Growing up as a Barbie girl was complicated. My relationship to the doll would vary. There were moments when I made all my Barbie dolls “weird” by hurting their feet so shoes don’t fit anymore, or I’d ruin their hair just so they were less perfect because I, myself, wasn’t perfect. Yeah, it was weird, but I was a little brunette girl with an eye disability. I hated that my dolls were a beauty standard I could never attain. Maybe it’s why I’m a blonde now and love wearing pink, but that’s been a long journey for me as an adult woman to come around to.
Some of my Barbies were different. I collected the holiday ornaments from Hallmark for as long as I can remember and still get a new one each Christmas because it’s something that means a lot to me. That doesn’t mean I always had the best relationship to the doll, but the more I think about Barbie as a movie, the more I just remember that little girl who loved dolls and dressing up and just wanted to be as beautiful as Barbie was.
It was less about the blonde hair or even my eye problems. For me, it’s always been rooted in my own need to feel beautiful and loved. With Barbie, the moments that really hit were when Barbie shared her own inner beauty with those around her. When she said to the older woman on a bench that she was beautiful, it broke me because we, as women, don’t genuinely hear that often. That’s what little me needed to hear and see in something. She needs that Barbie she always loved to tell her she’s beautiful, too, without looking like her dolls.
It was for her
I couldn’t have told you why I was a teenager in a shirt that read “Barbie dumped Ken.” Probably because I was a single girl who had never had a boy like her and was seeing this doll I loved dump the man she had. But I was obsessed with it. For years, it was my favorite shirt and something that I really just loved wearing because it was great. I even went to a party in college dressed as little me wearing the shirt, recognizing that Barbie was still something I deeply loved.
All this never really registered with me until seeing Barbie. I never realized how deep my pain over not feeling pretty enough ran and how it was rooted in my complicated relationship with a doll I loved but could never look like. I envied Barbie’s height, her small waist. If only I weren’t a short brunette with glasses.
Seeing Barbie though taught me a valuable lesson about the doll little me loved: It’s not about looking like Barbie, even though there are versions of her for so many other people out there in the world. Instead, it’s about celebrating what makes us women and all the different versions of us in the world. So as much as adult me loved to see Barbie, it wasn’t for her.
It was for the younger me who thought she’d only be loved if she was someone who looked like the Barbie doll she loved. It was what she needed to know that the doll could bring her joy and she could still be beautiful all on her own.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
