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Every year for my birthday, I wished for two things: to lose weight, and a Barbie. In the interim, I got off-brand dolls, hand-me-downs, and once as a gift, a doll named Siouxsie. I saved up birthday money for the Beauty and the Beast Belle doll which I felt was a tad closer to how I looked since I was a fellow brunette-ish bookworm. My hair was blonde, but ‘dirty’ or ‘honey’, not the platinum white like the original doll. My eyes were soil-brown, not ocean-blue like Barbie. And my body looked nothing like hers— a plastic, manufactured object.
When I finally got a name-brand Barbie as a gift, I was over the moon. It felt one step closer to manifesting my dream of looking like the doll.
But at the time, I didn’t realize I was watering the seeds of body hatred. I loved playing with my Barbies. I set them up in the bathroom sink for a pool party, I posed them on top of shoe boxes for tea parties, I had them camp out under the stars of my backyard. I imagined myself in their world as easily as in the books I read. Barbie was never alone, never bored, never scared. She was beautiful and fun and had everything she wanted.
I don’t remember what age I stopped playing with Barbie; one neighbor had all of hers lined up still in their boxes and I wondered how she played with them. Ah, I was suddenly too old for this. I eventually gave them away, though maybe I kept one in storage for nostalgia sake. And I haven’t thought much about the doll until this year.
Ahead of its summer release, Greta Gerwig’s latest film Barbie was promoted with all kinds of Barbies.
There’s the original Barbie, Margot Robbie, who is, well, still the standard of how some women want to look. She’s gorgeous. She’s tall. She’s blonde. She’s thin. (Don’t get me wrong— Robbie is a talented, hard-working actress who delivers in every performance. I’m just not sure she’s an intersectional feminist even though she is in a position to lend her voice to those who don’t have as much power as she does.)
The rest of the cast is also stereotypically beautiful (read: thin) and also highly accomplished: British soap star Ritu Arya has a Pulitzer. Actress Alexandra Shipp (who played Aaliyah in a Lifetime movie) is a celebrated author. Jewish trans model Hari Nef (who just so happens to share the 10/21 birthday!) is a doctor. French actress Emma Mackey has a Nobel in physics. Jewish Filipino actress Ana Cruz Kayne is a Supreme Court Justice. Black writer and actress of Insecure brilliance Issa Rae is president. English Albanian pop singer Dupa Lipa is … a mermaid.
Even Real Women Have Curves actress America Ferrera is in the film, noticeably slimmer (I realize this is a body-checking statement). She became known as someone who eschewed conventional body types; someone who played the ‘fat Latina’ like in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Like many of us, Ferrera grew up “surrounded by women who deeply internalized those (narrow beauty) standards and expectations. Movies, musicians, models, dolls — everything we idolized; there was one way to be beautiful.” And it wasn’t her. This led to internalized self-loathing. Years of therapy and getting into triathlons helped her, otherwise she would have found it too stressful to sign up for a role that demanded physical perfection. Ferrera says she was drawn to the script because it “confronted the doll’s role in shaping expectations for women. Gerwig’s Barbie Land is a joyful doll utopia where all the Barbies are Barbies, they’re every color and shape; there is no perfect.”
Cheers for the effort of diversity, of representing different people. I love seeing that Barbie can be anything; we have so much than the typical standards of beauty. I’m happy to see such a huge movie strive for inclusion of all people.
So where is fat Barbie?
Enter Nicola and Sharon.
Irish actress Nicola Coughlan, best known for Bridgerton, and Scottish actress Sharon Rooney both are plus-size Barbie. Though neither play the lead. (At one point, fat-by-Hollywood-standards comedian Amy Schumer had signed on to play the lead.) To many, Coughlan and Rooney would be considered average, or ‘small fat.’
Even in this utopia of imagination— a place where Barbie can be anything— she is still not fat.
Maybe the world isn’t ready to believe that the starring role, the perfect Barbie, could be someone like Rooney or Coughlan or even someone bigger. Maybe that’s asking too much. As Billie Eilish says in a recent interview, it’s not just Barbie that these standards are coming from.
This summer, we also have the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, another film from my youth. There are no fat mermaids. Not even extras. (I love Chloe x Halle; Halle as Arielle is nothing short of stunning/flawless/incredible/weepingly talented. I really enjoyed the movie.) There is, though, one fat character— the villain, the evil tentacled outcast Ursula.
