#not for mattel but for barbie the character. she means so much to me

[britneyshakespeare]

bratz can't act like they're as iconic and unconditionally adored because they aren't. they aren't. i used to have a friend who just kinda made fun of me about all of my interests (besides my 'smart' ones like poetry and history), especially ones that were a little too girly or too queer for him to accept, being the boring straight man he was, who had no taste for irony, indulgence in pop culture, and kitsch. i don't say that lightly btw bc i do have male friends in real life who are not necessarily as flamboyant and eccentric as i am but they still like respect me.

this ex-friend made fun of me for being so interested in vintage barbies and their clothes, and that to me was like obviously fuckin stupid. i was like well she represents the evolution of the idealized woman throughout recent history. she represents fashion and femininity as young girls were expected to aspire to, in all its beautiful and stickily-embedded intricacies. she's also just a beautiful object, quite clearly, and always has been, but has cycled through various eras of realism, professionalism, and play. there really is something to admire about barbie no matter who you are. there is a barbie for everyone; if everyone had the encyclopedic knowledge of barbies eras and supporting characters and spin-off lines that the collective many generations of barbie fans have, it wouldn't be hard to like, 'get' what's so interesting and fascinating about this little plastic woman. if you have any interest in aesthetics or pop culture or history at all. if you want to commentate upon post-modern culture, look no further than barbie.

but also if you just want to see the evolution of a solid and ruthlessly successful fashion doll line, in fact THE first major fashion doll line, look to barbie. she IS the quintessential fashion doll for so many reasons and no one can touch her. she's the beatles. she's shakespeare. she's in a league of her own. there are many many many noteworthy doll lines out there, if you like dolls, but nobody touches barbie. and you get this undying loyalty, this unshakable admiration, despite whatever other commercial low points or public scrutiny you may be facing (barbie has had much of those things), by being the epitome of a fashion doll for so, so many decades.

barbie can put out however many shitty dolls they want and that will just never change, because whenever they put out a good one it will always be "oh thank GOD!! barbie is back!!" from the fans, and i'm one of them. i'm not here to kick her when she's down. i'm here to appreciate her for what she is, and has always been. barbie fans don't make excuses for their shitty, low-quality products, but frankly, neither does mattel. most of their cheapest products get away with the excuse of being 'for kids' and kids are the ones buying and playing with the fashionistas and those unimaginatively-designed career dolls. it is what it is; they're affordable. when mattel fails to impress adult fans, they just don't buy. that's how an adult collector base works.

i can say all this about barbie and i feel it's just very self-evident upon critical reflection why any adult might still feel inspired by barbie, might still love barbie as a pop culture figure and a piece of their childhood. i can say all this respectable, intellectual stuff to justify my love for barbie, and that's part of it, but primarily i love barbie because i have always loved barbie. when i was a kid, i was playing with dolls or watching tv; that was IT. my sister and i could play dolls all day long for multiple days in a row when we were young and we'd never get tired of it.

i only stopped playing with dolls in third grade when my teacher asked "how many kids here like to play with dolls?" (when discussing hobbies) and i realized i was the only one with my hand up and i felt ashamed. and even then i still continued to play with dolls, but less often; i tried to justify that what i was doing was 'cooler' than the ways i used to play with dolls, the babyish ways; and i certainly never breathed a word about playing with my dolls to any of my friends at school after that. that's the only reason barbie and i ever grew apart, was the social pressure to give her up at a certain age. but tbh even when i was a teenager, while i felt like i shouldn't ask for dolls anymore, i still kept up with the barbie brand and felt deeply invested in her as a character, in a very, very pre-barbie movie world where that was viewed as incredibly strange for a teenager. again, like i've said, the pop culture zeitgeist as a whole was very anti-barbie and none of the points of appreciation were touched on outside of the niche of doll collectors, who have not until SO recently been seen as a cool niche, even among 'nerdy' or nostalgic pop culture properties.

bratz. you are not barbie here. every adult collector loves and appreciates barbie. many adult collectors like bratz, but they do NOT admire them, on the whole, so unflinchingly. i love barbie like i love my grandmother. you're more like my cool cousin i looked up to growing up. you DON'T have the range. you don't have the security as a brand, as a force of pop culture. the attachment is not nearly as deep. the oldest people who played with you as children are not even forty yet. i played with bratz as a kid; i collect them now. i'm twenty-fiiiiive. i have a great aunt who has collected barbie for decades, and she's seventy-eight.

you don't have the universality of barbie. you don't have the history of barbie. you can't BACK IT UP when you start to flop or piss off your fans, like barbie can. you are not untouchable. you have been off the shelves for years at a time, multiple times. some of that ironically was because of mattel and their frivolous greedy lawsuits. you get sympathy points for that, bratz. but you are also too iconic to act like you're an underdog anymore; and you know you're iconic to the people who LIKE you, but your dedicated fanbase is not of the same adoration as your biggest competition.

bratz fans are just fashion doll fans, mainly younger millennials and older gen z. the hannah montana generation. i'm happy to be a 2000s girly; it is part of my identity. i do genuinely love bratz, as aesthetic objects, and for the way they've influenced later fashion doll lines. the way they shook up the competition for girl-marketed toys in the 2000s is genuinely legendary and that decade for dolls, ALL dolls, would be unthinkable without them. but they were always more limited, in many ways, than barbie, in what they could be and do. mainly that they could never be the first, the original. they were the pack, the gang, the group of friends. they were not individually distinct; they were mainly fashion-focused and fun-focused. it was different, and unique, but it was not revolutionary.

and you know what, that's good enough for me. but this brand does not have a leg to stand on for how greedy and cheap it has gotten. like they sure do wanna act like they're so cute and irreplaceable, when they have never, ever emulated the success that they were reaching in, like, 2005.

i love bratz as dolls but i fuckin hate mga as a brand. fuckin idiots

[overly-distressed-mouse]

Okay I'm now home from watching the Barbie movie, so I have to bestow some knowledge upon you fuckers (aka me infodumping actual Barbie lore because there were a lot of references there).

So, first and foremost, in one scene, we see "Earring Ken" and "Growing up Skipper" (very short scene, don't worry if you missed it). But these were actual Barbie dolls released by Mattel way back whenever (See pictures below)

So, "Earring Ken" was actually "Earring Magic Ken". His whole thing was Mattel wanted to be cool and hip with the kids or whatever, so they created him. Except their idea of going out and finding inspiration and information as to what was "hip with the kids", was gay bars. And raves. As you can imagine, Earring Magic Ken did not stay on shelves too long (about 6 months) (though he did sell actually really well and I believe is still one of their most sold despite only being available for such a short time). I'm pretty sure his necklace charm could be swapped out too and also worn as actual earrings. HOWEVER, the part about Earring Magic Ken that kills me, is that because they went to gay bars, not only did they give him a mesh shirt and shit (as seen above), but the charm on his necklace? Is a cock ring. Did Mattel realize this? Probably the fuck not, but that's what it was💕

Growing up Skipper was also an actual doll, and just like in the movie, if you twisted her arm, she grew boobs. She also grew like an inch taller or something. I'm pretty sure she also was not on the shelf long, but she was introduced in the 1970s. So that's fun

Next up, Midge and Allan (who both play slightly bigger roles in the film but here's pictures anyways)

So Midge was Barbie's best friend, and was released specifically because Mattel found themselves faced with high demand for a pregnant Barbie doll. But of course, Barbie can never get married or be pregnant or have kids, because it ages her, and obviously seeming a little older means Barbie is suddenly worthless and unappealing (Woo patriarchy!). So their solution was Midge, who, ironically, ended up being everything Barbie couldn't (which is kind of funny since she's supposed to be able to be any and everything ever). So, them making her only personality trait in the movie her pregnancy, is kind of spot on. She did have actual dolls initially but then seemed to disappear for a while, having been replaced with other "Barbie's best friend!"'s. Actually they also replaced Barbie's siblings several times but that's another post. Midge did eventually return though in Life in the Dreamhouse (See below)

One thing they never mentioned in the movie, however, is that Allan was actually Midge's boyfriend. I don't have too much on him besides that but I think it's worth mentioning.

