McKendall also told The Stranger, “It’s a necklace. The faux pas led Lisa McKendall, who was the then-manager of marketing and communications for Mattel, to release a statement saying, “We’re not in the business of putting c*** rings into the hands of little girls.” Savage also wrote that it seemed Mattel’s design team “spent a weekend in LA or New York dashing from rave to rave, taking notes and Polaroids.” Savage wrote that the necklace “is what ten out of ten people in-the-know will tell you at a glance is a c*** ring.” In the story, Savage particularly focused on the doll’s necklace, a circular chrome pendant hanging from a silver chain. And that’s not all to mention, his necklace was almost decidedly modeled after a sexual accessory trend of leathers and club-kids alike.Īfter the doll’s 1993 release, activist and writer Dan Savage, who at the time was working for queer-focused newspaper The Stranger, wrote a piece about the doll’s decidedly “gay” look. True to his name, his ear is pierced on the left side, which was sometimes considered to be a covert way of indicating queerness. His hair is perfectly quaffed and expertly highlighted with chunky streaks of blonde. And he is every ’90s queer stereotype in a chiseled hunk of plastic.Įarring Magic Ken rocks a mesh lavender shirt and matching pleather vest. The doll was called Earring Magic Ken, which is the absolute best name for an accidentally gay doll.

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