Jerry Oppenheimer: Toy Monster
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Book Reviews 481 rearing as the competitive responsibility insightful account of the process of toy de- of parents and the Charybdis of market sign and marketing. It would be shocking forces addressing children as consumers. if it were a thoughtful consideration of the But there is room for skepticism. Some impact and meaning of commercialized of us doubt that the twentieth century’s playthings on children and their parents. discourse of play could—or should—be No worry. Oppenheimer neither surprises revived to address the perils of the twenty- nor shocks us on these scores. Instead, he first. The future might require a different gives us the inside dope on the big players strategy and, maybe, a less technophobic at Mattel. conception of play, one that more befits a We meet founders Ruth and Elliot “posthuman” age. Handler, the early designer Jack Ryan, the Barbie-like CEO of the late 1990s Jill —Roy Kozlovsky, Northeastern Univer- Barad, and the current chief Bob Eckert. sity, Boston, MA Based on interviews with their children, their friends, and their former associates (some sympathetic, others not), Oppen- heimer’s book offers an endless string of Toy Monster: The Big, Bad colorful stories. He presents the money- World of Mattel minded figure of Ruth, the egoist whose Jerry Oppenheimer manipulation of sales records to boost New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., stock prices in the early 1970s led to her 2009. Bibliography, photographs. ouster. Then there is her husband Elliot, xiii, 280 pp. $24.95 cloth. ISBN: the quiet and artistic toy maker. We meet 9780470371268 Ryan, the narcissistic engineer, who “re- ally” was responsible for Barbie, not Ruth The behind-the-scenes stories of toy mak- who stole the “look” from a German doll ers have repeatedly inspired journalists named Bild Lili. Barad comes off as the and even those in the toy industry them- flamboyant fashionista whose exces- selves to write highly accessible books for sive self-confidence and drive for power the general public. Jerry Oppenheimer’s and wealth could not even save her own Toy Monster plants itself firmly in this job amid all the failed acquisitions and tradition. Oppenheimer is the successful questionable accounting. Oppenheimer biographer of Martha Stewart, Barbara includes stories, too, of Eckert, the quiet Walters, the Clintons, and the Kennedys. midwestern corporate official who strove A mark of his standing in today’s market to keep the brands profitable and out of for tell-all biography comes in the back- the news despite scandals over lead paint of-book endorsement from Kitty Kelley, and ingestible magnets in Mattel’s toys and famous—some would say infamous— the legal battles with MCA Entertainment writer of unauthorized biographies of the Inc. over its Bratz dolls, the first successful Bush family, British royalty, and media competitor to Barbie. The book includes a celebrities. lot of discussion about the Handlers and Given all this, it would be surprising if their ultimate break with Ryan (whose Oppenheimer’s story turned out to be an lusty lifestyle they found objectionable) AmJP 02_4 text.indd 481 5/27/10 8:13:20 AM 482 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PLAY • Spring 2010 and about the obscene amounts of money tion of Bratz’s threat to Mattel’s Barbie by earned by Barad and Eckert especially. De- pointing out that today’s girls actually do spite its title, this book is hardly a critique prefer the streetwise look of Britney Spears of the “toy monster.” Rather, it is largely a and her ilk over Barbie’s “conservative” string of celebrity biographies. style, but Oppenheimer’s analysis is brief What does all this tell us about play and superficial. and playthings? Not as much as we might Perhaps the most striking element of like. Other journalistic accounts of the toy this book about Mattel is that it has so little business—for instance, G. Wayne Miller’s to do with toys or their use by children. Toy Wars: The Epic Struggle between G. I. And that may say as much about the toy Joe, Barbie, and the Companies That Made industry as about the author. Them(1998); Sydney Stern and Ted Schoe- nhaus’s Toyland: The High-Stakes Game —Gary Cross, The Pennsylvania State of the Toy Industry (1991); or even the University, State College, PA autobiographical Dream Doll: The Ruth Handler Story (1995)—offer us insights into the corporate process of designing modern action figures and dolls and ex- The Place of Play: Toys and planations of what has sold well among Digital Cultures kids’ playthings. Oppenheimer’s relent- Maaike Lauwaert less quest for the personal, even salacious, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University story mostly precludes any discussion of Press, 2009. Diagrams, photographs, the toy industry itself. He rehearses the notes, bibliography, index. 160 pp. well-known story of the origins of Barbie $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9789089640802 without any discussion of the girls’ play- things the doll displaced or why it was The concept of “participatory culture” able to do so. He sheds some light on the has become increasingly associated with development of He-Man and the Masters new forms of play made possible by digital of the Universe toys and the well-known media and the Internet. In our so-called razor-and-razor-blade strategy of market- participatory cultures, players do not sim- ing action figures and Barbies—selling the ply play with toys and games designed by doll or figure to “hook” the child into pur- corporations, but become co-designers, chasing ever more accessories and other modifying play practices as well as the figures in the toy line. He recognizes the objects themselves and sharing them role of the program-length commercial, with other players. Participatory culture the television cartoon series of the 1980s has been lauded for its presumed shift of based solely on toy lines. But he offers no players from consumers to producers, context or interpretation. He summarizes the democratization of cultural produc- Mattel’s 2008 court victory over MCA in tion, and the increasing freedom from the which Mattel claimed rights to the entire dominance of corporations and industry line of Bratz dolls because it was conceived in shaping and commodifying play. But a by a toy designer who was, at the time, on growing number of critics argue that such Mattel’s payroll. He does offer an explana- participation is not as open or liberatory AmJP 02_4 text.indd 482 5/27/10 8:13:21 AM.