Guest Post: Barbie and the Power of Embodiment

This is a guest post from Melissa Mathieu on our second date in just over a year.

The Barbie movie affected me more than I imagined — I cried a lot during the movie. Margot Robbie’s Barbie showing empathy far beyond what I expected from a movie in the Marvel era. There’s a togetherness that all women and femmes do share, in our pain, and in our shared experience of oppression. The oppression is often structural, often relational, but it also limits us at to possibilities.

Barbie came from a world where Kens are superfluous. As a child, I played with Barbies, not baby dolls, which made me feel somewhat less feminine than I should have been, and yet fashion and the form of an adult women (however anatomically incorrect) held my interest whereas baby dolls didn’t make any sense to me. Ken was truly superfluous in this context (unlike my husband, who is very much needed).

What are you supposed to do with him? And Barbies kissing other Barbies was very common among all the children I played with. Ken just didn’t make sense in that context. It wasn’t playing house, which I also enjoyed, it was very much an exercise in self-identity, in vanity, and in the female image. This is pre-male gaze. It’s the female gaze, and that is one of the things I loved most about the Barbie movie.

My jaw literally dropped for the first 15 minutes of the movie. My eyes bathed in colors and sparkles. It truly moved me to see spaces, even fake ones, where it was all about the girl’s point of view. Restraint? Not needed. Accommodations for men? Unwarranted. The visuals were beautiful to me, and as an adult, I realized how deprived I feel of extreme femininity (trans femininity included). There is something so delicious to me about extreme femme spaces. In our town there’s a place called the Madonna Inn which is pink, pink, pink.

I love the surreality of the space. How much more did I relish the idea of being cute, of no restraint, of pure love of color and sparkles, of the adorable outfits Barbie wore, especially the white and blue ones.

There is something missing in me. The embodied vanity, the pure joy of being femme without the baggage of being a new mother, a tough woman in a man’s world, of just allowing my form to be totally embodied as a work of art, but also as an ego wrapped in a supremely beautiful body. Barbie in the real world sits at a bus stop with an elderly woman, and says to her “You are so beautiful.’ The elderly woman replies, ‘I know it.’ It’s not just about vanity or beauty. It’s a way of fully embodying my form. Something I haven’t had the freedom of experiencing since I was 13.

I remember that rich summer. I was largely alone, and felt amazing. It was the 90s and the 70s were in. I spent that summer both being in my body, and seeing myself as a very glamorous — being in my vintage clothes, listening to Jimi Hendrix, and The Carpenters (why? I can’t tell you), and a bit of Hole and Nirvana. I took time doing my makeup, and being creative with my hairstyles, spending 45 minutes bathing and shaving my legs. You might say that is childish, but I don’t think so. The creativity, the self-adoration, the freedom were intoxicating. I crave that kind of love and embodiment.

Cut to 2023, My worries about survival, my complete focus on my baby, and the demands she places on my body— the deprivation and the disconnection from having to wait on my own needs to care for her, they block “the me that feels” a lot of the time, the part that has my own thoughts. I want to see that freedom again, and truly, fully enjoy how beautiful I look in a dress (however I look).

Someday I will have a bathroom or a boudoir that is totally femme. Ballet pink and gold. Just for me. A pre-male gaze space. When I was a young child, I hated pink. It felt forced on me, when what i[I can change this, but I sense this part is very much stream of consciousness, and would leave it like this if you prefer] really wanted to wear was purple and red and yellow. But today I can honestly say I love pink. I spent 30ish years hating the color, and now you can see I love it. It’s actually a darker shade of purple to some extent.

There are many more things I could say about the movie. I think it’s a good reminder of how little progress we’ve truly made as femmes/women. The double standards are ridiculous. I’ve carefully cultivated friendships with people who love others regardless of gender, and don’t tear them down. I’ve gained power as a femme, but what crushes me isn’t the systemic oppression, it’s the way I’ve dulled myself down, the way I’ve lost my sparkle (literally, there is nothing sparkly in my whole wardrobe) to fit into a man’s world.

Also just an aside, they should’ve had Barbie eat, at least when she became human. It’s a small thing, but I think it’s important that girls and women see beautiful women eating. We deserve to enjoy food! I also really enjoyed seeing the Jewish creator of Barbie so lovingly portrayed by Rhea Perlman, and how loving and nurturing she was to Barbie. No feminism is complete without including older women, and no feminism is complete without being intersectional. (Where were the queer and non-binary Barbies?)

I’d like to see a world where all people are free to gender how they want. I want to stop having to be tough, I want to stop having to be feminine. I want to be this messy, sexy human that is me. We all deserve free expression.