A life-size Barbie Dreamhouse is set to open in Berlin in May, and leftist activists are up in arms. They plan to protest the opening to draw attention to what they say is the wrong role model for girls.
Soon, Barbie will have a new home. A giant pink dollhouse is being erected near the elevated train tracks that cut through Berlin’s famous Alexanderplatz square. When it opens to the public, the 2,500-square-meter (26,000-square-foot) plush world will be the first of its kind, a hands-on version of little girls’ dreams, with a four-poster Barbie bed, a walk-in Barbie closet and a Barbie cupcake kitchen.
An enormous image of the doll already looms over passing trains from a billboard at the construction site. “Visit me!” it beckons. Scheduled to open on May 16, the “Barbie Dreamhouse Experience” will be finished just in time for the tourist high season, with up to 3,000 visitors expected each day.
But how welcome is the tourist attraction in a city famous for its alternative culture? In the gritty Neukölln district, young members of the far-left Left Party plan to protest the opening. At the beginning of March, they started an “Occupy Barbie Dreamhouse” page on Facebook. They are campaigning against what they describe as the pinkification of young girls, high heels, plush and consumerism — basically everything Barbie stands for.
At issue, as is so often the case in the rapidly growing German capital, is the tension between culture and commerce. It’s a perpetual battle in Berlin. Last year, leftist protesters in the alternative Kreuzberg districtfought against a temporary “future lab” to be created by BMW and the Guggenheim Museum. The conflict also emerged again in recent days during demonstrations against the removal of a Berlin Wall section to make way for a luxury housing project.