Blog

Apr 09, 2024

The closer we are to fine

I have not spoken with a single person, male or female, young or old, who didn’t love the Barbie movie. I have not spoken with a single person, male or female, young or old, who didn’t love the Barbie

I have not spoken with a single person, male or female, young or old, who didn’t love the Barbie movie.

I have not spoken with a single person, male or female, young or old, who didn’t love the Barbie movie.

I’m not sure that’s happened before; even “E.T.” scared a whole lot of little kids.

I’ve heard wisps of belligerence from the same neocon culture warriors who brought us the so-called “War on Christmas,” but their accusations of patriarchy-dissing are hard to interpret as anything beyond clickbait crafted without having seen the film. (You can bet their daughters have seen it; without them, it couldn’t be on track to become one of the top 10 highest-grossing movies not just of 2023, but of all time.)

I also don’t hang out with men whose gender fragility restricts females to kitchens and strip clubs. Word on the street is that increasing numbers of women aren’t hanging out with those men either; “Barbie” is being used as a date-night litmus test to see how they respond to this eloquent demonstration of what it feels like to be a woman in a man’s world. Boyfriends have become ex-boyfriends in 120 minutes or less.

My only question is: How can writer/director Greta Gerwig be only 40 years old?

My peers were the Early Adopters, and we’d swear in court that she and her partner Noah Baumbach had taken core samples directly from our collective consciousness. But even if you didn’t own a Barbie in the early ‘60s — meaning that now you’re in your late 60s — you can joyfully don the only pink garment in your closet and experience this hilarious confection of dawning self-awareness-slash-gender equity.

Here’s where the review merges into memoir: The first doll I owned was Tiny Tears. Novel at first, but even at six years old I figured that constantly changing the diaper of a crying baby is why grownups invented Valium. When I was seven it was Chatty Cathy, whose conversational style was only engaging until I got to know her better.

But when I was eight, a “Bubblecut Barbie” arrived under my Christmas tree in 1963. This bouffant-styled blonde had a new haircut, but not a new swimsuit. Her zebra-striped one-piece just begged to be changed into something less comfortable. You know, like an evening gown. Which cost more than she did. And more than my own clothes did. But for the next three years, all I wanted for any gift-giving occasion was a Barbie dress, so Mom rose to the occasion by sewing them herself. I still marvel at how difficult it must have been to stitch such fluffy skirts to those tiny, tiny bodices.

My friends and I spent hours playing Barbie’s Queen of the Prom board game, going through the hoops required to get to the dance: getting a job so you could buy a formal dress, buying the dress, finishing all your schoolwork, finding a date, and joining a school club to gain popularity so you could be voted Queen — in that precise order.

It was always clear that the dress was the most important thing, and which one you chose was something of a Rorschach test: did you go for the elegant formal gowns or the cute cocktail numbers? I always aimed for the svelte, sparkly black mermaid skirt strapless with matching opera gloves. (I was clearly not alone; that’s the one Margo Robbie wore at the movie’s L.A. premiere.)

After we finished the game we’d set the game board on edge, folding it along its crease to form a corner wall. We’d pilfer the boards from Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders, and Checkers, and voila! A DIY Dream House!

For a while, I was jealous of my friend Teri, who had the prefab model complete with cardboard Scandinavian-style furniture (I still remember the tres chic button-center throw pillows) and a doorless closet with dainty hangers for the daintier clothes. But I soon realized that it locked Barbie into a lemon-yellow studio apartment for all eternity.

My walls were a veritable kaleidoscope, and I could transform them into whatever space was required for that day’s adventure. Which was usually … a date with Ken. (This was long before Astronaut Barbie and Supreme Court Barbie.)

The one thing none of us thought to bring into the picture? Hot pink. It wasn’t till the ‘70s that Mattel chose it as Barbie’s signature color. (Pantone 219C, aka “Barbie Pink,” remains one of only twelve trademarked brand colors, up there with Post-It Note Yellow and UPS Brown.)

By that time my friends and I had moved on to real-life proms, complete with clothing budgets, and real-life Kens, complete with genitalia, which led to — in a final nod to the movie — real-life gynecologists.

Like the Indigo Girls in Barbie’s favorite song, we sought our sources outside the definitives imposed by lemon-yellow kitchens and hot pink strip clubs and became — like Barbie — closer to fine.

Postscript:

My daughter Natalie just presented me with a 68th birthday gift.

Inspired by my enthusiasm for the movie she had located a reissue of Ponytail Barbie, dressed in — you guessed it — the black mermaid gown from the game.

But what truly amazed me was her second gift. I had often described a cast-off ballet recital skirt I had somehow inherited when I was seven years old, its layers of knee-length ivory net sprinkled with star-shaped sequins. It made me feel like a sugarplum fairy! I danced it everywhere I went!

Now, Natalie had painstakingly recreated it for Barbie, hand-cutting the pattern using measurements from the internet. She knows that “adult me” is far from being a fashionista; but when she handed me my childhood, wrapped in pink tissue and tied with satin, I choked up like I was seven again.

Wouldn’t you?

Cindy Hoyt, 12” high with a luscious 6-3.75-4 figure, is easy to spot as she roams the island looking for funny.