Over the course of my childhood, I collected thirteen Barbie dolls. Most of the Barbies came in relatively casual outfits, but I did ask for and receive one special “collectable” doll that came in an extra wide box to hold her fancy ball gown.
She was called Peaches and Cream Barbie. (The skirt of her dress was peach, the top iridescent white.) The doll had a Southern belle look, with long, thick, wavy blonde hair unlike any of the others I owned. When I opened the package and untied the doll from the carboard, her hair was so heavy that her head would not stay in a forward-facing position. Even if you manually placed it there, once you let go, her head would immediately fall back, as if Barbie was standing under you ceiling fan and obsessed with watching it turn.
I also got a doll of Jem from the 80s cartoon Jem and the Holograms. On the show, Jem had these earrings with special abilities that would flash when they were in action. The allure of the doll was that she had these “earrings” made of tiny lightbulbs that would flash when you flipped a switch. The placement of the earrings was closer to the joint of her upper and lower jaw than her earlobe. Although the lightbulbs were tiny as far as lightbulbs go, they were still these protruding knobs off the side of her head, giving Jem somewhat of a Frankenstein vibe.
If the packaging had mentioned medical reasons for the conditions these dolls seemed to face, I might have respected their quirks. However, the way it was, I found them to be disturbing and freaky. The very qualities that made these dolls “upgrades” also made them disfigured. My reaction at the time was, Maybe looking beautiful is overrated. It seemed to have undesirable tradeoffs.