Anywho, there's my rant on some of the characters in the Barbie movie, if you made it this far, thanks :))

[flagellant]

I remember the movie basically making the old point about “and there’s no women CEO’s :c” and it was like, are you kidding me? The planet is dying and your solution is to make sure some of the CEO’s destroying it are girlbosses?

Loved the movie mostly, especially the set design, but it felt like the message was an afterthought because it was the weakest part of the movie.

I've walked past the Barbie branded selfie booth, sat through the reel of old commercials that precede the previews, and watched Margot Robbie learn to cry, and I’m still not sure what “doing the thing and subverting the thing,” which Greta Gerwig claimed as the achievement of Barbie in a recent New York Times Magazine profile, could possibly mean. This was the second Gerwig profile the magazine has run. I wrote the first one, in 2017, which in hindsight appears like a warning shot in a publicity campaign that has cemented Gerwig’s reputation as so charming and pure of heart that any choice (we used to call them compromises) she makes is justified, a priori, by her innocence. This is a strange position for an adult to occupy, especially when the two-hour piece of branded content she is currently promoting hinges on a character who discovers that her own innocence is the false product of a fallen world. But—spoiler alert!—the point of Barbie’s “hero’s journey” is less to reconcile Barbie to death than to reconcile the viewer to culture in the age of IP.

“Doing the thing and subverting the thing”: I haven’t finished working out the details, but I think the rough translation would be Getting rich and not feeling feel bad about it. (Or, for the viewer: Having a good time and not feeling bad about it.) One must labor under a rather reduced sense of the word “subvert” to be impressed with poking loving fun at product misfires such as Midge (the pregnant Barbie), Tanner (the dog who poops), and the Ken with the earring, especially given that the value of all these collectors’ items has, presumably, not decreased since the film opened. Barbie may feature a sassy tween sternly informing Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie that the tiny-waisted top-heavy billion-dollar business she represents has made girls “feel bad” about themselves, but if anyone uttered the word “anorexia,” I missed it. (There was a reason Todd Haynes told the story of Karen Carpenter’s life and death with Barbies, and it wasn’t because an uncanny piece of molded plastic has the magical power to resolve the contradictions of girlhood and global capitalism.) There’s a bit about Robbie going back into a box in the Mattel boardroom, but Barbies aren’t made in an executive suite; they come from factories in China. On the one hand, it’s weird for a film about a real-world commodity to unfold wholly in the realm of ideas and feelings, but then again, that’s pretty much the definition of branding. Mattel doesn’t care if we buy Barbie dolls—they’re happy to put the word “Barbie” on sunglasses and T-shirts, or license clips from the movie for an ad for Google. OK, here’s my review: When Gerwig first visited Mattel HQ in October 2019, the company’s stock was trading at less than twelve dollars a share. Today the price is $21.40. 

Christine Smallwood, Who Was Barbie?

[burnt-optimism]

So a theory I've developed that I surprisingly haven't seen anywhere else on the internet (by which I mean here on Tumblr bc I'm not actually anywhere else on the internet these days) is this:

Will Ferrell's character. The Mattel CEO.

This guy. This guy is a Ken who wandered into the real world and stayed there.

Think about it. Despite being framed as very much the villain of the story (at least the part in the Real World), the CEO never has any aggression toward Barbie. He wants her to go back to Barbieland because he's concerned for the ramifications to both realms if she doesn't. When they meet in person he is awed and respectful and-- dare I say it-- understanding of what she's been through since she came to the Real World. He isn't surprised when she doesn't know how to drink real water. He never threatens or commands her. He suggests she get back in the box so she can go home, but even when she evades and asks to go to the bathroom first, he lets her go without question. Because why would he ever question Barbie?

Even when Barbie escapes and the executives are chasing her through the building, the CEO comes face-to-face with her at one point, but does he grab her? No. She screams, and he screams, and they both keep running in opposite directions.

That feels like Kenergy, but maybe that's just me.

Also, he knows how to get to and from Barbieland. I can see how maybe, if it's something that can happen, Mattel executives might get briefed on the possibility of a Barbie entering the Real World and what to do if it happens, but I can't imagine the particulars of the journey itself are common knowledge. Yet this guy knows it immediately.

ALSO also, the bit that sticks out in my mind is his conversation with the other executives as they start making their way to Barbieland (which is now transforming into Kendomland). When they hear about the success of the Mojo Dojo Casa House playsets and the new Ken movie and everything that's changing, he's upset. The other executives even say, "what does it matter if we're still making money?" and he has his whole mini-rant about how that's not the point. He's not in this for the money, he's in it for the little girls, and the imagination, and the power that Barbie should have. Now, that doesn't sound like the opinion of an (admittedly bumbling) executive in the otherwise painfully accurate Real World. It sounds more like a holdover of a Ken's ingrained adoration of Barbie and everything she represents.

Not to mention that Allan explains to Gloria and Sasha (when he's trying to convince them to take him with them to the Real World) that others have left Barbieland and stayed in the Real World. At the time, he's referring specifically to Allans, but who's to say it couldn't happen to a Ken? In the original order of things, Kens aren't much more important than Allans, and might be equally unlikely to shift either world in a noticeable way. And if a Ken did manage to wander into the Real World, is it such a stretch to think he might have had a similar patriarchy awakening as the Ken we know, and also ended up at Mattel (like Barbie did), but instead of being captured, he could have talked his way into a position there (thanks, patriarchy) and worked his way up from there?

And he knows there are no real weapons in Barbieland. And I'm pretty sure he's the only man in the Real World (including Ken) we ever see wearing iconic Barbie pink. And, in the end, he's just happy things got back to normal and he's willing to give Barbie whatever ending she wants.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

I just saw Barbie. I'm writing meta about it. This is your spoiler warning. Do not read past this if you don't want to be spoiled. Additionally I'm going to discuss radical feminism and liberal feminism. I am neither I'm a feminist, but as a trans person I find both strains to be inaccessible and I prefer a more intersectional approach, just to state my bias upfront. Additionally I anticipate getting multiple "it's not that deep" comments on this meta. To which I respond that the movie may be deeply unserious at times but it does try to tackle gender which means we should get to talk about it.

I do want to acknowledge that this is the movie of the year, and that it's made by Mattel and Warner Brothers and as such it was literally never going to be based and the best we can hope for is what it was, which is liberal girlboss feminism. The movie was very fun and very good and it did have a surprisingly coherent view of gender and it did some things that I did like when it came to that HOWEVER as a gay transgender man watching the movie it's lack of a queer perspective was very obvious to me and took me out of it occasionally.

So I just want to establish for those who have not seen it but are reading this meta how gender works in this movie. And to recap the movie with a focus on the gender stuff rather than the main Pinocchio plot. The movie starts in Barbie land where Barbies have a good day every day and Kens only have a good day when Barbies smile at them. In Barbie land all the powerful jobs are occupied by Barbies and all the Kens have the nebulous job of "beach" which means that whatever the Barbies decide goes and the Kens are more or less subject to their whims (no word on how the Midges or Skippers or Allen fit into this barbie based higherarchy. One could guess based on a couple of scenes but it's never really lingered on)

Ken(Ryan Gosling)'s world revolves around Barbie(Margot Robbie). Ken(RG) is Barbie's(MR) boyfriend, but Barbie is good friends with Ken(Simu Liu) who she dances with and who is generally less cringefail than Ken(RG). Ken(RG) is frequently jealous of Ken(SL). Ken(RG) is also somewhat taken for granted. Barbie doesn't seem to care that much about him. He tries to kiss barbie, she doesn't reciprocate. Ken tries to hang out with Barbie, she kicks him out because it's girls night, as it is every night. So on and so forth. Barbie is not obligated to care about Ken, but she's clearly not putting in any work into maintaining this creator ordained relationship and it's clearly upsetting to Ken.

Barbie is experiencing some Real Girl tm problems such as flat feet and thoughts of death and weird Barbie who has been played with too much sends her into the real world to fix it. Ken(SL) goads Ken(RG) into going with Barbie into the real world. When Barbie learns Ken is coming her immediate assumption is that he'll slow him down.

