HEAVY LITTLE OBJECTS

#188 :: Barbie's Piggy Bank

At some point, toys became all about accessories. Kids shoulder past your knees at KayBee to hunch over demonic action figures - "What weapons does it have?" There are more than a dozen kinds of Batman. Barbie has always been accessorized. You'd think someone who owns a mobile home and a jet plane wouldn't have to save her pennies, but then, she does work in a convenience store. Perhaps this little porcine keg - and an unswerving sense of thrift - brought her all that wealth. Perhaps she's just a grown-up little girl whose anatomy is now obsessed over by toy fetishists, and whose original, sweet identity has been co-opted by the planet-wide hive mind of little girls yearning to be sophisticated, successful grown-ups.