Barbie
6:21 pm
Let's get on with one thing right in the beginning... I am not in a good mood, things are going horrible in my life (etc etc), everyone keeps telling me that "it's a phase" and that "it'll pass away soon" but 3 years of crap later, I find it hard to believe in any of it. I have no idea of what "soon" means but honestly, if this is "soon", I shudder to think what "later" looks like. So, anyway, you get it... waiting for a silver lining I am these days & everything's muck basically; it's been going on for a while. It was one such day and I was tired of feeling beat up and low and tired of just waiting for "soon" to come... I think I was also tired of reading for once and watching "intellectual" films & re-watching the sitcoms I love and the ones that usually make me smile. Yes, I was tired of it. Really, you try watching all of Modern Family every single day (when will the next season begin?!?). So I go online on youtube and I don't know what I was hoping for...but I was wondering what to type in that'd gimme a little, you know, pick-me-up without actually physically consuming anything. I have no recollection of what I typed in but I do remember that somehow, without typing it in, without meaning to, I came across the most talented and awesome woman ever: Barbie!
When I saw this series, my one reaction was: I envy Barbie. I do, really. I want to be pretty, I want my own pony and I don't have a pink house that glitters. But guess who does? Barbie, that's who. I love Barbie's personality in this series. It is quite different from all her movies. I mean it. She is so self-assured. She doesn't care that people laugh at her, when they do. She has devoted friends. She needs stickers and they work as home decorations. People adore her. She has a dedicated boyfriend. She has a HUGE wardrobe! And the best part? They themselves poke fun at Barbie. There are all these jibes on Barbie's many occupations:
Yes, I know. As a 23-year-old feminist, I am supposed to detest Barbie. I should think her fake and plastic, dipped in sickening sweet pink dating the rather gay Ken. I am expected to hate that she has a huge incredible wardrobe, that she is the embodiment of all the set stereotypes that women are subjected to, that she gets everything! It is almost as if some unspoken code exists between feminists that forbids us to like Barbie. In fact one of the Barbie jokes I came across was immediately the day after I watched one of those Barbie movies on youtube. You must've heard about them. There are these series of photographs that show Barbie and Ken in a loveless marriage where Ken is gay and cheats on Barbie with another guy. This series was created by a photographer called Dina Goldstien and they are the rage right now. Then of course, while going on with my Barbie mania on youtube, I came across a segment of Target Women that talked about Barbie. And I admit I found it funny.
But back to Barbie. I started watching those Barbie movies, most of which are adaptations of classic stories like Dancing Princesses, Swan Lake, Thumbalina and so on. You get the pic. But then I came across this film called Barbie--The Perfect Christmas. By the way, I know how geeky I sound in this post. I not only watched this online but remembered the names of them all and now I'm admitting all this in public...or at least some of my friends would think so any ways. I should probably say "friends", complete with the double quotation marks. Anyway, that led me to this beautiful web series created by Mattel called Barbie in the Dreamhouse. In this series, Barbie always wears pink, lives in her dreamhouse with her three sisters and all her friends drop by.
Example 1
In one scene, Barbie takes her two best friends, Teresa and Nikki.
Barbie: I've got the clothes from every career I've ever had.
Nikki: You went to the moon?
Barbie: You haven't?
Example 2 is this video:
I thought this was really embarrassing until I found out that other girls my age also secretly like Barbie. It's almost like a sub-cult, I tell you. But see the thing is, that much as I love Virginia Woolf (which I a do a lot), sometimes I need a little pink glitter and an insanely optimistic outlook to life. Even of everything in life is shitty and nothing's worth anything and all your dreams shattered, it's good to see that there is hope, that some body at least have real friends who want to see you happy and that someone can have a 126 careers and counting.
That's all. I rest my case.
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