When Ken and Barbie enter LA Barbie immediately starts experiencing Misogyny. Ken similarly starts experiencing privileges as a man which he did not have in Barbie land. This is heavy handed. Barbie verbally states that she feels like she's being gawked at in an almost violent way and Ken says he feels admired in a not at all violent way (with the outfit Ken was wearing and how he was still carrying himself with deference to barbie I sincerely doubt he would experience exactly 0 homophobia but it was necessary for him to feel that way in order to make his character arc work so I'll let it slide).

Ken goes for a walk without Barbie while barbie does plot relevant activities. He sees women showing respect to men, he sees a slide show of some kind of male role models. He feels like he can be something in this world. So he goes to a middle school library and picks up some books about patriarchy. He tries to get a job in the real world, it goes poorly, so he decides to go back to Barbie land and establish patriarchy there.

Barbie comes back to Barbie land with a friendly human woman named Gloria who works for Mattel and her MCR listening 12 year old daughter. On the way she tells her new human friend and her daughter that Barbies are in charge in Barbie land and women have all the important jobs. But as they drive into Barbie land they find that Ken has gone full radfem in their absence. He's flipped the Barbie-Ken higherarchy on its head. He's turned the dream house into a man cave. And he's some how convinced the Barbies to behave like sandwich making foot massage providing girlfriends.

And here's where I would like to start doing some meta. What has happened here? Ken is essentially a (less complex than human on account of being a doll) cisgender heterosexual white woman. He is in proximity to the ruling party, Barbie who is like a cishet white man. Ken is not on the margins the way that Allen and Midge are. His occupation is Barbie's boyfriend. Ken got a taste of what it was like when the gendered oppression that he is used to is flipped and he decided that's what he wants. He doesn't much care how the discontinued dolls feel about this, he's not thinking about them, nor is the movie. He doesn't really see a problem with there being a division between Barbies and Kens, he doesn't see a problem with one group being subservient. He just doesn't want to be low on the food chain. Ken is right to want liberation for Kens but he thinks that he can obtain that by taking the jobs away from Barbies and giving them to kens. This is why I said Ken has gone full radfem in Barbie's absence. He hasn't gotten rid of the gender essentialism, he hasn't questioned whether power should be shared between Barbies and Kens. Ken is right to throw Barbies shit out of the dream house and kick her to the curb, she doesn't value him like he deserves from a relationship. He's wrong to try to change the constitution to put Kens in charge and change it to Kenland and force all Barbies into the position that Kens previously occupied. I relate this to radfems because radical feminism relies on bioessentialist assumptions and posits that men are always oppressors by their nature and that women would be better off without them. A lot of what makes terfs angry at trans women is that trans people question whether women and men are so easily separately boxed like this and trans women specifically are seen as male infiltrators. Most of them succumb to becoming transphobes before people but on a base level radical feminism is a reactionary hatred of men that is usually based in genuine hurt. Ken is on some all Barbies are pigs shit here rather than examining society and attempting to make it more equitable. I think he needs to sit down with Magic Earring Ken and talk about gender to gain some perspective.

Both me and the movie agree that Kens knee jerk Ken liberation at the Barbies' expense is wrong. Ken even later acknowledged that he didn't even care about patriarchy he just wanted to feel valued. But where me and the movie start to be at odds is when they do a girl boss style ousting of the Kens. Gloria gives a speech about the female grievance she has from the real world and it somehow works on the Barbies despite the fact that the movie previously established that sexism and all of its intricacies and the feelings it engenders are completely foreign to the Barbies. But the Barbies have always been in charge in Barbie land. They're passingly familiar with real world sexism as an abstract concept that they believe they defeated in the 1960s, but they don't experience it, they live in a everyone is valid girlboss utopia. The only way to become ugly is for someone in the real world to play with you too hard, something they can't control. There's no pressure to be pretty because everyone is already pretty and they compliment each other routinely. Barbie doesn't experience any problems being perfect until Gloria starts drawing her with existential dread, and all of the other Barbies are horrified by it as if they've never heard of such a thing. It's a malady that their dear friend is experiencing not a fact of life like it would have to be for Gloria's message to land.

Then they come up with this plan and they free the Barbies and use romantic jealousy to turn the Kens against each other. My problem with this is that in the established world where Kens are the repressed gender, this is essentially putting a bunch of dolls who's oppression is based in being a romantic object for Barbie into misery business ass situations. We're really weaponizing the Kens' internalized misandry against them and saying girlboss? The Kennish desire for Barbie's validation is being used as a tool to oppress them and the movie just... Doesn't see it despite seeming to having coherent liberal feminist messaging*.

Speaking of Liberal feminist messaging. When the Kens realize they've been turned against each other they link arms and head to where the Barbies are. The Barbies have put their constitution back in place. Ken(RG) realizes he's lost and he runs inside crying and Barbie comes to comfort him. Barbie pays lip service to Ken finding who he is without her and to them being "Barbie" and "Ken" instead of "Barbie and Ken" but then when the Kens band together and ask for a supreme court justice President Barbie gives them a concession of a lower court justice and the Kens have to work their way up, the voice over stating that maybe they'll get to where women are irl in a couple decades, and this is treated as a victory somehow. Like putting the girl boss barbietopia back in place at the expense of the Kens is somehow better than the Kens doing the same but in the opposite direction. This after she apologizes to weird Barbie and offers her a cabinet position, treating the most ostracized barbie as more valuable then any Ken.

The closest the movie ever comes to acknowledgeing a perspective outside of the Barbie/Ken binary is when Allen tries to leave Barbieland during the Ken takeover. Allen seems discontented with both the barbieocracy and the kenocracy and he tries to escape containment when Gloria and her emo daughter are leaving Barbie land. He argues that no one will give a shit about a life-sized Allen in the real world because nobody remembers Allen and then he tries to leave with them. Gloria and her daughter change their minds and go back to help Barbie and Allen's plot line just ends there.

There's all these cameos from background and discontinued Dolls. Skipper who's boobs get bigger, Barbie who's a camera, sugardaddy Ken, and magic earring Ken are all in weird Barbies weird house, Midge has a house near Barbie but is judged by the voiceover for being a pregnant doll and Barbie seems to agree, and Allen is the only one who doesn't have duplicates and is sort of in the background casting doubt, but they never follow through on these dolls place in the higherarchy. Which is fine, this movie is the Barbie movie, it's about stereotypical Barbie becoming a real girl and going to the gynecologist. But I do think that they established some dolls on the margins and then left them there, and as someone on the margins in real life I want to know what's going on with them. Most people going to this movie are gonna be Barbies and Kens so they don't touch on it and I think that's kinda sad, but not every movie has to be for me I guess.

TL;DR: the Barbie movie lacks a queer perspective and has some moments where it's stated gender metaphor falls apart because of its necessarily liberal politics.

All that said. I liked the movie. I'm leveling this criticism because it was better than I expected it to be. I didn't expect to go into the theatre and think about gender like that and I did so it deserves points for that even if I have problems with the execution. I thought it would be a shallow Pinocchio plot but it did something fresh with the doll who wants to be a real girl plot and it was genuinely good cinema in terms of the effects and the music and the visual motifs. It was a fun experience I laughed several times. I would recommend it despite being critical of it.

*coherent in that it is a message that has semi consistent internal logic not in that it's internal logic is correct or sound.

[cosmic-hunny]

I saw Barbie Sunday night and one thing that's stuck with me was Doctor Barbie. I knew going in she was being played by the beautiful and talented Hari Nef but I had no idea how much she would be in the film. Would she get a line? Would she get a close up? Would she show up more than once? Etc. These were the thoughts in my head going into Barbie. Well those and "I'm so excited for this movie."

I loved this movie a whole lot. Is it perfect ? No. But it's pretty damn close for a toy movie made by Warner Bros. But specifically I want to focus on Doctor Barbie. I was so incredibly overjoyed to see her have an actual presence in the film. As much as any other Barbie that wasn't Margot Robbie. She had lines. She was part of the plot. All that jazz. AND she was even called beautiful. And throughout the whole film not once is anything done to point out her transness because it didn't matter. She was a woman, just like all the other Barbies, in a role that could have been played by any woman. But they chose to have a trans woman play it.

