When I moved over to Riverside six years ago I received so much help and support. Do you need a couch? Do you need sheets? Do you need a microwave? Do you need bikes? Do you want Barbie dolls and accessories for Hazel?
I had four friends drop off their Barbie doll collections. We had campers, play houses, clothes, cars, shoes, Ken, closets, furniture, another Ken, beauty supplies and another Ken.
All totaled, 27 Barbie dolls and three Kens….
Hazel turned four a couple weeks after the separation and those first three years played a shit ton of Barbie at her dad’s. Sometimes Fritz would join in and sometimes George would stop by BarbieLand and spout off statistics about Barbie.
Yesterday I went to the Barbie Movie at North Riverside Mall. I thought the movie would be empty because I stereotyped. The mall is predominantly Latino and African American these days.
Lesson number one on Barbie Movie Sunday. People of color play with Barbie.
The rest of the lessons on Barbie Movie Sunday caught me by surprise.
I left the show stunned by the messages placed throughout the movie. It wasn’t at all what I expected and there isn’t a spoiler alert attached on today’s Morning Chalkboard.
I left with the further realization that woman have a long way to go still to become equal in society. Women still deal with social stereotypes, body image, mental health, sexual pressures and the always awkward relationship with men.
The Barbie doll is perfect. The perfect height, perfect breasts, perfect legs, perfect smile. She’s successful and has attacked many careers…..in BarbieLand, but not necessarily in the real world.
The movie dissects all of this in a perfect way. It was well done and a strong message for little girls. It was also a good message to send to the little brothers and the big dads as well.
George stayed home, but Fritz went to Barbie with his little sister. He liked the movie and kept calling it a documentary. I think it might have hit him as a documentary because he caught the message the movie sent.
The biggest thing that set me up was the role Ken had in the movie. It showed that Ken was an accessory to Barbie. Ken showed the fragility of men. Barbie and all of the Barbies run BarbieLand and Ken is only there if a Barbie needs a Ken. Opposites swap between BarbieLand and reality.
The movie does an incredible way of showing men as the inferior sex, a complete opposite of the masculine roll in real life.
This wasn’t my daughter’s movie on her birthday weekend. This was Jumbo’s movie this weekend. I came away with a stronger playbook on how to raise Hazel in the real world and not a make believe Barbie world.
I told Hazel that this movie will have a different meaning when she watches it with her high school friends in a few years. I told her that she will probably watch it with her college friends over a nostalgic girls night out. She will watch it alone on the couch on a snowy Sunday when she has her first apartment and she will probably watch this movie with her daughter many years from now.
“Your Grampa Shep took me to this movie when I turned ten. Uncle Fritz was there too.”
It was a successful birthday weekend. The memories will last a lifetime for Hazel and me too. I never expected to wipe tears from my face at a Barbie movie. I was waiting for Brad Pitt to tell me, “don’t cry in front of the Mexican’s!”
Last weekend of July… the sunset time on the Chalkboard is creeping closer to eight o’clock.
We have a week full of ninety degree days. So make sure to use your GoldBond and drink plenty of water.
