One day, Barbie and Sinead walked into a bar...

If only

Jul 31, 2023

The people above came with the first train set we bought for our kids. I’ve hated them from the first time I laid eyes on them (the figurines, not the children). The man is wearing a blue henley shirt with brown pants and brown shoes. He carries a laptop under one arm and a coffee in his other hand. The woman has shoulder length yellow hair and is wearing a one piece pink jumpsuit with ruffles at the bottom of the pant legs and a loopy bow on the high neckline. Under one arm she holds a bouquet of flowers and under the other a big blue pocketbook that matches her weird blue shoes. Is it the infantilization of the woman with baby colors and ruffles that fills me with unreasonable rage? Is it their clean cut lily whiteness? Is it the amorphous capitalism reeking from the big blue purse? Inequality off gassing from their stereotypicality? Bob used to move them around the house to see me froth in frustration at the sight of finding them along my daily routines. My kids wonder why I don’t just toss them. I think I keep them as a reminder of everything that’s bad in the world and everything I don’t want to be and everything I want to fight against. I mean, maybe they have a secret life that we don’t know about. Maybe she’s the owner of a floral empire and he’s her buyer. Maybe they purposefully appear so dull because they are undercover agents breaking up drug and human trafficking rings. Maybe she just transitioned and is celebrating being able to express her gender with the glory of pink ruffles. One can only hope. Market research must have factored into their design at some point. Ah, yes, a white couple. He works and drinks coffee. She’s a stay at home baby. The one saving grace is that she doesn’t look like she’s starving herself.

Which brings me to Barbie and her movie that’s turned the world, pink and sparkly, on its head. Just google ‘Barbie Movie’ and see what happens. Seriously, do it now. I’ll wait.

beauty barbie pretty doll public domain image - FreeIMG

Someone should have stopped her, at the very least, by the time the Pill was FDA approved, not make different colored professional versions of her. I don’t care how, but off her. Maybe in a pink bubble gum accident. Or a glitter explosion. Yes, she is iconic and nostalgic. Yes, I spent hours playing with her on her Barbie bike and in her Barbie pool. I loved those little high heeled shoes that were always getting lost around the house. They were so glamorous. I’ve also had a lifetime of body image issues. Is it her fault? Well, yes, along with other continuous messaging from every other place it could come from. I have read (because I haven’t seen it yet) that she addresses the patriarchy and there’s a lot of Ken bashing in the movie, but that doesn’t make it better. Men are not bad and are not in and of themselves the patriarchy, though it was created by them. And how can Barbie fight the very capitalist patriarchy that created every line of her dialogue and keeps her alive while profiting off of all the merch associated with her. I would like to see a movie in which she does away with herself with the self awareness that she can’t stay alive without perpetuating the system that owns her. Or at the very least one scene where she is 10 deep in the bathroom line while several Kens walk right by into ‘their’ bathroom. She confronts the Kens and asks how they feel about this dynamic. They admit they’ve never given it a thought, it’s just the way it is. Half of the Barbie line then heads into the ‘male’ bathroom and the Kens freak out and say that that makes them uncomfortable and the Barbies say, “That’s valid. You can wait in line then until we’re done.” And the Kens say, “Wow, that’s fair. Thanks for opening our eyes to a system that makes you have to hold it in while we have never known what that’s like.”

But, then, we’re all steeped in the system, right? Other movies are money making franchises like Lego and Transformers and Marvel. Movies, themselves, are capitalistic, male, white dominated industries. So why bash Barbie (who was created by a Jewish woman btw)? Dunno. I can imagine reactions to my saying all of this in the form of, “Lighten up. Barbie is a fun movie about a doll. Let people enjoy it.” and “Well, what are you doing to change the world, Bigshot?” and “So, how many times has the Amazon truck made deliveries to your glass house lately?”

Which somehow (though I haven’t exactly figured out the connection) brings me to Sinead O’Connor, whose music was part of my coming of age. She was bold and beautiful and talented. She is/was only one year older than me. I wish she hadn’t sustained so much trauma. I wish there were better treatments and diagnoses available to her. I wish, I wish, I wish. I wish we could stop trying to find someone to blame. It’s not her fault. It’s not our fault. Is the same system that glorifies Barbie at fault? Maybe a little?

I wish ‘mental health’ was more destigmatized. I don’t know if that would have helped her or not, but it’s possible. I wish we had better terms than ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’. There’s no virus or bacteria or fungal invasion happening. To the best of my knowledge our brains, nerves, neurotransmitters, and receptors are all part of our bodies to which our head is connected. When our joints get wonky we don’t say someone has a hip illness. We don’t say that someone is fighting their kidney’s inner demons. Those of us who have depression or anxiety don’t have good language to let others know what’s going on without feeling judged. I’ve started saying things like, “I’m having an anxiety flare up.” “I’m having an overwhelm spiral” etc. And instead of some less ideal responses like: “Just relax”,”Be grateful for what you have”. “Have you had therapy lately”, how about: “That really sucks.” “Do you know what might help this minute and is it possible?” “Let me drop a meal.” “What can you take off your plate?” “It doesn’t feel like it right now, but you’re safe.” (unless the person really isn’t safe which is a different story).

Conversations about all of these things are important. Let’s have them. I might judge Barbie, and the couple who live on my kitchen windowsill, but I don’t judge anyone who enjoys them. We deserve to have as much joy as possible in this complex, difficult, and sometimes amazing world we live in.

With hope, shocking pink, and damn good music, Lorryn

It is what it is.

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