I watch a lot of movies. Like an obscene amount. And not once in my life have I seen a trans woman have an actual supporting cast role in a big summer blockbuster. Let alone a supporting role that wasn't explicitly a trans character. And to me that is so awesome.

Yes this is a capitalist product. Yadda yadda yadda. BUT it's also, like any good movie, a form of expression. So when a major movie studio and a major toy company both allow a character relevant enough to get their own character poster be played by a trans actress it means a lot to me. Not because Warner Bros and Mattel are "good corporations" or anything. But because it shows progress in our society. Even 5 years ago I don't think that would have happened. And it shows how out of touch the GOP are with reality. Because if trans people were really on the way out a major capitalist product would not be inclusive of us. I'd be lying if I said I didn't cry from joy about this realization after the film

Thank you for coming to my TEDx talk.

[merp-blerp]

I know I'll sound kooky for saying this, but I suspect that Barbie & the Diamond Castle was queer-coded on purpose. I mean this so seriously. There were probably hundreds of people working on this movie. You're telling me none of them were queer? So many queer people have worked for Mattel. Maybe a person (or people) working on this film wanted to make a queer Barbie movie as a form of self-expression or what have you, but couldn't explicitly do so because it was 2008 and that would've been seen as inappropriate for a family film (still could be seen that way 🙄). So they got as close as they could with Diamond Castle.

Just the essence of this film is so sapphic. Alexa and Liana live alone together, away from whatever town might be nearby. They see nothing more important than their relationship with one another and Liana says that Alexa "knows me better than anyone else in the entire universe" (it's almost like no one else in this medieval world could know Liana that well, maybe because she's gay and the only person who could safely know that is Alexa) and "I feel like a part of me is gone" after they fight and she believes their relationship might be over.

They get what looks like male "love interests" on the surface, but they don't actually behave like couples. The girls butt-heads with them a lot as if it'll be an enemies-to-lovers type of romance like Annika and Aidan from Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, but it never really becomes romantic. They don't even imply a happily ever after with the twins (whatever their names were, no one cares), they go back home together without them in their lives, at least not majorly. I think the fact that they don't have male love interests is the crux of this whole theory. The boys' existence is enough for kids and even adults watching to believe there's a straight romance in this film, especially if you've seen other Barbie films and know the formula, but there isn't. The movie just has male characters who take interest in the girls in a completely one-sided infatuation, heteronormativity does the rest when it comes to the audience thinking there's a romance with the boys.

Alexa and Liana's relationship is the most important aspect of the movie; the entire story is about their relationship, not their relationship with the boys at all, which separates Barbie & the Diamond Castle from other Barbie movies from this time, which all had hetero-romances in one way or another. This is probably why so many sapphic kids who grew up with it, like myself, loved it so much.

All these factors together just make me wonder if the queerness was intentional on someone's part.

Even if you bypass the queer interpretation, it's really refreshing to have a story that's about female friendship and that's it. No forced or unforced romance, just a story about girls and their friendship(s). There's no issue with romance, but also there's no issue with a lack of romance as well. That kind of message is hard to come by, even in more "adult" media.

(As a bit of a sidebar, the only queer aspect to this film that is surely coincidental to me is Alexa and Liana's dresses looking like the lesbian and bi pride flags. Liana's dresses do share a color scheme with the Emily Gwen lesbian flag, but that particular lesbian flag wasn't in existence till 2018, ten years after this movie was released. By association, I assume Alexa's dresses having the colors of the bi flag is also a coincidence, even though that flag was created in 1998 before this film. It is very cute how that turned out, though.)

[taylortruther]

So here's my thing about the Barbie discourse:

Almost nothing that holds such an iconic place in society is one thing. So much of this discourse comes from this, imo, immature very black and white internet space. It's either good or bad. But like most things, Barbie is both.

Everything critics have said about Barbie being a cultural icon of the patriarchy is true. Barbie's size has long been critiqued and also studied and it has done real damage to real people. This is all true and not to be made light of

Studies upon studies upon studies have also shown that dolls and prominent cultural figures engaging in traditionally male dominated fields increases the participation of young girls. So Barbies such as Astronaut Barbie increase girls' participation in STEM. There is empowerment even without Greta Gerwig's film.

Barbie is the pretty pink, Barbie is the tiny and physically impossible body, Barbie is the permanent high heels. Barbie is also the astronaut and the doctor. She is both the bimbo and the message that girls, too, can be smart.

And I think the most interesting critique of Barbie as a brand, a character, and eventually a film when it comes out, is (will be) how these work together and play off each other. From what I've gathered from what Greta has said, her intention with this film uses this duality to validate the "you can do anything" and point out that all of those unfair and unhealthy expectations come from her being a literal doll. I think that's going to be interesting! I think it's interesting how in the current reality of the brand and the character, this duality plays off itself in a feedback loop. We have to be submissive and docile and pretty and inhumanely shaped, but we also need to be smart and capable and powerful, but not too much that we're not idealized.

I get so exhausted with the overly slimplistic dichotomy on both sides of this debate cause the reality is VERY CLEARLY in the middle. And also it drives me crazy cause I don't think anyone involved in making this movie has given any intention of ignoring that reality. Even the trailer highlights it in the forefront. The story is literally about how the fantasy Barbie sells is a lie, from what I can tell. Anyway... Point being: Barbie good or bad is a stupid argument because the answer is both. Which means that this movie is both. because it's also Barbie. But ain't that like the internet to oversimplify in extreme avoidance of nuance?

yes!! this is well said: barbie represents A LOT in our society* and having conversations about it takes time and effort. there are countless studies about what you've described here - toys' affect on children's self-esteem - and it's valuable to consider it all when we're criticizing.

i also want to elevate what you said in your last paragraph: And also it drives me crazy cause I don't think anyone involved in making this movie has given any intention of ignoring that reality.

so glad you said that! and this is probably what one of my anons meant about waiting 'til the film comes out. i am excited for the film! it will not score straight A's on my personal feminist report card because, well, i think my personal ideology is more extreme than what mattel would sign up for lmao. but i still want to see what greta created and i'm fascinated by what margot said about how barbie would interpret being objectified in the real world.

like, the film is going to give us A LOT to chew on in regards to girlhood, womanhood, objectification, etc. - how could it not? barbie is a kid's toy, a literal object! it's exciting that a major blockbuster will tackle these issues, even though i know it will be lacking in others.

(*since i am a swiftie blog, we can also discuss how taylor occupies a similar, and worse, space because barbie is a literal product but taylor is a human being)

[my-plastic-life]

A(nother) Feudal Fairy Tale: Behind the Scenes

Welcome to the behind the scenes footage of creating my Azone Pure Neemo Character Kagome Higurashi! To see the photo gallery, click here!

Step one: Make sure the outfit can be made. Because this will all be in vain if that can’t be done. Once again, I consulted my dear friend Elenpriv and asked if she could make a second Kagome uniform (she’d made the one for the Barbie body) for a Blythe body (Azone Pure Neemo doll bodies are identical to Blythe, or at least very close). She said yes! WOO!

Side note: Azone has made several outfits for their dolls, including a lot of sailor style school uniforms. They’re perfect - but none of them are green! There is a dark blue/navy one, a black one, I think a red one... all kinds of options, but not a green one. Dang it! LOL

Anyway, next up was finding the perfect doll candidate. I didn’t want to use one of the actual character dolls because, well, they’re already a character from another series lol. So my first step was looking at all the 1/6 scale dolls with black hair. Creating a doll without a reroot was ideal.

There were several options to choose from, but even though they had black hair, there were some other issues.

For one, Kagome’s face is more “pointed” than round. I felt this particular face/head shape was too round.

I did start with her, but the slightly smaller mouth just didn’t say Kagome to me lol, especially when I kept looking at these pictures for reference:

So on to the next candidate! This one is nice, she has a nice face shape and a wider mouth:

I like her, but... her eyes don’t go quite high enough, I don’t think. And I need a template, since I can’t draw to save my life, so I wasn’t going to remove the eyes and start from scratch. She also has a side part, and try as I might, I couldn’t get the bangs to shape properly to hide it. I kept her on the back burner just in case, though. I looked into a couple of other ones like these two:

But they both have dark brown hair, not black. And the second one has too round of a face as well.

