As we walked through the lobby, clad in a wardrobe one could rightly call drab, my daughter and I passed true believers: People for whom Barbie measured 10 feet tall. People who would wear pink and be gleeful as they watched a slice of their childhood light up the silver screen.
I was worried I'd be the one who would only see the tarnish.
I pictured myself hunkered down in the cool embrace of a resplendent reclining chair with no small amount of regret, not because I didn't have a personal relationship with Barbie but because I worried I may not have allowed my daughter to have fully realized hers.
Between trailers and teasers and wink-and-nod reviews of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” I couldn't imagine how a movie about an 11-inch doll could ever measure up to all the hype.
Not gonna lie.
I expected a lot.
I had so many questions.
Was Barbie a feminist? An anti-feminist? Was she worthy of all the love or any of the ridicule? What message would she have for us now and would it be transformative?
The narrator in my head laughed as she reminded me that these are the items we have to bring to the table, they aren't even sold separately.
But deliver, it did.
Though at first, it delivered like a gut punch.
“Do you remember how I wanted a Barbie?” my daughter asked as we settled in for the previews.
My shoulders gently lift toward my ears as I fumble to find the recliner’s controls and an answer with a positive spin: “I remember you being a Barbie CheerleaderTM one Halloween.”
She smiled and tilted her head, pointing at the button partially hidden by the dimming light.
I couldn't mod-podge over the moment she had just uncovered.
“You got me a Barbie cake for my birthday and one of my friends told me it wasn't a real Barbie. You must remember.”
I hadn't forgotten. She has been a Barbie girl in my tomboy world.
I also hadn't realized until it was too late that the star of the party - a cake-skirted doll - had only a flesh-colored spike stabbing into the frosting instead of legs encased in a cylinder.
“Don't feel bad, I was more of a Calico Critter kind of kid than a Barbie Girl.”
And surprisingly I didn't feel bad. Because for the next 114 minutes, I could only marvel at how much Gerwig was able to pack and unpack into the trunk of this candy-colored vehicle.
It not only passed the Bechdel test, it felt like it managed to devise a similar rubric to apply to cinematic representations of Ken; perhaps future viewers might even call it a Ken-del test.
“Am I making that up,” I asked my kid as the credits rolled and we uprighted our recliners.
“That was the part I liked the most!” She exclaimed. “Right from the beginning - when Ken crashed on his surfboard and the doctors were fixing him you knew they weren't going to turn the tables.”
She was right. Even as Doctor Barbie explained that his body would heal in the time
It takes to explain that he actually had no injuries, Stereotypical Barbie never once diminished his feelings or told him that it was all in his head. She just let him know she thought he was brave.
The film not only centered her in security, it allowed us to bring our experiences and meet the same gentle understanding.
Barbie seemed all-encompassing and there was no wrong way to be in her world.
And as we were making our way back to our oversized car in the parking lot, rehashing the movie and all the moments that stayed with us for the next several hours, I felt something pleasant and unexpected: the realization that I may have been a Barbie girl all along.
“You do know Mattel is releasing a Weird Barbie, right? I think it's right up your alley.”
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