It's the summer of pink: My review of ‘Barbie’
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- August 6, 2023
- 1662
I rifled through my closet with despair, noting I only had one shirt with pink on it. I pulled out my deep summer top (what, you don’t have one?) and saw hot pink blooms on a slinky red background. It would have to do because I didn’t twirl Barbie around in her palazzo pants and Mom’s homemade Barbie clothes in 1972 just to let her down now. We’d seen “Oppenheimer” the week before, and though I’d wanted to do a double feature of both movies, we settled for seeing “Barbie” the next week.
I’m not going to break down the movie scene by scene. I’m not a film critic but rather a gatherer of little girl stardust and memories. The movie made me cry three times, an actual wiping away of tears. Its contrasting portrayal from Barbieland to the real world is stark, and I chuckle to see people losing their minds and making fun of people dressing in pink to attend. Why? Grown men (and women) dress in their favorite football team gear to scream over beers while the Browns lose (yeah, yeah and sometimes win).
“Barbie” isn’t a political movie, though some people wanted to turn it into one, but it does make you think.
My first doll was a little baby doll. She wore a pink dress and had frizzy hair. Baby dolls came with bottles and diapers, and if you had a Baby Tender Love, you fed it actual food you mixed up from powder. The dolls were meant to foster feelings of being a mommy taking care of a baby. When Barbie came along, larger than life, we laid down the baby dolls and took up something new: doctors, lawyers, executives, fire fighters, nurses. And this is as it should be. Being a mom is amazing, but most moms have a profession as well, and some don’t. That’s OK. Who doesn’t want their daughter to have an example of being an all-around successful woman?
I’ve never heard a complaint about Barbie (unless it’s the unrealistic body shape) until someone decided to make a movie about it that didn’t fall inside their political scope. In short this movie is about Barbie starting to feel discontentment in her very exciting day-to-day world (that disco scene). She ends up going to the “real world” with Ken and finds out it’s very different. Ken loves the “real world” because he realizes the men are in charge there, unlike Barbieland.
She finds the girl who bought her (plus the girl’s mom), finds herself, waterworks ensue and Ken realizes he’s made for more than just existing under the female gaze. That’s right, I said the female gaze. People are burning Barbies because they believe the film is bashing men, making them less than, but if you turn it around, it’s unfortunately the way our very own real world is. It’s a little role reversal that has some rankled … about Barbies.
But I loved the movie so much (so did George). I’ll close with America Ferrera’s (the girl’s mom, Gloria) monologue, said to Barbie, that was so powerful I let out a sob. It’s good to read and absorb it, even if we keep what we feel inside.
“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we’re always doing it wrong.
“You have to be thin but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.
“But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. 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. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory, and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
“I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.”
Thanks for encouraging us to dream big, Barbie. Pink, deep summer tops forever.
Melissa Herrera is a published author and opinion columnist. She is a curator of vintage mugs and all things spooky, and her book, “TOÑO LIVES,” can be found at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives. For inquiries, to purchase her book, or anything else on your mind, email her at junkbabe68@gmail.com, or find her in the thrift aisles.