Barbie made me cry. 

*LE CHOC* SHE FEELS 

Now I’m writing this immediately after seeing it, but I’m going to sit on this for a bit because nobody likes a spoiler. Growing up, I, like any normal gal had plenty of Barbies. Pocahontas Barbie, Scary Spice Barbie, Normal Barbie, Brunette Barbie. SO so so many. In fact, at a certain point, my mom made me clean them out to donate some to other kids and I thought I was being sneaky only putting 3 in my giveaway pile, to no one’s surprise that didn’t fly. Anyway, the movie caught me by surprise (pleasantly) when it made me cry because while I was thoroughly looking forward to it and expecting to like it… I didn’t expect it to hit me that deep at all.  Like everyone else, you grow up you stop thinking about Barbie altogether for the most part. But so much of my childhood was shaped by this doll and I didn’t even realize how to put that in perspective before seeing this movie. 

Sure, I had some baby dolls as any girl does, but I’ll be honest I wasn’t really a baby doll girlie. I was pretending my Barbie was a member of TLC (obviously Lisa Left Eye), or an actress, or Britney Spears, or whatever else I wanted her to be. My Barbie was always first and foremost a career woman.  My Barbie had a job, or she was famous, and let’s face it she was a badass to me. And sure I had Ken… but I’m going to keep it real I didn’t give a shit about Ken. In fact, I did try and get rid of him and my parents made me keep at least one Ken. And no, I don’t think the answer is for girls to hate men and “throw all the ken’s out”, but you know what I did realize… that truly is the first and last time little girls are really allowed to only care about Barbie and not worry about Kens. 

It’s such a silly little subliminal thing you don’t even think about because by this point it’s been so ingrained in us, but it’s not long after you start school that you begin to be really taught that you are supposed to care what boys think. And how others view you. And whatever other external validation you need to give yourself value and to be doing the “right things”. When I was little I didn’t care if that was what my Barbie was “supposed to be doing”, I didn’t care if I was choosing the “right” Barbie to be doing the “right” job (if my Barbie wanted to be Lisa Left Eye…. I was going to let her), and I certainly didn’t care if my Barbie was married and/or had a family. You really were playing in a place where imagination could go beyond space and time of the real world and just dream. And a lot of girls when they’re given the option to dream differently, they grow up and get the opportunity to make those dreams a reality.

There is NOTHING wrong with wanting to be a wife and mother. At all. But there is something to be said that Barbie allows girls to think creatively about other priorities and other jobs. Let’s be honest, why should little girls be worrying about relationships anyway?! I mean it’s crazy to think prior to that it really was predominately just baby dolls. We should be teaching children, boys and girls, they can do anything and the rest is also just icing on the cake. It never occurred to me how deeply that affected me growing up, until I realized the first present I bought my niece was Judge Barbie because I wanted her to know she could be a Judge one day if she wanted to. It truly does give little girls the opportunity not to worry about boys, or what everyone thinks about them, or what everyone else wants them to do, but to truly dream about what they want and can be. 

And what the movie reminded me is that sometimes I forget how cool it is that I am a mf lawyer who lives on her own, pays her own bills, and finally has a dog like I’ve always wanted. I did that. I played independent career woman Barbie growing up, and guess what the fuck I am now. That’s pretty cool. I don’t think that will be what I want forever obviously, but it is hard to express what a gift it is to be able to pursue what you want and your passions freely. It’s also hard to express what it can do to women’s psyches to constantly be told you’re too much, or too loud, or taking up too much space, or not motherly enough, or whatever else you want to fill in the blank. And the beauty of the movie is that it shows it’s not good for men or women to be “one thing” or to invest your worth and identity in external things. We can be many things all at once. We can be more than husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and you also can be more than your career. That’s really cool and really freeing at the same time.

So it turns out I am still a Barbie girl after all.

Thanks, Barbie.

P.S. On a completely unrelated to sentimentality note: Can we all just agree the marketing for this movie has been INSANE and iconic?! I saw PINK TOOTHPASTE. Every brand known to man has had some sort of Barbie collab. Color me hot pink and thoroughly impressed. Good for them.