Pink Promises: Examining Barbie's Place in Society

Stereotypical Barbie in her pink gingham dressPhoto byMattel

It seems like everyone and their sister and brother has written some kind of commentary on this movie. I don't usually jump on a bandwagon like this, but this time, I want to counter some of the reviews I’ve read in the past couple of weeks.

NOTE: If you haven't seen the movie and plan to do so, please be aware that there are spoilers ahead!

That opening, though

I recently read a long social media post that addressed the disturbing 2001: A Space Odyssey-inspired sequence at the beginning as horrific, while calling the movie overall “sweet.” The deep analysis of that scene addressed the Barbie-as-monolith symbolism as if the rage reflected in the eyes of the little girls in this scene was intended to represent the core of an angry feminist message imbedded in the movie.

However, the film’s narrator (Helen Mirren) ends this scene with this statement: “All problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved. At least, that’s what the Barbies think.”

This scene is a depiction of what the Barbies in Barbieland believed was going on in the real world as a result of Barbie’s influence. The Barbies imagined that Barbie dolls had awakened something new in real-world girls – a sort of evolutionary sapience that caused them to violently reject their roles as keepers of the baby dolls. The narrator informs us that they were wrong.

To me, this scene reveals Barbie as both “just a doll” and an emblem of expectation. Even in the real non-movie world, Barbie is monolithic. The fact that she did not clearly change the trajectory of women in the movie real world like it did in Barbieland reflects the off-screen reality in our real world. Even a monolith can’t a change a monumental system overnight.

Barbie’s autonomy

The Barbie doll represents women's autonomy, a fact which has been lost on many real people since her birth in 1959. People have focused more on Barbie's shape than the many careers Mattel has given her. This is analogous to the real-world focus on a woman's shape versus her intelligence and ability. Barbie is not a baby doll; she is not simply a training tool for motherhood. Nor is she a sexual being. The Barbie doll is not a competitor to the baby doll, either. As a “fashion doll,” Barbie was intended to replace the commercially produced paper “fashion” dolls played with by little girls since “Little Fanny” was introduced by SJ Fuller in 1810.

Playing with paper dolls was a favorite passtime for little girls for a long timePhoto byPublic Domain Pictures

From my point of view, Barbie represents the power a woman should have over her own body, the right a woman should have to be what she wants to be and who she wants to be, no matter what she looks like and no matter what judgment someone makes regarding the way she is put together. No matter how much blame someone gives her for having big breasts, a tiny waist, and a coy smile, what Barbie wears and how Barbie is built does not indicate her purpose.

I’ve read one or two reviews that claim the Barbie movie’s message to adults is a simplistic reiteration of a “feminist agenda.” Others have described it as simply a sales pitch for Barbie dolls with an extraneous message that “the children won’t understand.” It seems that many folks don’t give children enough credit for their intelligence. Those who do sometimes seem to be terrified of allowing the children to learn to think critically.

I agree that there is a simple feminist message that rests on the surface of the Barbie story, but I also see a much deeper and more complex message about society itself. From my perspective, the film is a statement not about smashing the patriarchy to the point of diminishing men, but about smashing it and other inequities in order to allow room for true equality and justice in the real world. The movie shows that sometimes there is a complete pendulum swing when the status quo is challenged, and bringing that pendulum back to center is the work of the entirety of society.

The Kens go into the newly reinstated Barbieland with a knowledge of themselves and a new awareness of who they can be. The Barbies enter their reclaimed positions of power with the knowledge that there is room for improvement. Inviting the Kens into positions formerly held by the Barbies and Barbie-friends is the first step toward balance. Going forward, the Barbies and the Kens can work together to create a more equitable and just Barbieland.

This movie points out that this is what needs to happen for our society -- for all societies -- to become truly equitable and just. America Ferrera's speech about the life of a woman is more than that; it is also a commentary on the life of all working folks on an individual level. In a culture where there are those at the top and those at the bottom, anyone who is below the top often experiences similar feelings of impotence and the ennui of knowing there is more to life than the need and desire to be the one at the top.

The Friendly Ghost

The ghost of Mrs. Handler, living in her cozy kitchen at the top of the Mattel building, suggests that Mattel feels that they keep Mrs. Handler's original intent in mind when they create Barbies. They want us to believe that they have the conscience of this brilliant woman behind everything they do with this product. Mrs. Handler is not only the grandmotherly woman pouring tea in a 1950s kitchen, she is also the driving force behind the careers and the promise inherent in the control a little girl has over her Barbie dolls.

This kindly ghost is inviting us to remember that it's okay to create a comfortable and welcoming home at the same time we are pursuing our dreams and careers utilizing the tools at our disposal, just as she did. When the real-life Ruth Handler proposed the Barbie doll to her husband and the Mattel executives, they rejected the idea. She was innovative and willing to compromise to see her dream come into fruition. She found a way to make it happen. I think the fact that she was included in this movie shows that Mattel has not forgotten who created one of their most popular and money-making toys.

