Radical Chick

Feral Cheryl has been called the "bastard love child of Barbie and Ken." She doesn't look at all like Barbie or Ken. That's the charge made against Christians, too. They sometimes don't at all look like God. So, then, what are Christians supposed to look like?

Where did this wild child come from?!

Mother Jones calls her "the bastard love child of Barbie and Ken." At the age of 54, the original Barbie still has her looks and figure. And Barbie's modern-day sisters have perpetuated that perfectly pink, high-heeled, firm-bosomed, (usually) blonde look that the world knows well. But there is a wayward member of the sisterhood hailing from southeastern Australia who has shaken the world of conventional, fashionable, perfectly-coifed little icons. She is Feral Cheryl, and she's not your mother's Barbie doll (September-October 1999, 23).

Cheryl is named for the green extremists of the rain-forest region of Australia known as the "Ferals." She is a "natural doll" who wears her alternative lifestyle with pride. Feral Cheryl is neither blonde nor is she emaciated, and not a thread of pink polyester will ever touch her anatomically correct body. Her style includes tattoos, dreadlocks interwoven with real glass beads, and assorted piercings. Her...