Barbie, 7 Kens Scale Mattel Headquarters in El Segundo, Protest Doll Boxes Made From Indonesian Rainforests

By Simone Wilson Tue., Jun. 7 2011 at 2:45 PM

Molly Peterson/KPCC

Protest Barbie has brief wig malfunction

Apparently inspired by last month's super meta Disney protest -- in which Burbank activists dressed as Mickey and Minnie chained themselves to the front gates of corporate headquarters and hung a banner reading "Disney: Destroying Indonesia's Rainforests" across Walt's classic arch -- Barbie and seven Kens staged a nearly identical stunt at Mattel's office in El Segundo today.

This time, though, your reluctant Greenpeace donations were at work. City News Service reports that eight professional tree-huggers from one of environmentalism's fattest orgs...

... played their own game of dress-up this morning, taking Operation Deforestation to what Mattel officials are calling "inflammatory" new heights:

Starting about 9 a.m., activists dressed as Ken rappelled down the side of the main building to unveil the ["Barbie, it's over: I don't date girls that are into deforestation''] banner, and among those arrested was a woman dressed as Barbie.

According to KPCC, the banner also linked to Greenpeace's Facebook profile, which, dizzyingly, is now tagged in a photo of the banner snapped earlier today:

Cereplast, Inc.

Super cutely, but also kind of counterproductively, the message also plays on Mattel's imaginary Valentine's Day reunion of Barbie and Ken, an obvious publicity stunt to get a new generation of elementary schoolers hooked on booby plastic. (Now that Bratz won the catfight and all.)

Anyway, Barbie and her Kens were quickly arrested by El Segundo police officers for trespassing, although -- small victory -- their painstakingly hung banner was still up as of 11:30 a.m.

Barbie with her bulldozer:

Greenpeace via Flickr

City News quotes a Greenpeace statement issued as explanation for the protest:

"Unwrap the glossy pink box and you'll find Barbie's dirty secret. Her packaging is made from the rainforests of Indonesia, which are being ripped down for quick profits.''

Of course, Mattel's PR team is firing back, claiming the toy company has been doing everything within its power to work with Mother Nature.

"Playing responsibly has long been an important part of Mattel's business practices, as evidenced by our Corporate Responsibility activities during the past decade.
Over the past months, we have been in communication with Greenpeace on a variety of papersourcing issues. We are surprised and disappointed that they have taken this inflammatory approach ... We will continue to assess our paper sourcing and packaging improvements as we move forward.''

Weak. How about a limited-edition Protest Barbie, packaged in tofu or palm frond or whatever's greenest these days, to show y'all truly care?

[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]

Tags:

Barbie, deforestation, Disney, El Segundo, environmentalism, Indonesia, Ken, Mattel, protest, protesters, rainforests, trespassing

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Rob04

There is more than one area that Mattel needs to improve. This is from a shareholder proposal submitted for Mattel’s 2011 annual meeting:

The Corporate Library www.thecorporatelibrary.com, an independent investment research firm, rated our company “High Concern” in executive pay with $11 million for our CEO, Robert Eckert. The maximum bonus payout for Mr. Eckert was increased from 150% of base salary to 200%. The target bonus for 2010 was increased from 100% to 130% of Mr. Eckert’s base salary. A dollar value approach to equity awards was adopted which created the potential for enormous windfall profits during periods of high stock price volatility and should be avoided according to The Corporate Library. We had no shareholder right to an independent board chairman, cumulative voting (removed in 2007) or to fill director vacancies (removed in 2006). Our so-called Lead Director, Tully Freedman, had 26-years long-tenure – independence concern and was our biggest negative vote-getter with 31% in negative votes. All our other directors got at least 26% in negative votes, including our newest directors. These negative percentages pointed to shareholder discontent which may warrant additional examination. At our annual meetings there is a Mr. Eckert serial practice of not allowing any shareholder discussion when the management items are fully introduced. However there is no corresponding restriction on management discussion when shareholder proposals are introduced.