Written in Pink

For the littlest of the children, the Barbie movie is just a funny brightly-colored movie with Barbie and Ken dolls, Barbie playhouses, and all the pretty pink things. For those who get the message, be it consciously or subconsciously, the movie is about agency and responsibility. The message is not just for the girls. It’s for the boys as well. Most importantly, from my perspective, it is for all children.

Wait…what? You don't want your children's media to give them a message? You want them to just be entertained and protected from the messages that life gives us? Well, I'm sorry to tell you that there is a message in everything, not just “the media.” There is a message in everything we observe in this world. There are messages in our actions and our words.

When we blame Barbie for giving the “wrong” message to the world just because of the way her plastic body works, we are doing the opposite of what we might intend. In fact, we are telling girls that it's not okay to be who they are just the way they were made. Is this really any different than telling girls that what they wear sends the “wrong” message to the world?

Why are we sexualizing a plastic doll with no genitalia?

Protection or impediment?

Barbie reminded us that there once was a pregnant Barbie – well, Midge, that is – which was discontinued because parents feared that a pregnant doll would make little girls want to be teen moms. Did these parents really believe that their children were so vulnerable to suggestion that a doll with a pregnant belly would make them want to start spewing out offspring as soon as they hit adolescence?

For a while when my girls were younger, I got caught up in an idea that was prevalent during that time. It was popular to believe that if we gave our girls Barbie dolls, they would receive a message that they had to look like Barbie. We said, “Barbie has unrealistic proportions, nobody has a waist that tiny compared to her breasts, if we let our little girls dress and undress this doll, they will grow up thinking they are not good enough.”

Talk about hyperbole. Were we truly protecting them from negative body image or were we impeding their ability to utilize the various Barbies as avatars of themselves on the road to a fantastic career?

Real-Life Barbies

It’s true that Barbie’s proportions have been a bit unrealistic, but the reality is that there are women who have that proverbial “hourglass figure.” Think Jane Russell, Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, or Dita Von Teese. Not all of them are famous actresses, either. I have pictures of my mother as a teenager in the 1950s. She had a teeny-tiny waist and was fairly buxom. She did not look unlike the Barbie doll. Her name was Barbara, and often went by Barbie or Babs. Mom was a fun loving, creative person who served for a while in the Air Force Reserve, in a time when women were encouraged to leave when they got married.

Mom worked outside the home for the majority of her married life. Even so, her main focus was on raising the five children she and my dad had together. In all of our moves, Mom, Dad, and our siblings were our foundation. Mom gave us the idea that it was okay to be whoever we were. Of the three girls she raised, two of us served in the military just as both of our brothers did.

In a way, Mom was Barbie. In a way, Barbie looked like my Mom.

These days, Barbie looks like all kinds of girls. The same goes for Ken, who now comes in various sizes and skin tones. According to Collector’s Weekly, there are about 247 different versions of Ken. Over the years, Ken has had over 40 careers including astronaut, banker, doctor, farmer, and dog trainer. He’s been a soda fountain worker and an Air Force Thunderbirds pilot.

Since her first job as a model when she started out, Barbie has had 200 careers, including some in STEM. She was an astronaut as early as the mid-1960s. She has been the President of the United States, the Vice President, and a surgeon. While it was slow to start, there have been Barbies and friends of color since the late 1960s. There are Barbies of international backgrounds, Barbies with disabilities, curvy Barbies, and gender-neutral Barbies.

President BarbiePhoto byMattel

Choices

Dolls in the Barbie line can be played with or collected. You can choose what clothes they wear, what colors they prefer, and what kind of relationships they have with one another. We can make them speak kindly or snap at each other.

Barbie and Ken are meant to be played with by children. Even so, we can take away something important from watching both the movie and our children at play. Ken and Barbie remind us that we have choices. The choices we make can help us advance or they can set us back. Our world can become better or worse, or it could stagnate at status quo.

Barbieland before Ken’s discovery of the patriarchy seemed perfect to the Barbies, but it was far from perfect for the Kens. After the Kenification of Barbieland, the pendulum had swung to the far opposite, which seemed perfect to the Kens for a while. When the Barbies took back their power, they realized they had cut the Kens out of the decision-making process in the past. Realizing how unfair this was, they began to invite the Kens to take an active part in building their society. They gave a little to the Kens, and the Kens took it, looking forward to the day when they would have a more equitable representation. In the meantime, out here in the real world in the United States, many of the forward strides in the areas gender and race seem to have slipped backward.

When will we realize that Kenough is enough and move on into working together?

This story first appeared on Medium