This gave birth to Mattel’s early 90s gay nightmare (a beautiful accident, if you ask me): Earring Magic Ken looked like the plastic stereotype of queer fashion back then: dressed in a lavender mesh t-shirt, a matching purple leather jacket, tightly fitted black jeans, and a pierced earring at a period when men having pierced ears was still considered taboo in the United States. Inspired by the music videos these girls saw on the legendary MTV music video network, they wanted Ken to have a cool new look and “cool” meant something like a mesh top, a leather vest, tight pants and an earring. Mattel’s research team worked with a group of 5-year-old girls in the early 1990s to find out what may make them more inclined to push their parents to buy a Ken doll. The options were very simple: either Mattel gives Ken the boot or they improve him.
The crux of the issue was that Ken wasn’t “cool” and Mattel was not okay with it. Moreover, he was a pretty boring a geek who was most popularly seen wearing satin tuxedos. Her partner, Ken, on the other hand, was not.
Barbie was at the height of her popularity in the early 1990s.
