It’s no surprise that Margot Robbie is playing the first human Barbie in her new movie. Her looks and stature make her a natural to portray Mattel’s doll introduced in 1959.  But Paris Hilton, too, can resemble the most famous toy of all. And so Paris may’ve beaten Margot to the punch as the first human Barbie.

But wait. We must suspend belief to buy into Barbie becoming human in Robbie’s new movie. Likewise, we’ve got to swallow hard to believe whether Paris was really “human” in her Barbie phase. In other blogs , and in Privileged Killers, I’ve written about how appearances can be deceiving. So let’s examine Paris’ stint as the first Human Barbie.

The hoopla over the First Human Barbie.

By the way, if you’ve missed out on the long prerelease hoopa for “Barbie,” scroll to the end of this blog for a summary of  different”Barbie” trailers and the final trailer. The movie’s likely to be a hit despite being launched at the same time as “Opp Ienheimer.” My bet is they’ll both do fine since they cater to different audiences.

Movies based on toys often do well and likely have sequels. That’s because they have a built-in platforms, like the movies about Lego bricks and Transformer toys did.

Versions of Barbie over time.

And don’t worry about Mattel. This “Barbie” will rescue them from their latest downturn in sales. Whenever there were lulls in Barbie sales over the decades,  Mattel introduced another “updated” 19-year-old (eternally young) Barbie, not to mention different ethnic and racial versions of the doll. Early on, plain Barbie (the girlfriend/bride/housewife) got a job and was dressed like a nurse or flight attendant. Then  as male jobs opened up for women, she became Air Force Barbie and Surgeon Barbi. Then Barbie the Reporter and Camerawoman in 2018, and wheelchair-bound Barbies lately.

Paris Hilton as Barbie.

It’s not always been clear whether Paris Hilton was a Spoiled Heiress, a Poor Little rich Girl (a victim and a survivor), or a wanna-be Valley Girl Barbie. It does seem clear from these excerpts  from Emma Carmichael’s recent article on Paris, triggered by Paris’ memoir, she went through a Barbie phase as this iconic photo of Paris suggests. Carmichael’s (oft-rearranged) statements will not be boldfaced like mine.

[Paris’] parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton, shipped her off to a series of boarding schools that promised to reform troubled teens. She [Paris] has since become a prominent advocate for shutting down the so-called troubled-teen industry; in 2021, she supported a bill to further regulate the schools in Utah, and she is now pushing for federal reform.

When Hilton got back [home] to New York [from a series of boarding schools], she felt desperate to make up for lost time. She got modeling jobs, and she and Nicky started going to fashion shows and movie premieres. She learned quickly how to use the growing hordes of paparazzi who followed her around New York and L.A. to her advantage, gamely posing for high-value candid shots that were likely to land her in the tabloids and inventing a new kind of fame. “I had no agent, no publicist, no stylist,” she says. “I had a fake email address and would pretend to be my [own] manager.”“I remember walking out with my sister and having 50 photographers screaming my name,” Hilton says. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is what love is.’ ”

It’s well documented that Hilton has two distinct voices. One is her regular, private speaking voice, which is low toned and almost sonorous; the other is the voice she uses for the public-facing character of Paris Hilton, which is higher pitched and coquettish, the real-life Valley Girl standard. In a mid-2000s clip that went viral on TikTok, where Hilton has flourished thanks to a new Gen Z fan base, Hilton bellows to the driver of a waiting car to wait “two minutes.” When an awaiting paparazzo asks how she’s doing, she transforms midstep: “Goooood,” she purrs.

 

When Hilton agreed to participate in [a documentary] “This Is Paris,” she didn’t anticipate that it would touch on her high school experience at all. But during filming, she and the director, Alexandra Haggiag Dean, grew close, and Hilton started to open up to her about what she’d been through. She was terrified before it premiered in September 2020, unsure of how her audience would react. “My brand had been so the opposite of that. I had this whole Barbie-doll, airhead”—and here she instinctively slips into the voice, as she does occasionally throughout our conversation—“ ‘perfect life’ persona. ”

In “Paris,” Hilton describes the character as “my steel-plated armor,” a “dumb blonde with a sweet but sassy edge”: “I made sure I never had a quiet moment to figure out who I was without her. I was afraid of that moment because I didn’t know what I’d find.” Dropping the act would mean navigating, and overseeing, yet another public reconstruction of herself.

https://youtu.be/pBk4NYhWNMM

More to come.

Trying to keep up with Paris Hilton is as hard as keeping up with all the Barbie dolls let loose in the world.

I’ll try to post my thoughts about Paris’ latest incarnation soon.

Likewise, as a counter-example, I’ll post my thoughts on new revelations (to me at least) about one of the best and most impressive famous painters I know.

Your thoughts?

Meanwhile, what’re your thougts about Paris playing Barbie and the movie “Barbie?”

 

 

 

To learn about CLEFT HEART: Chasing Normal, click the Amazon or Barnes & Noble buttons in the margins. Or click the image of the book cover. My coming-of-age memoir has intertwining love stories, mystery, tragedy, and triumph.