleep
it out. Okay, So I saved

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them for my granddaughter and when I
get to her, she was just being

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kind to me. I guess,
oh, very nice grandma. And from

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all I know, she just threw
them in the closet. She never played

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her down and sometimes I said,
you remember those bobbies are oh yeah,

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yeah, I remember, so she
could have cared less. Yeah. My

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daughter was the same way. Actually
we got her barbie just to see what

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would happen, and nothing happened.
And I had sons and neither of them

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ever asked. I mean they asked. We would have had dollars in the

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house, but they didn't. And
I have a friend of just thinking about

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my friends, you know, these
left leaning who A couple of the felt

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strongly they didn't want that girls to
Playbot Barbie. But one of them told

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me that she started getting them as
birthday gifts, and what was she going

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to do take the birthday gifts away
from the kids. She didn't, and

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she said so she just had to
kind of sip it up, and her

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daughter played, and then she got
tired of them, and now she's a

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genius, brilliant in our eternity.
But it's interesting for the women who had

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the politics where they really didn't like
that, what they would decide, I

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think it would always be a bad
idea. Frankly, to forbid a joys,

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you're almost asking for trouble. You
know, Barbie has become much more

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diverse in the last twenty years or
whatever, with the different shapes and sizes

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and ethnicities and different historical figures that
she inhabits and so forth. So there

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is an awareness that it leaves on
some level that stereotypical Barbie as it's called

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now is not tenable in many ways, and that with the diversification of the

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consumer base. And you know,
progress never perfect, but progress made in

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you know, women's choices of career
and so forth, that that's reflected I

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think very positively in Barbie. I
think there's it's a it's not a terrible

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thing to have a Barbie though,
And no, I don't think so either

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00:21:32.839 --> 00:21:36.759
in it and it's kind of a
creative person. And she made the interesting

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in fashion and all that. I
mean, what's the danger. I mean

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she's looking at the at mean,
I was really into the objects. I

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thought they were really cool. It
reminded me of something when you talked about

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diversity. Now, remember I've worked
on these in the nineteen nineties, social

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at term that thinks that change.
But shubbing this was starting to be you

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know, Barbie was being criticized for
the bad body image by the feminists of

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their doctors, etc. And they
wanted a chubby story. They wanted more

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than one, but they wanted to
show that Barbie accepted chubby. It's called

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a special ballerina and you won't be
able to charl but one of these little

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dolls is considered chubby because her waistline
is kind a bit larger, you know,

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like m skipper or whatever. But
it was they were so compromised,

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like they couldn't really act chubby,
you know what I mean, the same

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thing, and when they did Kurby
Barbie that was supposed to be but chubby

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or one. Maybe they were like
Latina or something, but it was very

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compromised. Maybe not today, but
back then in the nineties they were treading,

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were like new territory. So,
Helene, you're a prolific author of

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cookbooks, could you tell us about
your cooking philosophy and what goes into making

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a cookbook? So, cookbook,
anything to do with food, it's very

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hard work. It's like opening a
restaurant. We're opening the bagel shop.

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It sounds better in fact than it
is because so much work. I mean,

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I have to say I enjoyed those
two years. You know, I

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did it for about twenty five years, and my decision to do that was

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an outcroft by the way of my
life at the time, where I was

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working full time out of the house. When once again this goes way back.

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So my first son was boring one
in nineteen eighty one. Okay,

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So I was juggling. I had
a career in publishing. Well, you

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had to be at the office every
day, you know, nine to five,

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and I had a commute, and
I had a kid at her and

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I wanted to stry to figure out
how it could back then and work from

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bound, you know, really at
a decent job and still see my kid.

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I wanted to see my kid.
I didn't want to do the communing.

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So basically it started with that.
And I had a lifelong interest in

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food. I just like to eat, and I was kind of self taught

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as cut I mean, I never
did cooking school or anything like that,

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sort of a typical English major,
but it was always a passionate love to

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eat out. And so what happened
in the eighties here in California. We

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had lived from New York, where
had worked in publishing, and in the

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00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:12.079
eighties it was a big way of
what was called California cuisine, and so

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Tree became suddenly very important. And
the publishers on the East Coast, we're

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looking for chefs on the West coast
to write cookbooks. And so that's how

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that all happened for me was I
got invited so right to be the writer

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of the cookbook that was with the
hottest restaurant in town in Los Angeles,

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like the biggest Hollywood resh book.
It was called ma Maison and this chef

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was Wolfgang Park who went on in
huge fame, but they couldn't get it

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together to do the book. They
had signed a contract and gone a bunch

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of many because they were busy,
Like Joel Reshiant, right, it's a

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lot of work in the cookbook.
So that's how I entered that field.

