Living in a Barbie World Part 2

So, here are the reasons why I enjoyed the Barbie movie with Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, et al.

Quirky story/dialogBarbieland with iconic dollsExplains the dollsPokes fun of MattelOverall theme/message

I loved how Barbieland was built with the dolls. Every night there is a choreographed dance party. Everyone waving and happy. Nobody uses the stairs. There were mermaids. And so much pink paint was used that it caused a worldwide shortage of pink paint.

The dolls were explained. There was a contrast between two Kens. One was Earring Magic Ken who was thought to be gay and was discontinued because Mattel didn’t want Ken to be thought of as gay and Sugar Daddy Ken who comes with a dog and was cancelled before he was ever released. Weird Barbie was weird because someone played too hard with her. Lots of career Barbies and Stereotypical Barbie too.

There were lots of jokes and Stereotypical Barbie finds out her the human playing with her is depressed so, she needs to go to the real world and find her human. There is a good joke that everyone assumes the human is a little girl but, in this case it’s a grown woman. When they do meet, it’s quite fun and they realize their connection much to a tween’s disgust.

I love how it pokes fun at Mattel in a good way. The dolls have become iconic and nearly real to many of us. It doesn’t matter if we were ever little girls or not. Or how old we are now. Mattel originally marketed the dolls to little girls but, there are plenty of adults with Barbie collections. In the movie, they address some of the marketing and how people have reacted to it. There even comes a point when things change in Barbieland and it affects Mattel and their marketing of a Depression Barbie and a house for Ken.

That’s a lot to take in and there’s one more thing: the overall message/theme of the movie. The overall message I got is that tradition gender roles hurts women and men equally. It makes it harder for us to be ourselves and can prevent us from learning who we are. To make matters worse, these traditional gender roles can create misunderstandings in just about any kind of relationship.

I do have a poem entitled Barbie is Evil. The Barbie I was referring to is the classic one with an unrealistic waist. She doesn’t represent all women. It wasn’t until diversity was introduced that I really became interested. Now most of the dolls I have are not the stereotypical Barbie and Ken and that’s the way I like it.

In my writing, I have a universe which features two solar systems. One is ours set in the future and the other is a parallel one. My characters come in different shapes, sizes and colors. Not all my characters are heterosexual. Not all my characters are human either. That of course comes with all sorts of prejudice that is similar to what we have in our world.

I do hope there are plenty of people who enjoy my writing as there are who enjoy the Barbie movie.