I went back to my original choice and attempted to style the hair. Well, one thing about Azone dolls - their hair is saran. That means it doesn’t work with heat very well, and it’s hard to style (or dye, apparently). At least, that’s been my experience. Nylon hair works much better, and is much more heat-resistant.

So at this point, I figured I’d have no choice but to do a reroot. Luckily for me, I’d already done a complete reroot with Olivier Mira Armstrong. So this would be my second one!

But I still needed a doll. As I looked at option number 3 more, I absolutely loved her face. The shape was right, and she had the wider smile. All of these dolls would have the same issue of needing their eyes repainted due to how their irises are compared to Kagome, so I wasn’t even looking at that.

Well, I didn’t want to buy one of these dolls (they’re designed for collectors, so they’re not just cheap play line ones you can get off a shelf - plus they’re all from Japan, which raises the price tag) just to “tear up.” So I looked in my stash and discovered I had two of one doll, and it happened to be the one with that face! So here’s the winner:

Her hair is actually the same color as mine in real life lol. That’s super hard to find... but not with Azone! They’ve designed several with that hair color, to which I say hallelujah. I’ve seen maybe two Barbies with that hair color. Come on, Mattel, get with it!

Anyway, the first step was to make sure I could pull off the reroot. I’d repainted Kagome’s face before (plus Sango’s, which is pretty much the same except for pink eyeshadow as well), so you’d think I’d be an expert at that. (More on that later).

I cut the hair off and then used small needle nose pliers to pull out the rest. Azone doll heads, it seems, don’t have glue on the inside - the hairs were all kind of weaved together inside the head. And there was one large piece where the part was that kind of held it all together, so I was left with a larger hole than I liked when I got all the hair out. But I did use some Loc-Tite to close it, just to be safe, and it seemed to be okay.

Next I painted the scalp black to match the hair she’d be getting. Of course, I forgot to use acetone to remove the original paint, and then I forgot to seal the black paint. So during the reroot process, it kept chipping away. Oops. I’m still new at this lol. Fortunately, you can’t see any of that with the final product.

So, during this rerooting process, I kept reminding myself of how I had to go back and add more hair to Olivier a few times because I’d made it too thin. So this time I went all out, even though most rerooters say you don’t have to plug every single hole (even though the factory did)... there’s a head in here somewhere LOL.

Once I was finished with all that hair, it was time for the boil wash. It never fails - whenever I do this, loose hairs that didn’t get plugged always come out. I need to figure out a method to prevent that, as well as prevent the hair from becoming a big stringy mess during the reroot process.

Of course, I probably should have taken a batch of hair and cut it so it didn’t wind up this long because I knew I’d have to cut it anyway:

Anyway, once the boil wash was done, it was time to do the bangs. Bangs have always been tricky for me. I don’t know how I managed to give my Anastasia Steele bangs without much of an issue... but perhaps it was because I used the method in this video, which I repeated for Kagome. I got them cut into shape (and again, they have such an odd shape compared to other characters - they’re almost triangular whereas all the other girls have straight bangs), then used the method in the video to get them to lay flat. When the face was done, I used some of my Volks doll hair spray to help the bangs stay in place.

Speaking of the face, that came next (I cut the hair first to make it easier to work with, with the intention of styling it later). Another difference between Azone dolls and other dolls I’ve worked with (particularly Barbie and Disney Store) - their eyes are stickers. Maybe other dolls are too now, but these particular stickers come off very easily if you rub them with a toothpick. Which I tend to do quite often when painting doll faces/eyes because inevitably some paint will stray from the brush and go where I don’t want it.

But I did use this to my advantage because the doll I chose had eyes with lashes that were pointing outward a little too far to match Kagome’s shape. So I used my toothpick to remove them, giving the eyes a more rounded appearance.

My original goal was to just draw over the eyes already in place, essentially changing the color from light brown/gold to dark brown. Well, Azone doll eyes have large pupils and smaller irises, and the white parts are smaller yet. The Inuyasha art style is different, with a large white part going from the top to the center of the eye, surrounded by a little bit of black and an almost horseshoe shape made up of two different shades of the iris color. Yeah, I studied that a lot. :D Plus, in many instances, Kagome’s eyes don’t look perfectly round, but more oval/oblong. But I did have to work with the shape of the sculpt/eye socket of the doll, so I tried to give her the appearance of having the “taller” eyes with the shape of the iris. And then there was the fun issue of getting those eyes even and the same size! I literally painted over the entire original eye with white paint, then went back in with the blacks and browns. I did discover that watercolor pencils will color on acrylic paint, so that helped me sketch out the design and go over it with paint again. It took some time, but finally, the face was ready! Mod Podge sealer applied!

The next step was styling the hair. You’d think I’d have it down by now, but noooo. Kagome has the most complicated hair of all the Inuyasha girls, I think. Sango and Kikyo have simple hairstyles and straight bangs. Kagome has triangular shaped hair all the way around. It ends at a point in the back, as do the bangs. Sigh.

So I got the hair trimmed into the proper shape using a layering method, which made her look like she stuck her finger in a light socket in the process. :D Once I was satisfied with the shape/length, I attached the head back onto the body, which already had the uniform on. Success!

Except...

The hair looked too thick, and a few people confirmed this when I showed it to them. Yeah, I was so worried about not having to add more hair later that I actually added too much.

It was also too long at this point as well. So then I was frantically trying to figure out how to salvage the situation without completely starting over. Some people suggested using a razor to thin it out. Yeah, I think they meant a straight razor like a barber uses, because my Dollar Shave Club razor didn’t work very well...

Then someone suggested shearing scissors. I’d previously purchased a hair styling set with two types of scissors (one of which was shearing) and combs. I’d never used those scissors before, because I didn’t know how the heck they worked. So I dug them out and used a practice doll to see what they did. And they did what I needed them to! Instead of cutting the length of the hair, it just cuts pieces to thin it out.

So I took these shearing scissors to the hair and made it a lot less bulky. Then I used my curling iron (and a spray bottle to get the hair completely soaked to be safe) to help shape the hair in the back. Of course, that’s easier said than done... there’s that pointy shape at the end, but the primary view will be from the front, so I had to be wary of that as well. And I didn’t want to cut too much, either. Kagome’s hair is most often seen above the waist, about mid-back under her green collar. It’s definitely shorter than Inuyasha’s. I was afraid I’d cut it too short when I applied the curling iron, but I took some of the curl out a bit and it seems to be okay now. Whew! I really didn’t want to have to redo all that... why didn’t I just send the head off to be rerooted professionally? Because I hate the post office and don’t trust them not to lose the head, and these dolls are, again, meant for adult collectors, so they’re not cheap. No way was I risking losing it. Plus, I wanted more practice anyway, and it did save me money. A professional reroot is worth it, but for this doll, I wanted to do it all by myself (except the uniform because no way can I do that lol).

So, finally, after playing with the hair a bit, I added some of the Volks spray and mousse (used to prevent flyaway strands), and she was ready! Woo!!!

But she wasn’t done yet! She still needs her accessories. :D She’ll be sharing her backpack and bike with my Barbie size Kagome, but I wanted to give her a bow for sure and maybe even some better arrows. Well, what luck - hubby got me a 3D printer for Christmas! And I managed to find a 3D print file for Kagome’s bow, arrows, and quiver on Etsy! These were cosplay size, but the seller was able to size them down for 1/6 scale for me. (The seller has since closed her shop, so I can’t post the link here, unfortunately.) Those little arrows were super delicate, but they look better than my first batch! Well, the arrow heads do, anyway. My first batch was the perfect size all the way except the arrowheads, which I attempted to replicate out of Crayola Model Magic. And it didn’t look good lol. So now I’ll probably try to print some more heads and glue them to the Barbie ones so they look better.

But first, let’s get the Azone one done, shall we? Because these were all 3D printed, they were one solid color and needed to be painted. Well, that was easy. I’d kept notes of all the colors and color combinations I’d used for my other dolls, so I just dug those out again and got to work. I glued some thin twine around the quiver like before, as well as a strap to go over Kagome’s shoulder. The bow string is made of black thread.