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I got hired for my editorial skills. Well what happened is as a result

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of that, they put me in
a kitchen with a real chef for about

332
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:03.200
a year. So I almost had
a private cooking lessons and they were like

333
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:07.039
really great chefs and recipes and I
loved it. So then I became a

334
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full on and that's whenever on my
own books. Yeah, I developed us

335
00:25:10.839 --> 00:25:15.880
expertise and I would occasionally mere like
for my chocolate book, Pure Chocolate Is

336
00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:19.440
with a real chocolate to Europeleance of
Business in Seattle, and I did the

337
00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:25.000
writing, she did the cooking.
So basically when I do my own books,

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00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:29.680
it's a crazy amountable. I mean, I can't rarely recommend this as

339
00:25:29.720 --> 00:25:32.920
a profession. What I was doing
it, I'll just say at the hidable

340
00:25:32.920 --> 00:25:36.759
because I was writing them really fast, I would test about four recipes a

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00:25:36.839 --> 00:25:41.079
day, which meant early in the
morning, very early in dust. Shopping

342
00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:45.359
was like every day was a genner
party at w because I would have to

343
00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:52.640
work like a cater or basic cooking
and taking notes or recording de chanels dechails

344
00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:56.640
details like all day and then my
family had to eat. I mean that

345
00:25:56.759 --> 00:26:00.680
was kind of funny because whatever I
was working on is what they at night.

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00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:06.440
And it was really some Crazyfully,
my philosophy for now, after many

347
00:26:06.519 --> 00:26:11.160
many years and I stopped writing cookbooks
is for my home cooking, which I

348
00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:17.400
do look cooking stove is to keep
for home cooks to cook simply do what

349
00:26:17.559 --> 00:26:22.960
you know, occasionally try something new, but don't labor too much over these

350
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:26.680
crazy recipes, you know, red
Hab like twenty eight in Green Years.

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00:26:26.759 --> 00:26:30.160
I mean I fear about that,
like I love if I'm a follower of

352
00:26:30.279 --> 00:26:33.440
like or Lange. I don't know. I think that was cookbooks the Middle

353
00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:40.480
Eastern pieces. Rarely there's a Middle
Eastern I mean they're just like three pages

354
00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:44.599
long. Yeah, I think it's
great for him and some people like it,

355
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:48.160
but I don't recommend that for our
audience's sake. What's the best place

356
00:26:48.200 --> 00:26:52.839
to get started if someone would want
to delve into your world of cooking.

357
00:26:52.079 --> 00:26:57.880
She's my recommendation. I did a
blog gets still up called The Pastry Sessions.

358
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:03.839
It's just called the Pastry Sessions dot
com and it is all baking.

359
00:27:03.920 --> 00:27:10.640
I love baking, and I did
baking classes with my granddaughter during COVID so

360
00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:15.400
she lives in Austin. We did
it on soon and the you know,

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00:27:15.559 --> 00:27:19.039
they're they're cute little essays. But
the thing is, these recipes are the

362
00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:25.440
standard things that people why you know, brownies, homemade, have fudge,

363
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:30.440
sauce, strawberry shortcake, things that
you can get your kids to participate in.

364
00:27:30.759 --> 00:27:34.359
Basically, I see it also as
a family activity. And just to

365
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:38.480
go back, part of the reason
that I it became a profession is that

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I wanted to be home to meet
Jennier from my family. I would just

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00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.279
spend a few authors. If you
know what kind of foo would you want

368
00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:48.839
to cook? Like, let's say
Italian, you would start with a woman

369
00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:55.720
na Marchelata's arm. If it's Jewish, maybe Claudia Rodin. His food is

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Middle Easter, and I'm not too
complicated. I don't just keep it easy.

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This is great stuff for free on
one I would say the New York

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Times. This is my favorite their
recipes. Well, thank you so much

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Hellen for joining us. Are you
what her? And to our audience,

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now back to your regularly scheduled lives. Amusing Jews is here to amuse you.

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If you like being amused, go
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