Writer Carmen Maria Machado speaks more about Ursula the fat witch in her Trash Heap essay and the impact of seeing thin bodies over and over again during our impressionable days of youth: “I […] landed squarely where culture wanted me: hating my body, participating in my own oppression in grotesque ways.”
Weeks after Mermaid, I saw the animated film, Elements, in which the main characters were fire and water. The flame, Amber, has the snatched waist of a classic Disney princess, defying what any true-to-life flame would ever look like. I shouldn’t have been surprised; Belle, Cinderella, Pocahontas— all had the exact same body type no matter where they lived or how they ate or what decade they sprang from.
How did we even get here? Whose body is the canon?
Created by Ruth (and, by some accounts, her husband Elliot) Handler in 1959, Barbara Millicent Roberts aka Barbie, was based on a German doll, Bild Lilli, a risqué gag gift for men based on a cartoon featured in the West German newspaper Bild Zeitung (translated: image newspaper).
The doll was “a gold-digging sex symbol” created by German artist Reinhard Beuthien drawn with a “comically over-the-top body with a disproportionately large bust. The character was often portrayed in scanty clothing and gave snappy and seductive comebacks to slobbering men.”
Looking at the doll, it’s easy to see the similarities of the original German one, but Handler insists the inspiration is from her daughter’s paper dolls and the fun in dressing them up in different outfits. And actually, Ruth was told by her husband it wouldn’t sell. Nevertheless, she persisted.
The doll debuted at a toy fair with a few modifications. That same year, advertisers targeted young girls used to playing Mommy with their baby dolls. Commercials jingled out—
Barbie, you’re beautiful...
Someday, I’m gonna be exactly like you.
Till then I know just what I’ll do:
Barbie, beautiful Barbie,
I’ll make believe that I am you.
Fantasy play is healthy for children and helps them use their imagination. But if they’re only see one type of body or face or culture, it can have negative impacts. Especially when Mattel released a doll that encouraged children to starve themselves, with accessories like a scale and a book about how to lose weight.
Over the past few decades, the doll has gotten heat for various things, but notably about its unrealistic proportions. One 1994 study in Finland found that “if Barbie were a real woman, she would not have enough body fat to menstruate.” The doll emphasized that it didn’t really matter what Barbie did. She just had to look good doing it: impeccable makeup, hair, clothes.
Some feminists argue that Barbie is not vain or materialistic, but self-sufficient and financially stable. She isn’t married and has no children. The one play set with babies is Barbie-as-babysitter, or Barbie-as-big-sister. During the 1950s, gender roles were much more narrow; Barbie gave young girls the chance to dream bigger, separate identities outside of a kitchen.
“Barbie has always represented that women have choices,” Ruth Handler has said.
Choices in career and staying single, maybe, but not in what body type they’re allowed to have.
Despite some controversy, the doll has long been popular. Last year, Barbie generated $1.49 billion; more than 100 are sold every minute in the USA. The fascination is not limited to young children. According to Britannica, Mattel registered Barbie as a work of art, and inspired a 1986 Andy Warhol portrait and photographs by William Wegman and David Levinthal. Writers A.M. Homes and Barbara Kingsolver include Barbie in their stories. In 1997, the Danish band Aqua released the ear-worm song “Barbie Girl” with the lyrics:
You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere
Imagination, life is your creation
I'm a blonde bimbo girl in a fantasy world
Dress me up, make it tight, I'm your dolly
Make me walk, make me talk, do whatever you please
I can act like a star, I can beg on my knees
Mattel sued, furious the group reduced the doll to a sex object. But if the doll with unrealistic dimensions isn’t catering to the sexist male gaze, why has she been stuck with one body type all these years?
In an NPR article Mandalit del Barco weighs in on the anticipated premiere. “The film's slogan hints at the tightrope it's walking: If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you. It could be a nostalgic love letter or an ironic wink to those of us who grew up with nonconforming feminist moms who didn't appreciate blonde, blue-eyed Barbie's impossible figure.”
So, am I going to see the Barbie film? Yes. If I’m being honest, my younger self is giddy with excitement. My Libra self is screaming at all the hot pink *everything* that’s being marketed to me on Instagram. A neon-coral electric toothbrush? A fuchsia toaster? Blazing pink dresses? Twelve of each, thanks!