(Notice how she has her finger pointing to guard her aim! See - interchangeable hands!!!)

I painted one arrow head to look like a sacred arrow. :D We attempted to print probably six or eight arrows, but some of them fell apart because they’re just so fragile. The heads survived, though, so they’ll be good experiments for the Barbie arrows lol.

So, remember how I said Azone dolls are meant to have their hands changed? Yeah, that made for some awesome posing. Kagome can actually properly hold her bow and arrows now! (Okay, the Barbie can too, but removing those hands requires heat and more muscle since they’re not designed to be removed like that.)

I’d originally planned to give Kagome a 26cm Obitsu body. The Inuyasha doll is about 30cm, so 26cm would be about right for Kagome if we’re going in terms of actual height. The Barbie is technically a bit tall, but I’m still satisfied with her. Plus she has the proper skin tone to match the Inuyasha doll. The Azone dolls have two skin tones - flesh and white. Both are much more pale than the Inuyasha doll, so she’d wind up looking more like Kikyo in the long run. Same with Obitsu bodies.

Anyway, why didn’t I go with the Obitsu body? Well, all would have been fine if the shoes had fit. :D Obitsu feet are wider/larger than Azone, despite the bodies being almost identical in height. So with her socks on, the shoes would not go on the Obitsu feet. So back to the original Azone body! But hey, she’s a “true” Azone Pure Neemo Character Series doll now - all the character dolls have either Pure Neemo Flection (this one) or Emotion (more articulation but significantly smaller/thinner) bodies, so this makes her accurate to the series. And she’s not really meant to go with the Inuyasha doll, honestly; she’s my interpretation of another doll line that I love. And many of those dolls only have character made from the series, not all of them. There are a few exceptions like K-ON! and Love! Live! Sunshine! But mostly, it’s just one character like Nezuko and Asuna.

Size comparison to the 12″ collector doll and the Barbie size Kagome I made to go with him:

So for that reason as well, I am not going to make more Azone dolls lol. Or at least, I don’t plan to... we know how that goes LOL. But for right now, I’m content with my Azone Kagome! She may not be perfect, but I’m proud of myself for doing everything completely on my own (except the uniform). It makes her even more special!

[theholidayslingerlikebadperfume]

i am starting to gather my thought about barbie (2023) and I have A LOT of thoughts about Barbieland in particular. spoilers below

first of all, before the movie came out greta gave an interview where she said that the film has a reverse genesis where woman was created first and man came after.

after seeing the film, I'd say Barbieland was created from the male perspective quite literally. There is a scene with the mattel ceo where he kind of boasts about how barbie cured sexism, basically. this is the lie upon which Barbieland is created but here is the thing... because Barbieland is controlled by an all-male perspective from the "real world" by men who have over 40 decades of sexist brainwashing in their heads, they cannot actually conceptualize a world where men and women are truly equal.

that is why Barbieland is set up the way that it is because men in the real world are the ones who are controlling the narrative from start to finish and they cannot imagine a world where both genders exist in harmony. they come into feminism thinking that men have to be disadvantaged in some way because that's what it means to be a "good" ally to women. however, this line of thinking literally breeds resentment in men and I am not fucking surprised someone like Ryan Gosling resonated so deeply with Ken's character arc because I'm sure he felt quite seen by the film as well.

Barbieland is set up from Ken's perspective from the beginning because Barbieland is controlled by Mattel and the board of that company is male, like the board of most companies in america are male. and Barbieland represents what MEN* think feminism is and has done for women, not what women think for themselves.

that much is obvious because even the way the characters are set up in the beginning are very shallow representations. All the Barbies have jobs but they are *defined* by their jobs because to men, once you're a woman scientist, that's all you are to them. They don't have thoughts, feelings, ideas, and opinions beyond "everything is great all the time!" because to men, Barbie is the solution.

OKAY, im getting excited now, when Barbie talks to Ken at the end of the film and she says "stop putting your value in your job, your car, your girlfriend" she is critiquing the very existence of Barbieland itself in that moment. because that is what Barbieland's value is. Barbieland is perfect because to men, all that matters is having the dream job, the dream house, the dream partner and the dream looks. they think that's all there is to being human!!!!!!!!!!

and so when Barbie is played with by a woman who has decades of experience under patriachy, she can finally wake up in her "utopia" and realize that hey, wait a minute! this is not what I think will bring me happiness. I don't care about having these materialistic things nor do I care about being an "alpha female" so why am I pretending like all this shallow shit is making me happy????

and that is why Barbieland changes to Kendom to begin with because the narrative was ALWAYS controlled by the Kens of the world and the movie basically starts there, with the assumption thst girlboss feminism and pink capitalism cured sexism and explores if that actually is "utopia" if it actually is a "dream life."

im going to end it here because i dont want to get too off topic but Barbieland is such a fantastic critique of patriarchy, it's actually insane. I love that Greta tackles it from the male gaze and works within the logic of men in this society to show why their beliefs of gender are severely lacking at the end of the day because they're focused on the wrong issue!!! its not about who has the power to get the job, get the house, get the girl, its about connecting with other people. its about experiencing every single emotion under the sun with everyone around you and talking about your feelings and just living with other humans in harmony.

it's so good, i could cry actually. greta deserves every single fucking award for this film and the writing holy shit.

[patmax17]

Some more thought on the barbie movie:

Can anyone explain the Mattel CEO to me? Is he a parody of capitalism, who only want profit even though it hides itself behind seemingly positive messages (cue pride month)? Does he genuinely mean it, ie does he actually *want* to empower girls and women with the toys his company produces? I think he's the character I understood the least.

***

From the various comments and thought I see around tumblr, i understand that the character of barbie is also a metaphor of a little, innocent and childish girl?

- she lives a happy life thinking about partying and having fun. No responsibilities, no worries

- she doesn't know what death is

- she doesn't have (think about) genitalia

- she starts feeling ashamed and uneasy when people around her make her aware that her body is sexually desirable

- she's presented with a world that's way more complex and less idealized than what she's ever known. And once she realized that, she can't go back

- in order to become a woman and accept the complexity and the expectations of the real world, she has to cease being Barbie (a little girl), and becomes a woman (with her problems, imperfections, aging, and genitalia)

Does that make sense or am I reading too much into it?

***

Margot Robbie did an awesome job portraying "Stereotype Barbie" coming into the world with her permanent smile and crashing face first into all the emotions and issues and complexity the real world has. Her performance is so good.

***

Ryan Gosling strikes the perfect balance for Ken. He's campy, goofy, adorable, but also creepy and toxic when he needs to. The scene where he tells Barbie that "that is Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House, not Barbie's Mojo Dojo Casa House. How does it feel?" gave me the shivers. It's hurtful and vengeful, but I understand where he's coming from, it's wrong but also very real, and the reason why a lot of men hurt the women who refuse them.

***

I loved Weird Barbie. She's weird, but self conscious and makes fun of herself. She's accepted her weirdness and ousiderness, and helps other people who have cast out of Barbieland (BTW, not sure why Midget isn't with weird Barbie?). I have to role play Road Warrior Weird Barbie in some form sooner or later.

***

The song of the dance in the first part of the movie is so catchy. Not my usual genre but it's stuck in my head. And I loved seeing barbie on the wheelchair dancing and having fun with all the others.

I also loved the choreography of the Ken towards the end of the movie, though I can't pinpoint why exactly.

***

Did I already mention how much I liked Allan's character? He's so average but so memorable. He reads as queer coded to me, but I think of him as an ally, even sporting the pink jumpsuit during the operation to un-brainwash the Barbies

[skiplo-wave]

I really disliked the Sasha character just fucking mean for no reason, a whole ass bully & the movie just sweeps it under the rug. Also, the pacing & Mattel stuff just didn't work. I feel like the movie was too short. America's speech at weird Barbie's house made me cry, fuck she's so great. I enjoyed it, but I hyped up the story a little too much in my head.

Yeah Sasha's devolpment was super quick

I thought they dive in how Margot!Barbie was suppose be Barbie's doll but because Gloria kept it instead of letting Sasha growup/move on since all Barbies are way they based off the girl playing with them. Like Weird Barbie.

