By Monica Rubalcava |
Los Angeles (EFE).- Barbie has been accused of perpetuating beauty stereotypes, but female empowerment has also been applauded. Her controversial figure has been as much questioned as accepted, and now that her movie has been released, something seems to be clear: she is not just a doll.
Andrea was 4 years old when her parents gave her the 1985 “Day to Night” Barbie. The version of the lanky blonde doll who was a professional in the morning and a socialite who went out to have fun in the afternoon.
“She was a working Barbie and her life is a bit similar to mine now,” the 42-year-old woman told EFE in an interview moments before going to see the movie “Barbie” in a movie theater in Beverly Hills, wearing a look inspired by the doll.
Thousands of followers and also detractors of the plastic woman have begun to meet since Thursday to see the film by Greta Gerwig on the big screen.
In the “barbiecore” fashion, donning their best pink outfits, viewers have flocked for what they hope will be a fun and inclusive feminist comedy.
Embrace the “Barbiecore”
Ray, 24, attended one of the first screenings of the film accompanied by two friends. She believes that in her case, it was “Barbie Swan Lake” that inspired her adolescence and strongly marked her personality.
“I grew up with Barbie. I love the cast of the film and I’m excited that the tape looks a little gay, it’s pink and it has dances, it has everything!”, says the young woman.
For Sahira, 36, Barbie represents “pure happiness” and teaches that “you can dream big”, while the drag-queen Sage Zariah says that she has taken her slogan as a “mantra”: “be what you want to be”.
“She teaches you that you can really be whoever you want to be, like now that I’m dressed as pop star Barbie. I know that I can be any Barbie that I want, ”she replies to EFE Zariah.
The two faces of the icon
Vanderbilt University communication studies professor Claire Sisco believes that Barbie’s pink world hasn’t always been as friendly as it is beginning to be today.
“Barbie was created in a sexist society and continues to exist in it. I think one of the biggest issues she raises is that no matter how successful and professional you are, you have to be pretty. As if beauty were just as important as creative or intellectual aspirations,” she comments.
However, he recognizes that films like Gerwig’s and the new lines of dolls that Mattel has presented with different body types and physical conditions help to improve the representation and social inclusion of groups that have been marginalized for years.
“In the past there was no diversity, they made Barbies of different nationalities once in a while. Now they are doing very well. There are dolls with curves, many skin colors and even with special needs”, celebrates Tammy, a 54-year-old fan who collects the African-American versions of the doll and her partner, Ken.
Likewise, psychologist Yalda T. Uhls, director and founder of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers at the University of California (UCLA), exposes the importance of recognizing that toys are more than just objects.
“We cannot say that Barbie is a simple doll. Toys teach children what the world is like and specifically these represent people for them with whom they practice how humans relate to each other,” she comments.
A love hate relationship
Lexi arrived at the theater with her friend wearing T-shirts with the name “Greta Gerwig” emblazoned on it. Her main motivation is not Barbie, since she never had one of hers, but to see the latest movie from her favorite director.
“I think that by supporting this type of film where there is a great diversity of people in terms of size, gender and identity, we demonstrate and sue large corporations that it is the type of content we want to see,” considers the 28-year-old.
The phenomenon that the film has created in terms of marketing and trends in social networks responds to the nostalgia that the doll created in 1959 by Ruth Handler emanates and to the game that Gerwig poses in his work when portraying the “love-hate” conflict that society has woven around it.
“The film shows these complexities and ambivalences that Barbie represents and I think it’s using the story of the doll to interrogate patriarchal norms of what a woman should be and what gender is,” says Sisco.
The film had a budget of 100 million dollars and only in its first weekend of release it is expected to reach between 95 and 110 million dollars.