#& the only comfort you can give yourself is deciding that it's dumb anyway. shallow. vain. who cares about looks and boys and all of that

[bookshelfdreams]

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[bookshelfdreams]

#just saw that tweet abt pink days on the set of the barbie movie & i think it made me realize why it - the marketing etc - annoys me so#'margot robbie went around collecting fines and donated them to charity haha' okay. look.#that's just the perfect metaphor for how it worked for us - me - anyone who wants to align themselves with me - when we were girls#isn't it#because you grow up and you desperately want to fit in with the other girls but you don't & you don't know why#but you're surrounded by things and people telling you what a normal girl is like & little-to-none of it is things you find appealing or#interesting. makeup and fashion and skin care. gymnastics and romance. you're told that you are obligated to be pretty#but prettiness has never been part of your perception of yourself. femininity is an arcane concept#an exclusive club that will never grant you entrance#& the only comfort you can give yourself is deciding that it's dumb anyway. shallow. vain. who cares about looks and boys and all of that#idiots that's who#but this is Doing It Wrong too isn't it? because now everyone who has taught you that you will forever fail at femininity turns around#& tells you that's patriarchal oppression and YOU'RE the bad one by distancing yourself from something that always made you feel defective#'YOU may have never lived up to this impossible standard of perfection but some ppl do and actually it's fine to be like that!#hyperfeminine traditionally beautiful women are the most oppressed group of all & finally we will stand up for our rights!'#'girls can be pretty AND conpetent' but that's not what they're actually saying. isn't it.#because performing femininity correctly is the prerequisite. a threshold you can never cross and you know that. & that's fine#but somehow that's wrong too because you're not supposed to make peace w that are you. you're SUPPOSED to want to do it right#even if you don't and never have and never will#and once again everyone is yelling at you that this club isn't meant for you. if you criticize the barbie movie you're antifeminist#if you refuse to wear pink I'll make you pay a fine#hashtag girlpower#(well im not a girl. not a guy either. and not a secret third thing. just bad at femininity.#bad at being a person. and y'all don't need to tell me you don't want me in your club#I've always known that. i just wish you'd stop expecting me to beg for entrance.)

actually I'll say this out loud and I'll also say this:

like my brilliant friend @fearlessinger, I would prefer this to be a commercial. The problem isn't that the Barbie movie wants to sell you plastic garbage. The problem is that the Barbie movie seems to think it can be more, that it could have anything to say besides "buy doll". All it has done so far is make painfully obvious just how impossible that is.

If you don't wear metaphorical pink - don't perform femininity - a patriarchal society will penalize you. If you don't wear literal pink on the set of supposed feminist filmmaker Greta Gerwing, Margot Robbie will make you pay a literal fine, but it's ironic and for "charity" this time.

You can't be subversive when you're the mainstream and you can't be satire when you reinforce what you're supposed to satirize.

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