Kryptonite-Crotch Ken

One of the bigger PR blessings for the movie "Superman Returns" has been the urban myth that Superman's crotch had to be digitally downsized in post production. The myth claims that the actor who plays the man from Krypton, Brandon Routh, has a real-life crotch that was supersized by mother nature at birth. Blog after blog has reported that the execs at Warner Brothers feared that Brandon's bulging briefs would become the focal point of the movie, so they did to Superman what Lex Luthor has been trying to do since 1939.

The fact is, when Mr. Routh was playing Superman, he was wearing a cod piece beneath his red briefs. Costume designers put more effort into engineering that cod piece than NASA did the nose cone on the space shuttle. So if the execs at Warners did cut it down to size, the casualty was most likely foam and not flesh. As for Mr. Routh's real size, we'll have to leave it to Inspector Henderson to uncover those facts.

Of course, the last thing that's usually on my mind when I'm wheeling my shopping cart through our local supermaket is Superman or his crotch, except for yesterday. There he was, perched high up on his own endcap next to the Post Toasties and Vlassic Crunchy Dill Pickles—Mattel's new Superman Ken Doll. As I looked up from my shopping list, I suddenly found myself staring at the Man of Steel's private parts eye-to-eye. And what I saw wasn't pretty.

The new Superman Ken doll is the first Ken doll I've ever seen who actually has an imposing presence—until you look at his little red briefs. Not only is there nothing super there, but there is nothing at all. Not that I was willing to unbox Ken and pull down his Superman Speedos while standing between the Toasties and Crunchy Dills, but I'd put good money that Barbie's little petrochemical pelvis has a bigger plastic lump than Kryptonite Ken's.

Based on the total lack of a boy bulge, the new Superman Ken doll looks like he's got a transgendered thing going on. You don't know if his briefs are on their way to becoming panties, or if the panties recently became briefs, but if the pouch in the front of them were a Christmas stocking, you could bet good money that Clark Kent had been a very bad little boy.

Whether he's Superman, or Barbie's loser boyfriend, Ken's crotch has been a bone of contention since his early days at Mattel. Surprisingly, it was Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler who believed that Ken should have good-sized package in front. (Ruth was clearly no enemy of humongous body parts.) But it was the male execs at Mattel who were horrified. They wanted an emasculated Ken whose crotch matched his wimpy persona. Thanks to the men at Mattel, we have ended up with generations of Ken dolls who have to sit when they pee.

When you look at the total absence of a bulge in Kryptonite Ken's crotch, you can appreciate just how entrenched the anti-man-package mentality at Mattel still is. Not since the mid '60s, when Mattel released their pathetic ukulele-playing "Ken a go-go" doll, has Ken looked so bad in briefs. And this is kind of sad, because Mattel really did a nice job with the rest of Superman Ken.

Perhaps someone will mercifully come up with a cod-piece accessory for little Ken. I'm sure the costume designers on "Superman Returns" would be able to offer some good advice, as long as the execs at Warner Brothers (or Mattel) don't catch wind of it.

For those of you who would like to read more about the history of Barbie and Ken, I'm posting the entire chapter I have written, "Barbie the Icon" for the next couple of weeks. Click here to read it.