Barbie

 

By Marilyn Moore

I didn’t have a Barbie.  That’s not a statement of woe, just a statement of fact. I suspect it was all a matter of timing.  Barbie was first introduced to the world in 1959.  I was nine, almost ten, and probably past the doll stage by then.  I don’t remember my friends, or younger cousins, having Barbies…but I could have just been oblivious.  Or maybe it took a while for the hype, and the dolls, to reach rural Nebraska.  For any of those reasons, or perhaps others, Barbie was not a part of my childhood.  

So when the movie was released this summer, it was of no particular interest to me – another movie based on a toy, or an action figure, or a comic book character, and there have been lots of them.  Not on my list of movies to see, far more interested in “It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over” and “The Miracle Club.”  Until I saw that far-right male politicians were bashing the movie, and some churches were warning parents not to let their daughters see it.  And most importantly, the writer, Greta Gerwig, credited Mary Pipher’s groundbreaking book Reviving Ophelia about the developmental lives of American adolescent girls with grounding her thoughts about how to portray Barbie.  At that point, it became a must see.

And so I did, with a good friend, also my age, who also did not play with Barbies.  And a half-full theater of mostly women and girls, though there were a few guys, too.  And I’m really glad I saw it….and I came away thinking all over again about growing up female and living as a woman in the real world.  Because in this movie, the action takes place in both Barbie World and the real world, with Barbie (and Ken, as a stowaway) living in both.

I won’t try to summarize the movie.  If you’ve seen it, you know it.  And if you haven’t, my thoughts about it may make sense without the whole plot as context…or not, in which case you can just create a context.  One critic faulted the movie for not having a rational story line at times…come on, it’s a movie about a doll, a whole cast of dolls, living in a fantasy world…who would expect rational?

It's a story about a dreamworld that comes crashing up to the real world…and the real world isn’t all Barbie had thought it would be.  Even though Weird Barbie had tried to warn her that would happen….  And doesn’t that happen all the time?  Our minds and hearts take us to a dream world…and then we go out the front door into real world, and reality smacks us in the face.  And we try to make it better, over and over and over, and sometimes we do, and sometimes we can’t.  And in trying, we find strength and skills and determination we didn’t know we had, and that’s a good thing.

It's a story about boxes.  After finding, with relief, the Mattel headquarters in real world, Barbie crashes the executive board meeting, to let them know that the real world needs attention…dream world is not making real world better.  Rather than listening to her, the execs (all white males in black suits and white shirts) tell Barbie she needs to get back in the Barbie box and return to the dream world…if she just gets in the box, (and in your mind’s eye you can see them patting her shoulder and telling her not to worry her pretty little head about this), everything will be just fine.  She gets in the box…and then uses that wonderful ruse, need just a quick stop at the restroom, to run away, to be rescued by Ruth, and by Gloria, and by Sasha.  Never, never, ever get in a box not of your own choosing because someone tells you it will be better for you…and always look for women to help you.  

Barbie returns to dream world, with Gloria and Sasha, to discover that Ken has discovered patriarchy during his time on real world and has taken advantage of her absence to turn Barbie World into Ken World, populated with Kens and horses and beer…and subservient women.  In sheer frustration, Gloria, the real world mom of Sasha, the real world teenager, explodes with the soliloquy of the summer, “It is literally impossible to be a woman…..You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear,  never get out of line....I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us…” (Find the whole soliloquy; it’s just spot on truth.  Like a dagger.  Or a laser.  Or a hot, hot flame. The most-quoted part of the movie, from women of all ages and stages of life.)    

This soliloquy, which the previously mentioned critic (male) labeled “boilerplate,” pulls Barbie back from despair over Ken World, and Barbie, Gloria, and Sasha de-program the Barbies away from servitude and back to knowing and claiming their own power.  Through a brilliant plot, the Kens are first distracted, then turn upon one another, and while they are fighting each other, preening their masculinity as it were, the women hold an election, affirm the Constitution, restore the previous President Barbie back to power, and confirm the Supreme Court filled with nine Justice Barbies.  While the Kens are fighting among themselves, the Barbies are going about the business of governing.  If that sounds like a metaphor for today’s political parties…. well, you wouldn’t be the first to think of it.

Near the end of the movie, Ruth, the wisdom figure, invites Barbie to walk with her, to think about who she is, and who she will be, and for what she is made.  Barbie has a choice, to stay in Barbie World, or return to the real world.  If you’ve seen the movie, you know the decision.  If you haven’t, I’ll not tell the ending.

Barbie is right, of course…the real world is not the dream world.  And for women, it’s especially not.  By many measures, especially economic ones, women are not on parity with men at all.  Women with similar education, similar jobs, similar experiences, earn less than men.  Women do way more of the caregiving, of both children and elderly parents.  Women’s lives and appearance and clothes are scrutinized far more than men’s, especially when they run for public office or seek highly visible jobs.  And the scrutiny of women’s health care…we don’t even need to go there.  Suffice it to say I’ve seen no proposed legislation regarding erectile dysfunction or vasectomies….  

But in one way, at least one way, women’s lives are better than men’s; we live longer.  And that is in part because of women’s friendships.  Recent research cites strong social connection as a leading factor, even more so than exercise, diet, and not smoking, in quality of life and length of life as we age.  And women know that.  We all have a village of Barbies, a Gloria and a Sasha, and a Ruth…. women who care about us, who hold us when we’re ill and who celebrate when good things happen, women, women who know and care about our stories, women who laugh and cry with us, women who walk with us when we’re facing life’s big questions.  And women who join together to get things done, to make things better.  For me, that’s the most powerful message of Barbie.

So why, I wonder, are the right-wing political characters and commentators so upset about Barbie?  Perhaps, just perhaps, because the Barbies are courageous and kind and smart, and because they persisted, and persevered, and prevailed. 

(A final word about pink…there’s lots of it.  Bubble gum pink, which I understand has been patented; it’s an exclusive Barbie shade.  I don’t know how it came to be that pink is associated with little girls, and all things female, but it is. It’s seen as frivolous, or silly, or weak.  I have memories of not wearing pink as a professional woman in the 1990’s.  And I always smiled when Rick Collura wore pink shirts as he coached the Lincoln Northeast Rockets to three state basketball championships – that pink was powerful.  If Barbies can reclaim the Constitution, and the presidency, and the Supreme Court, perhaps we can reclaim pink as a power color.)