Struggling With Barbie

The above is a drawing I did a few years ago. I’m struggling with the Barbie Movie. I have not seen it yet. I will see it. As an observer of the culture and as a feminist, I need to see how the Oscar winning director Great Gerwig approached this. My distaste for the doll goes back to my childhood—I refused to have any dolls, let alone a Barbie, and had a bear house, playing with small bears. I don’t have a problem with dolls, just one that has historically made little girls feel insecure and unhappy with their bodies. One that historically prescribed women to the home. I know there are career Barbies now, and that’s progress, as is the fact there is diversity in the dolls produced. But what about the body shape? I read Gerwig sought to make a feminist film, and Mattel, who produced it, pushed back on some of her ideas. Here is an interesting article in The New Yorker last month about it all. The last thing I want is to be uninformed and cranky— but I have to say I am suspicious. Tell me what you think, if you see the movie or not.

Here is one I drew addressing the binary choices women are given starting at an early age. I think this is from the 1990’s. Things are changing, it’s true; however, I showed this during a talk to an audience of young people within the last year or so, and was told it still rings true.

And finally, a cartoon of mine from 1996 in The New Yorker. The word feminism was misunderstood back then and not accepted by many.

We did participate in the movie blockbuster weekend by going to see Oppenheimer. I loved it. The actor Cillian Murphy, who plays Oppenheimer, makes the movie for me. I remember the history, but was not familiar with the details of his life and activism for nuclear arms control. Murphy shows Oppenheimer’s angst so beautifully.

Happy Sunday, see you tomorrow!