Weird Barbie is my Queer Spiritual Guide

Here at the Exponent blog, we’ve had a lot to say about the recent Barbie movie directed by Greta Gerwig. Abby wrote about how being an LDS woman is like being a Ken and again about her experiences with Ordain Women. Katie imagined quotes from General Conference filtered through Ken-dom. I’ve loved these posts and I think that there is still more to say here.

I’ve now seen the movie three times. After the first viewing, I was confused about parts of the narrative but loved many of the jokes. In various commentaries on the movie, I saw references to the queerness of the Barbie movie and the Barbie universe and was intrigued.

I had been under the impression that Barbie was the perfect white cis-het woman, but what I read took those ideas apart. I grew up playing with Barbies but popular feminist critiques of Barbie in the mid/late 1990s made me feel ashamed that I had played with toys that emphasized a particular view of women’s beauty. I had a very poor relationship with my body and it seemed like all of those hours spent playing Barbie-stranded-on-a-desert-island with my best friend was partly to blame.

The movie gave me a bit more historical context for Barbie and some of the commentaries and timelines of the Barbie world pointed out some things I had not considered. As a woman without a vagina, Barbie is not cisgender and clearly prefers the company of the other Barbies to that of her boyfriend, Ken. Both Barbie and Ken thrive in their homosocial spaces, though Ken is obsessed (but not clearly attracted to) Barbie. It’s an interesting dynamic, but not one based in mutual sexual attraction. They are working very hard at playing roles instead of living out an authentic sense of desire.

When Barbie starts to experience complex feelings, the other Barbies do not have answers. They encourage her to visit Weird Barbie, who lives on the edge of Barbieland and shirks so many of the Barbie conventions. Weird Barbie is queer. In her wisdom, Weird Barbie pushes Stereotypical Barbie into a literal journey of education and experience, symbolized by that most comfortable of sandals, the Birkenstock. It is Weird Barbie who visits Stereotypical Barbie at her lowest and offers a solution to their collective patriarchal problem. It is #teamWeirdBarbie that carries out this plan.

Weird Barbie understands more about Barbieland than the other Barbies do because she is living at the edge of that community, playing an important role but othered by the Barbies. Insider status for most of the Barbies does not give them great insight, but limits their perspectives. Guidance about challenges must come from outside the mainstream of the Barbieland community. In life, things are largely similar. Those at the center of a community often hold perspectives that are limited by the thinking of the group, leaving those at the edges to do extra work to navigate life while being ostracized.

In my life, I seek for spiritual wisdom from those who are at the edges of groups, mainly from women of color, many of whom are queer and/or disabled. There is wisdom for the journey in these liminal spaces.

If you are interested in more Barbie talk, check out the “Mojo Dojo Casa Housing Policy” episode of Exponent II: The Podcast.