So, a guy writing on the summer’s big hit, Barbie, who is older than Barbie? What’s with that? Well, she was created by Ruth Handler in 1959; I was created by Wanda Dolzani in 1951. We are, at least, of the same generation, and, in fact, share a March birthday, hers March 9, mine March 31. But as a boy, I had no dolls, only toy soldiers that I imagined into superheroes in an age before action figures. So why did I go to a movie about a female figure whose superpower is to turn everything pink? I was one of three men in the theatre. One was a father bringing his daughter; the other was a young man in the company of four young women—somebody’s Ken? I am not usually afflicted with FOMO, fear of missing out, but, as an English professor, I teach classes full of women who will, I know, want to talk about a movie that has a rather amazing appeal to women beyond differences not only of age but ideology. Barbie, the blond beach babe with big boobs whose feet are permanently arched for high heels (on a beach?), has become a feminist rallying point, she who used to be attacked as a Bad Role Model. Barbie has clearly transcended her origins and become a symbol of something else. The question is, of what? The movie’s whole purpose is to explore that question, and it does so with intelligence and sophistication without ceasing to be high-spirited fun.
With a new job and grad school on the horizon for me, this week's newsletter reminded me to stop for a second and marvel and the beauty and humanity that surrounds me. Barbie, I think, is too quickly written off as anti-man. When we open our hearts up a little, I think the beauty it bares, much of which you highlighted, unfolds. Why not let a doll open our imaginations to the possibilities of our own society--our own capabilities? What is any less absurd--or more? Beautiful newsletter yet again, Dr. D.
With a new job and grad school on the horizon for me, this week's newsletter reminded me to stop for a second and marvel and the beauty and humanity that surrounds me. Barbie, I think, is too quickly written off as anti-man. When we open our hearts up a little, I think the beauty it bares, much of which you highlighted, unfolds. Why not let a doll open our imaginations to the possibilities of our own society--our own capabilities? What is any less absurd--or more? Beautiful newsletter yet again, Dr. D.