I get Sasha was in her angsty teen phase which just happens. Refreshing Sasha life is decent and her parents are together again she's just in that angsty teen phase.

My expection was def on lego movie level which isn't little bit below that.

[miyanagi]

here's the thing about barbie as a character: she is nothing. she is cishet blonde blue eyed white woman #12837392947483928 and she is just not fucking necessary as a brand anymore. you can get your pinks and your femininity literally anywhere else, and to be honest, mattel is not putting enough into the heart and soul of barbie (THE DOLLS) to justify her persistence in pop culture. i love a lot about barbie, i'm a doll autistic and i grew up with the animated movies, but we have to just accept that barbie doesn't really deserve to be a cultural icon the way mattel still wants her to be. she isn't doing anything. the barbie brand cries out that it's progressive and inclusive now, but the only reason it even has to do that is because it never really was. yes, historically barbie is very important, but she just doesn't belong. mattel is finally cognizant of that, and all they can do is lampshade about it. they're too pussy to change her appearance because she's such an icon, and the idea the barbie movie posits of making barbie just a normal woman completely defeats the point. like. mattel already does that, first of all, but god... why can't people just enjoy fashion? why can't inclusivity also mean having fun with our clothes? why is the barbie brand's idea of inclusivity releasing a million unnamed minority dolls that can't mean much to children because they aren't even characters? all of the barbie dolls that come out are trying so hard to be progressive that they lose the charm of the brand because for some reason they can't merge being progressive with being fashionable... in a fashion doll line. i was a kid when lammily came out and i didn't fucking want her, you know? practicality isn't FUN with dolls. it's boring. i don't just want disabled barbies, i want disabled barbies with names and personalities and compelling outfits. the barbie brand is antiquated and not really worth anyone's time, and seeing the movie struggle to politically justify its existence really cemented that for me.

[stigmatamama]

did you see that fragrantica review of tom ford lost cherry that associated it with like dentists and medical fetishes that was probably going around the gerard fans earlier this week??? i need it but i CANNOT find it :/

I’m screaming? No I did not see that but I did just read the most insane review from user “Foldyrhands” where they mention stigmata (sick) and loving Lana del Rey as a tumblr Expat… putting the full review under the break because I’m crying lol. I’ll let you know if I see the dentist / medical review haha

There is something to be said for smelling like something you eat. Hélène Cixous writes in Stigmata: Escaping Texts that “...eating and being eaten belong to the terrible secret of love.” To be wanted, so completely and rapturously, that your beloved consumes you whole.

In fact, romantic cannibalism has sort of been having a moment lately. Between breakout dream-pop star Ethel Cain’s self-titled character, tragically consumed by the wretched man she adores, to memes about biting your boyfriend making the rounds on all corners of the internet — it seems worth investigating, in this particular cultural moment, why people (women, mostly) want to smell like food. There is much to be said on this subject, and much of it has already upset people. There are innocent fantasies of girlhood and unsexed affinities towards baked goods tied into what might be called the more sinister gourmand-industrial complex, and it is by no means my intention to disturb these wholesome scent preferences. That said, the ways in which sweet candy perfumes intersect with gendered politics of desirability and class are no clearer articulated than in Tom Ford’s 2018 viral cherry organza Lost Cherry.

I would love to hear an earnest argument for how a perfume quite literally named after a vulgar euphemism for a woman’s lapsed virginity is not related to misogyny. It is an obvious enough influence to have eventually become retroactively opaque in the pursuit of commodity fetish. Beauty products are made to make women more desirable to men – of course, they bear coded signs of that very desirability. I also don’t mean to suggest I am somehow above this fact of life. I use Too Faced's Better than Sex mascara because I want all-day lift, but I hear the ghost of Andrea Dworkin screaming at me in Yiddish the entire time. Suggestive beauty product naming accomplishes what the toy company Mattel cracking jokes about their profit-based value system in the Barbie movie accomplishes for Mattel profits tied to the sale of tickets for the very same movie: postmodernity is defined by critique of the product embedded into the product itself. It gives you something to think about, a connection to briefly make. Wielding the power of this sexy perfume is like the excitement of losing your virginity. But then you stop there. You don’t think about it any further. Zizek has been saying this for decades. Products no longer sell you a product, and they no longer even sell you just an idea. Products sell you an entire mindset, a politic, a worldview, and they do it in ways often in seemingly direct conflict with their values in order to earn your trust. Why would Victoria’s Secret, a lingerie company, suddenly become interested in a bare-faced simple beauty campaign. Why would Dove, a company producing deodorant and soap marketed to help people smell better, care about your self-esteem? Thankfully Tom Ford Fragrances does not try and pretend it is a feminist beauty product company – but many people who consume it still somehow mentally place it on the neck of an “empowered woman,” whatever that means in the scheme of advertising.

Tom Ford himself as a designer and businessman is hardly known for his demure marketing. At its best, the worldbuilding of Tom Ford as a house has stood for the provocative in service of understanding ourselves more honestly. Like the surprisingly modern character of Samantha from Sex and the City, you get the sense that they both are tired of not saying the quiet parts out loud. That sex is a force as constant as the sun, and even the most repressed souls yearn, desire, like all humans do: in inconvenient and obscene and incorrect ways. But quite frankly, there is a difference between revealing and challenging the coded interchanges of heterosexuality, and reproducing them wholesale. Where I think this vision falls apart is when it leaves the tight control of a single room of creatives, and more or less integrates wholly into the pre-existing market for beauty products. If Tom Ford fragrances can’t even clear an f-bomb past certain production circuits, I fear for its ability to make serious waves in the cultural politics of suggestive beauty naming, or whatever loose assembly of legacy platitudes people suggest Lost Cherry might serve to provoke. This is all to say, I have seen women do better for themselves — and I want more for us.

There are two important questions at play here. Firstly: is Lost Cherry a good perfume in its own right? And secondly, does what it represents for the culture surrounding perfume consumption bode well for the general state of creativity in fragrance? Luckily enough, the answer to both of these questions can be summarized in a single word: no.

Lost Cherry opens with a blast of bitter almonds. I’ve noticed a trend among many Tom Fords (including the equally popular masc counterpart Tobacco Vanille): the opening spray is very provocative, and the dry-down is extremely conventional. In the case of LC, the initial sour profile of the cherry note fused with the bitterness of almonds recalls cyanide, and in one case, the purported smell of decaying corpses. Into the drydown, however, the nutty profile becomes sweeter and the cherry becomes candied. There is very little evolution beyond the first fifteen minutes — once it settles, it does so for a couple of hours of diffusive aspartame fruit showboating, and then it is gone.

I can understand why people call this perfume addicting. Usually, the formula for creating this effect is the combination of something widely palatable with the traces of something extremely offensive at high doses. This was the secret to most perfume in the 20th century. Jasmine was entrancing — narcotic, even — because of the traces of urine-like indoles found within the composition. Rose became sensual with the addition of civet, the perineal gland secretion of a small mammal related to the common genet. Lost Cherry uses the rich, juicy profile of a cherry accord to hide notes of alcohol and decay on the wrists of impressionable young women.

This is not, inherently, my issue with the perfume. Rather, I find Lost Cherry does far too much to achieve far too little. The notes blend together, the careful deceits fall flat: there is a reason this perfume is perhaps the belle of the dupe economy. If its formula weren’t so generic, it wouldn’t be so easy and popular to duplicate. The second reason so few fans of this scent own a full bottle is, of course, the high price point. A 50ml bottle currently retails for $395. This brings me to my second concern: Tom Ford is not entirely responsible for the inflation of the luxury fashion markets at large, but its most popular offering does absolutely embody the particularly nefarious intersection between completely unreasonable status-based prices, products lacking in conceptual substance, and second-hand male voyeurism.

Of course, when you deal in products made and sold under the luxury market, oftentimes prices are less a reflection of the material costs of production and more a material representation of a brand’s prestige and identity. You aren’t paying for the perfume inside Lost Cherry’s bright red bottle, you’re paying for the bottle itself as an idea.

