Barbie Girls and the culture of consumption

I read last week about Mattel marketing a new Barbie website and other types of “virtual play” for girls. Even though it’s still in beta, in its first 60 days, the Barbie Girls site signed up three million members, and is adding another 50,000 every day. (I tried to log in and poke around the site, but it’s been so jammed with visitors that I couldn’t get it to load.)
One of the reasons Barbie has historically had such a hold on young girls (and what I loved about Barbie as a kid) is that she’s a grown-up. I know this is one of the critiques of Barbie — that she presents a very screwed up image of what an adult woman is supposed to physically look like. As a kid, I loved Barbie because she wasn’t a baby doll — I had no interest in playing mommy. I used Barbie to act out how I wanted to be as an adult. My Barbie was a journalist. She wore men’s sweaters sometimes. She always drove the red convertible. In her spare time, she was the frontwoman of a rock band.
What didn’t she do? Go shopping. Sure, she had lots of fun outfits, but having her “purchase” more was never part of my play routine. When I searched for descriptions of what Barbie is actually set up to do in her popular new virtual world, every article I found only mentioned her ability to shop for stuff like “miniskirts, tiaras or home accessories.” In other words, training girls to grow up to be women who are first and foremost consumers.
A Barbie virtual world seems so much more pernicious than Barbie the 10-inch doll. It’s still got all the body- and beauty-standard issues that the old-school version has. But at least girls can more easily impose their own personalities and interests onto a doll. It requires imaginative play. I’m sure that Barbie Girls has been focus-grouped like crazy, and that TONS of young girls want their Barbies to do nothing but go shopping and get makeovers. But it’s really terrible (not to mention a wasted opportunity) to not include other activities. Why couldn’t they join a virtual rock band, or run for virtual office, or play virtual sports? (I can think of several great organizations that would have made perfect partners for a website like this.)
As the site stands now, though, where would a kid like I was fit into the Barbie Girls world? From what I’ve read, the site features no fast cars, no rock band, no newsdesk. Just credit cards and cosmetics.