Will I wish someone like me was playing the lead the entire time? Maybe. I have a suspicion that Gerwig is going to do the movie justice, subverting our expectations with candy-colored sets and costumes to deliver a smash-the-patriarchy message. I hope I’m right.
Here’s the thing— I still love really fem things— pink and glittery and bright. I still hate diet culture and anachronistic beauty-body standards that are unrealistic to maintain for the vast majority, and how much it took from my happiness and self-worth.
It’s both-and— a reminder from a writer I met during my residency in Vermont this summer. In this case, I think I’m both-and: I’m wary of a film that promotes only certain body types, and I’m also excited to see it. I can hope for better representation while also acknowledging that Robbie looks great on all the pink carpets promoting the movie— that’s likely just her natural body type and shouldn’t be shamed any more than my body type.
Luckily this summer (July 13) also offers up Survival of the Thickest on Netflix which stars Michelle Buteau as the plus-size Black lead who wants women to feel good about their bodies (based on Buteau’s memoir of same name). Even if we’re still living in Barbie’s world, we can at least enjoy the Barbie-core aesthetics. I’m taking my metallic-pink chubby toes to the theater on July 21 and will still be rooting for body equality.
UPDATE (some spoilers): I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write another post dedicated to this movie— it seems like everywhere you look is Barbie. We get it. But I watched it and want to say: it’s fun and heart-warming and, yup, critiques the patriarchy (much to the chagrin of conservatives). There were funny moments and bright costumes. I laughed at Depressed Barbie’s commercial and giggled at the ridiculous recalled Barbies (like Growing Up Skipper with adjustable breasts, Diet Barbie and Pregnant Barbie). I got teary eyed during America Ferrera’s monologue: “You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin.”
However, as writer Virgie Tovar points out in her Forbes article, there is a huge gap in them tackling body image issues. Instead the film focuses on toxic masculinity. Tovar cites several studies on the negative impact playing with the doll has, including that “playing with Barbie led to an increased internalization of the thin ideal among girls ages five to eight.”
For instance, in the film there’s disgust on Stereotypical Barbie’s face when she starts to develop cellulite and doesn’t want to look like “Weird Barbie” with her short hair and realistic body. There was an opportunity for Barbie’s realization to include reflection on her thin privilege. But it didn’t happen. I felt confused that body image writers and ‘curvy’ influencers were fully supporting this movie without pointing out the obvious missing piece. Am I being too sensitive, or asking for too much, to have more than the token fat, or disabled, or queer, or Black Barbie showing up on screen with a line or two?
And, listen, I consider myself a feminist, and think the Supreme Court is filled with people it shouldn’t be, who are making devastating, harmful decisions that impact women’s bodies. Women have long been second-class citizens, women of color even more so, and men have been hoarding power and privilege. But, by the movie’s ending, the ideal world was keeping the all-female Supreme Court, ignoring and shunning Ken. Sure, it’s kind of funny and would be cool to live in a matriarchy— maybe. But I don’t think this is the answer either. Just because you’re a woman does not mean you’re a feminist; does not mean you’re an intersectional feminist. And even still, this doesn’t mean you’re a good person looking out for all, especially marginalized folks. The answer isn’t oppressing men, nor women, nor any group of people. The answer, I think, is in finding balanced diversity where all voices are truly heard and can make the meaningful change. Aren’t we here to enjoy and live happy lives? Let us all thrive.
That said, Greta Gerwig made history with a record-breaking $155 million opening weekend, earning her the title of biggest debut ever for a film directed by a woman ($162 million, the biggest of the year)!! According to Forbes, “Of the 200 biggest opening weekends at the domestic box office, just 11 are directed by women—and three of those films, Captain Marvel, Frozen II and Brave, were co-directed by a man. Seven of these films were directed by solo women, while the other film, The Matrix Reloaded, was co-directed by the Wachowski sisters.” This is amazing, especially in the male-dominated entertainment world with a prominent gender pay gap.
Even though the film isn’t perfect, I’m still celebrating progress and ready for more to come. 💕
Prompt: What movies or shows from your youth do you wish were remade to reflect your own experience? Who would play the lead?
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Christina Berke is a Los Angeles based writer working on WELL, BODY, a memoir about eating disorders, body image, and childhood trauma. Find out more at www.christinaberke.com.