I LOVE HER I HATE HER

From age four to probably eight or nine, I was strictly a Strawberry Shortcake girl. Thanks to Mom and Katrina, I owned every Strawberry Shortcake doll that was produced between 1980 and 1985. I had themed bedding and dishes. Even the canopy on my bed was made from material patterned with Strawberry Shortcake. It was a lot ridiculous, but sometimes I miss that canopy bed. I can remember loading up all the dolls into the giant, plastic, Strawberry case, grabbing a blanket and marching out to the pasture where I would spend hours making those dolls have all kinds of adventures.

I wasn’t much of a Barbie girl.

Look, I tried. I wanted to like Barbie. Really. I did. I had two or three Barbie dolls and two of those Barbie cases that held the dolls and all the clothing. I spent a lot of time organizing the ‘closet’ of my Barbie cases. Most of my readers just read that sentence and said to themselves “of course you did.” What? My Barbies had a lot of clothing thanks to a mom who sews and loves garage sales. There was plenty to organize. This is really all I did with my Barbies. They did not have adventures. They had closet clean out parties. While this post is not intended to go in this direction, I have to point out that this explains a whole lot about the person I have become.

Any way… Barbie… I wanted to love her. Even when I out grew her, I wanted to love her. For the longest time, I owned an Astronaut Barbie that I kept safe in the original box. I wanted to buy into this idea that women could be anything because, LOOK! Barbie’s an astronaut! Chris and I made almost weekly trips to Toys-R-Us to just browse. He’d roam off to the SciFy area and I would roam around the Barbie section debating the need for the Doctor Barbie or the Veterinarian Barbie. I felt that Doctor Barbie was pretty important because for years before they released this one, all the Mattel line had was a nurse Barbie. The first time I saw it, I wanted to fist pump the air and shout out “Yeah, that’s right! We can be doctors too! Boom!” Once I made it past the career path Barbies, I would be smack in the middle of all the stuff I hated about Barbie, the fashion plate unrealistic beauty standard Barbie.

These were the Barbies I had been given as a child to play with because those career path Barbies didn’t really exist yet. They were not doctors or lawyers. Their sole purpose was to be beautiful and have the tinniest waste imaginable with perfect tits. I did my best with them, spent time brushing their hair and changing their outfits, but it didn’t take long to get bored. They just did not represent anything realistic to me. I was not a fashion plate kind of girl and criticism about my weight told me I would never come close to attaining that kind of beauty. Over time I would eventually end up cutting the hair short on all of them. I painted on pubic hair and added a drop of red nail polish to their underwear. Some acquired extra piercings and a tattoo. They sold some shoes for books. My mother said that I ruined them, but I argued that I improved them. These Barbies said “We can do anything we want. Period. Fuck the patriarchy and the social construct horse they rode in on!”

I started writing this all before seeing the Barbie movie because I was already having thoughts on it that I didn’t want to lose. I was writing this during a week when I had one too many interactions with men who questioned my abilities because of my female parts. I had one man explain tape to me and that I could get tape at Home Depot. My friend Amanda said that she would not have been surprised if the man told me that I needed to have my husband go buy the tape for me. Then Sinead O’Connor’s death hit the news and I deflated. I remember the first time I saw her. It was in her video for Nothing Compares To You and I was struck by her beauty, both physically and musically. When you get a chance, listen to her rendition of Don’t Cry For Me Argentina. An amazing artist and such a brave advocate, she was our Joan of Arc standing up for the abused and saying a firm “NO” to corporate music and the commercialization of her art.

I will live by my own policies
I will sleep with a clear conscience
I will sleep in peace - Sinead O’Connor, Emperor’s New Clothes

I know now that when I altered my Barbies I was attempting to make them reflect a person I wanted to be. Cool. Tough. Brave. A warrior. I may have managed to be half of those things. We’re taking the Cabbage to see the Barbie Movie tonight and while I love and trust Greta Gerwig’s vision, I have a feeling I’m going to love/hate this Barbie as well. A Barbie who questions death and existence and who struggles with the idea of hurting Ken’s feelings even when he’s driving her crazy.

That kind of Barbie may be too relatable.