For years, people have lambasted iconic fashion doll Barbie and her employer, Mattel, for her insane body proportions: Her legs are too long. Her bust is too big. Her waist is ridiculously skinny. Now, it seems, the blond plastic beauty has had enough: She’s launching a new marketing campaign labeled #unapologetic and seems determined to flex her oh-so-tiny muscles.

Some, naturally, have a problem with that. The campaign already has come under serious fire from body image advocates. At least one pundit—Michelle Maltais of the Los Angeles Times—suggests Barbie’s turnaround might be strangely fitting.

“I’ll probably have my women’s college cred revoked for even suggesting this, but does the campaign turn on its side the years-long criticism about whether Barbie is damaging to the psyche and self-image of girls everywhere who live out their childhood fantasies through her?” Maltais writes. “In some surreal ways, one might argue, the now-55-year-old Barbie has endured the same kind of public dissection and judgment about her body that girls and women do. And now, she’s taking to the realm of the utterly unreal image to reclaim her identity. A tad ironic.” (Los Angeles Times)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife Wendy and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.