In Not That Kind of Girl, Lena Dunham recalls some maternal advice: “Barbie’s disfigured. It’s OK to play with her just as long as you keep that in mind.”
In that spirit, GoldieBlox, the Oakland-established girls' toy company that wants to inspire young engineers and creatives, has released an ad for their (more) anatomically appropriate doll, Goldie.
San Francisco-based entrepreneur Debbie Sterling is the company's founder, and her TEDx presentation about her (noble) goals has garnered over a million views.
But for the anti-Barbie, "girl inventor" Goldie is still awfully small, blonde, and white.
Laughing Squid likens the ad and its "Big Sister" message to Apple's famous "1984" Super Bowl spot. And in a further parallel, GoldieBlox won Intuit's competition for its own Super Bowl advertisement this year, making the company the first small business to have a commercial aired during the event.
After a copyright infringement skirmish from the Beastie Boys, lamented by the Chronicle, over the use of the group's song "Girls" in a highly viral 2013 ad, we hope Goldie Blox purchased the rights to the song in this new commercial. It's "Help I'm Alive," a jam from the Canadian band Metric.