Barbie gives us an excuse to embrace your bb self
General

Barbie gives us an excuse to embrace your bb self

Posted on by admin

Summer is beckoning us to find our want to dream again, though it’s often confused for nostalgia, with the heat percolating long ago dreams of day camp, losing time and finding our way back to our deepest longings.

This week we are investigating why the Barbie movie is a portal to our childhoods and how we can accept that question of purpose that haunts all of us. We are looking past the corporate grab of the franchise and leaning into the days when we collected roly polys and skinned our knees.

THE BREAKDOWN

TLDR:

Barbie debuted this weekend cementing this summer as the one where we let loose on nostalgia, were unapologetic about leaning into girlhood, and celebrated the little things— the ones often deemed trivial or trite— in favor of the treacly, the silly, the whimsical and the pink.

Here’s The Thing:

It’s dressing up for the Barbie premiere, it’s making friendship bracelets for the Taylor Swift concert and the custom Reneigh earrings for the Beyonce tour. It’s sleepovers and skinny dipping, it’s the overalls and an updated Jelly sandal worn to your friend’s house to braid their hair. Our inner child is out to play this summer and it honestly has nothing to do with what you played with or the trends you remember and everything to do with how you’re letting her/him/them free range in your life today.

Here’s what the Honey team remembers girling out on as children and how they’re letting her show up today:

Alexis: I remember it like it was yesterday when I put all the little white girls in my 2nd-grade class onto Bratz dolls. It was show-and-share at school, and I spent the whole night getting my girls Cloe, Sasha and Jade ready with their accessories and red convertible Bratz car. While I was the only Black kid in my class, I wasn’t worried if they would like my dolls. I somehow knew I would create fans of the Bratz franchise by the end of my show-and-share presentation – and I did.

Now as I think back to that core memory from 2nd-grade and muddle through the scrambled eggs in my head, I recall how much I did not like a single kid in my 2nd-grade class and that I didn’t care if they liked me either. But I wanted them to like my toys because it felt easier to let them into the world of my little plastic dolls than mine. It still feels like letting people into the superficial layer of my life is easier, but adulting has taught me that only those lucky enough or the truest fans deserve the official invite to the red convertible Bratz car of my life and yours.

Hannah: I was never much of a dolly girly but I was obsessed with playmobil, the little plastic figurines that came with their own worlds of homes and accessories. Now I see my nieces and nephew playing with them, creating the lives of all these little figures with their own special hobbies, relationships, homes, etc. and through my own twenty-something eyes, I realize how much I’m doing my own version of that right now. Building new relationships, strengthening current ones, homesteading, expanding my hobbies and communities. I’m worldbuilding like I always did but this time with all my own pieces.

Abbey: I was a doll girl through and through. Barbies, American Girl dolls, anything I could use to write my own reality with. Anyone else have dark plots for their dolls at an early age? Orphans, murder, lost? I guess it was my way of working through the unknown terrors my brain was already going to at a young age. I brought back my American Girl doll from my parents house this summer along with my 12-year-old diary and let myself feel proud of the little weirdo I was and still am, the one who always found creative ways to work through worry using plenty of dramatics and a few laughs in between.

Clarissa: My Black mother refused to buy me white barbies, so I had every iteration of Black barbies possible specifically, the Brandy Cinderella barbies. I also had a deep fascination with my Black Thumbelina doll that I carried everywhere and slept with every night. I recently discovered that the doll in question was not Thumbelina and just a Black Cabbage patch doll my mom found at a cheaper price. My paternal grandmother later taught me how to sew and by middle school I was making my first training bra out of old t-shirts. This summer I am relearning my childhood pastime and finally attempting to make my own cargo pants because I refuse to pay $80 for a pair from Urban Outfitters.

The Takeaway:

Whatever you played with, whoever bb you was, it’s worth it to look back no matter how embarrassing, and welcome her into adult you’s life. I bet she’d be proud, especially if you wore all pink and glitter makeup to a movie premiere about her favorite toy at 30. She deserves it and you do too.

Required Reading: