Little Girls Review the Barbie Movie
And how Republican policies will harm our children
I walked out of the Knoxville Public Library Wednesday afternoon at about 2:00 p.m. to catch the 2:15 p.m. Barbie movie matinee at the Grand Theater in Knoxville. It would be the second time that I would see it, but I was thinking about writing about it and needed to see it at least one more time.
Sitting on the entrance walls to the library, legs dangling over the edge, with elbows and chins resting on the railings above, were 6-8 girls, maybe seven to eleven years old.
“Hello, girls,” I said.
They all greeted me, and one said, “I like your pink phone case!”
“Thank you, I replied as I stopped to talk. “My daughter picked it out, and I like it because I can always find my phone, and it’s always a topic of conversation—a man having a pink phone case.”
“It suits you,” said another girl as others nodded.
“What were you doing in the library?” asked one who looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.
“Reading and writing,” I replied.
“That’s cool,” she said. “Where are you going now?”
“To watch the Barbie movie at the matinee. I might write about it and I need to see it another time before I know what to write.”
Assorted oohs and ahs came from the girls.
“Have you seen it?” I asked.
Most of the girls said yes or nodded.
“It’s fun!” said one. “It’s pretty,” said another.
“Bye, girls!” I said, walking away.
A chorus of “byes” followed me, and one “enjoy the movie!”
As I left the movie when it was over, I pondered what to write about. Here’s a partial list: The feminist contradictions in the history of the Barbie doll as told in the movie. The homage paid to earlier movies, from the opening scene semi-disturbing ceramic doll breakage referencing 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Top Gun volleyball game, and the toy horse riding scene borrowed from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and more I have missed. Where in Barbie Land the female gaze validated Kens existence, and in the real world the male gaze seriously threatened Barbie’s. How sad and “cringy” the discontinued Barbies and Kens were. The stereotypical cultural inversions presented. Homoerotic representation throughout, but brilliantly executed, especially in the male dance scene, including the Ken double kiss; also, the juvenile “beach off” references. How Will Ferrell looks like he could be Ryan Gosling’s father. Conservative reaction to the movie, including the burning of Barbies. The fact that Mattel executives allowed this critical and often silly representation of the company to move forward; thankfully they did. The cultural impact of the movie, with women bonding and going to the movie together, mothers and daughters, often wearing pink. How irrelevant the Kens are to the Barbies until the takeover by the patriarchy. How stereotypically effeminate the Kens were despite their “masculine” posturing. The hot-pink beauty of the movie. The power of the inspirational speech the character America Ferrera played gave about the contradictory expectations for women in contemporary society. How the only male non-Ken in the movie, the sensitive Allan, may be gay. He also may be the most traditionally “masculine” male in the movie as proven in an altercation with construction workers. How superficial and vulnerable the Kens are, which spotlights that aspect of many men in real life, even though most of us try to hide it.
But while pondering this and more, I walked back to my truck which was parked by the library. The girls I had spoken with and a couple more were still hanging out by the library.
Several of them greeted me, “Hi, how was the movie!”
“Great,” I said. “Even better the second time…”
“Are you going to write about it?”
“Maybe. Who has seen it?
“Me!” “Me!” “Me!”
“Help me write my review. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on the movie?”
They gathered around and started sharing their thoughts.
“I think the Barbie movie was really funny. Especially Ken and Barbie” said one girl.
“Yeah. Why was that funny?”
“Well because, you know, it's just a funny thing like an actual Barbie movie and real life,” she replied.
“The Barbie movie was pretty good. It was funny,” said another, laughing.
What was funny, what was the funniest part?
“Oh, I know--the cussing…”
Before she could finish, another girl interrupted, “I thought it was very funny and plus the part where Barbie said, ‘I don't got a vagina and he doesn’t have a dick.’ I thought that was a funny part when Barbie said that.”
“Penis, not dick…they said vagina and penis,” another girl corrected, and the cross-talk continued.
“Um, at the like end where they said? ‘Fuck you,’ like that part? I don't know if that was right, but yeah.”
“Oh yeah, that was the president.”
“No, they said ‘motherfucker.’”
Clearly in over my head, I said something stupid like, well, all right—we better be careful with our language.
I then asked, how old are you girls? “Ten,” “eight,” “eleven,” “seven,” “nine,” and other girls said the same. Then, “I’m 42!” “I’m 87!” “I’m infinity!”
Thanks, girls, I appreciate it. Bye-bye.
“Bye!” “Bye! “Bye!” “See you soon!”
There is a lot to unpack in our conversation, but I’m not going to. My point here is that these girls, and other boys and girls their ages, are just trying to figure out how the world works and their place in it. The girls didn’t mention the trans-Barbie, and they made no mention of homosexuality. They easily could have, but I shut the conversation down fairly quickly as I was uncomfortable, and have no training in how to address these comments from other people’s children.
I’m sure these kinds of comments come up at times in elementary schools, and that elementary school teachers are prepared to help kids sort these things out. They are trained professionals.
But thanks to Governor Kim Reynolds and Republican legislators, our teachers’ hands are tied. School districts in Iowa are prohibited from providing any instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation in grades K-6.
The lucky ones will have parents or other trusted adults who they are comfortable with to productively address these issues with them. In the past, those kids who didn’t have those resources had their teachers.
Not anymore. Republicans took away that option, and children will suffer as they seek and find other sources of interaction and information—most of them bad.
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Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Columnists
As your interaction with these kids shows, these young folks already have the lingo and the concerns and the cell phones ready to give questionable answers and photos/videos to any inquiries. Also as you said, shouldn’t parents be glad to have the able assistance of school teachers in helping these youngsters through the pitfalls that are out there? Sticking ones head in the political sand never solves anything.
Priceless recap of your conversation!