You’re paying for an individual enumeration of Tom Ford Beauty, now itself an individual enumeration of the loose collection of ideas festering within the digitized remains of a woman selling cleansing oil in mid-century New York City formerly known as The Estée Lauder Companies. I do not labor under expectations that Tom Ford will lower its prices. I do, however, wish we would stop doing their marketing for them. Lost Cherry as an idea is virtually inescapable on the internet: it is recommended, mood-boarded, and, as referenced before, most often-evangelized through the recommendation of fakes. It is the idea, and you, dear reader, can only ever reach for pale imitations. You wish you could smell like this, but of course, you shouldn’t. There are several far more sophisticated cherry-based perfumes made by independent and niche perfumers. There is nothing that Lost Cherry does that Strangers Parfumerie’s Cherry Amaretto (retailing for $ 90 USD) does not do better. And much of Lost Cherry’s allure — the seductive, red-lipped ingénue, essentially lied from an amalgamation of vamp Pinterest boards — is best enacted as a self-aware subverted performance and not a marketing strategy.

I love Lana del Rey as much as the next Tumblr-expat, but I also think what makes her music so electric is her self-aware vulnerability. She’s thinking and acting against her own best interests; she’s playing out self-destructive spirals, but fuck it, she loves him. You may think I’m asking too much of a cosmetic product, but the culture of self-described “empowerment” surrounding Lost Cherry and other fruity-sweet ultra-femme contemporaries does none of this. It is not performative, it merely performs. Something like Mugler’s Angel, widely considered the first gourmand perfume, was so glorious precisely because it was so vulgar and controversial. Some men drooled for it, but just as many loathed it. It was regarded as both chic and trashy, sexually ambiguous, alluring, and ostentatious. In my humble opinion, there are two ways to interrupt the very real modern cultural tradition of men wanting women to smell like food so they can better be consumed: either cut your dessert with something sophisticated and off-putting or dial the saccharine indulgence up to eleven. Part of me wants Lost Cherry to tone it down, and another wishes it would have gone all the way.

Where it presently stands, however, feels halfway between pruning oneself for male fantasy, and searching for something perfectly mediocre in your own right. My wish may be unreasonable, but I one day hope to see women justify spending entirely too much on sweet perfume for its own sake. Maybe this is how you feel about your decision to wear Lost Cherry, and that is perfectly fine. Wear it to your heart's content. I just hope that one day, we can decide on figureheads for the neo-gourmand fourth-wave feminist revolution that smell a little less like plastic on accident, and a little more like plastic on purpose.

[beansprouts]

barbie (2023) thoughts

spoilers under cut

Margot Robbie's acting was utterly incredible and worth the price of entry alone

My favourite scene was Ken's song and dance number, no notes. Ryan's gotten so much better since La La Land.

on the topic of Ken... let him kiss boys

Like for a film so couched in queer references and jokes, it could have used some actual gay text. It's 2023, let Ken be actually bisexual, not just subtextually.

On the other hand, though, aroace Barbie was important and powerful

Especially as a subversion of the default happy ending where the man wins the woman he has spent the whole film pestering

Most disappointing part of the film: everything about the Great (wo)Man Theory Ex Machina

For God to be Ruth the actual creator of Barbie, some middle-aged woman in a 1950s kitchen, who stepped in to tie up the narrative threads, totally undermined the film's attempt at a feminist message for me

Especially since Barbie apparently had to seek Ruth's permission to enter the real world.

would have strongly preferred if Ruth was framed less as god and more as a mother, parallel to Gloria's character arc with her daughter

also Ruth ('s ghost?) doesn't appear to have any actual agency at Mattel? Why is she stuck in the basement???

Speaking of Mattel in this film: you can't contrast the real world with the hypermaximalist Barbieland if all the Mattel employees in the real world are also cartoonish.

It's such a transparent way to avoid any actual narrative accountability for Mattel the company within the film and it rings really hollow

like this film is so brilliant at portraying the construction of gender (I feel like those essays have been written already, probably, so I won't bother explaining it here). But then you take off your Gender Lens and put on your Labor Lens and realize it's actually kind of regressive?

To be fair I was primed for paying closer attention to its treatment of class and labor because Barbie's journey begins with a song by Lizzo, who has been in the news for also (allegedly) fueling her narrative of female empowerment via labor exploitation. and that was so recent the film can't have known that. But we are in the midst of a labor movement in the US and that also makes this film's politics seem even weirder

Characters in this film are defined by their job. Both in Barbieland and in the real world.

We know Gloria is a mom, and she certainly has personality, but her other defining trait is that she plays with Barbies and then draws them... which ties into her identity as someone who works at Mattel.

Every other Mattel employee is so wholly characterized by their profession as Mattel employee it's a little ridiculous.

When the Barbies are freed from their brainwashing they remember their job titles as their senses of self: author, physicist, president, and in returning to that profession-self they are depicted as healed.

The characters who are dissatisfied with life in Barbieland are also the ones who don't have titles that equate to employment: (Stereotypical) Barbie, Beach Ken, Allan. You could make an argument for Weird Barbie as well

Mermaid Barbie's profession is Mermaid I guess

The film resolves the struggles of these characters by telling them to go find themselves. Literally in the case of Beach Ken. But through the film's language, that means constructing a self through capitalist labor. For example, Weird Barbie is given a political position with President Barbie. As Barbie enters the real world (where each named person is also associated with a job even to Gloria's daughter whose job is Student) this presumably extends to her.

It's this very capitalism-friendly (neoliberal maybe?) depiction of self-actualization through capitalist profession that feels out of place in a film that's otherwise trying to get you to read it as leftist

at least if you think the asides about consumerism or the interplay between emotion and logic were meant to be seen as commentary and not just jokes belittling radicalism

anyway if you liked the satirical and sometimes absurd vibe of Barbie but want something that commits to its kernels of commentary a little more, I'd recommend Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. They are like sibling works.

This post has come across as mostly negative but to be clear I did like the film. It's to its credit that there's enough of a philosophical stance being established to critique like this in the first place.

How many other comedies have a blue link to Siddhartha Gautama on their wikipedia page??

[smallerplaces]

Kid Kore Katie joins the fam

Stacie, Whitney, and Hilary have a new friend: Katie, who is a mid-1990s Kid Kore "Dancing Brook."

in thinking about my small community of dolls, I'd been pondering who isn't represented. A glaring omission is Native Americans. So I went looking for indigenous girls among vintage clone dolls, and in a weird clonish way, I hit pay dirt.

We need to backtrack a second, to Maureen Trudelle Schwarz' "Native American Barbie: The Marketing of Euro-American Desires." Schwarz looks only at Barbies -- and, oddly, doesn't address Mattel's Pocahontas dolls, even though Pocahontas was likely at the heart of the 1990s craze for Native American dolls -- but this narrowness of focus doesn't change the validity of her point. She argues that Native American fashion dolls have been consistently marketed as "other," "historic," and spiritually tied to the earth, in a manner that has no equivalent for white fashion dolls (or even Black ones).

Hooboy is she right about that for Kid Kore's many, many Native American dolls, as well as Totsy's smaller assortment. Kid Kore's are part of the Heartland series, complete with actually labeling dolls as "Indian Princess." Totsy's are packaged as Heroes of Yesteryear. Everyone is in a movie-western version of "traditional" garments. Nobody except the men have any attempt at a head mold that isn't also used on the white dolls. And yes, the boxes have friendly information about historic close-to-the-earth practices.

"Dancing Brook" is a Kid Kore Katie, the 7" younger sister of flagship doll Kelsey. She is also cute as all get-out, and I'm less concerned about head molds on a character that's a mid-sized little girl. I bookmarked a bunch on eBay and bought the one whose seller offered me the best deal.

She arrived in her "traditional" costume, in really great shape. I don't think she'd ever been undressed.

The first step is, of course, to get her out of that costume, since she's here to be a little girl among other little girls. In the long haul, all of the 6-9" little girls are going to belong to a children's performing arts group that requires them to have traditional dance dresses, but this requires getting out the sewing machine, which means getting some eBay listings done first. Point is, Katie will be defined by her "traditional costume" exactly as much as Stacie, Whitney, and Hilary.

Speaking of which, here's Katie showing that she's a little shorter than Whitney (Stacie) and about an inch taller than Creata Hilary. She's also reminding me that I'll need to sew casual outfits for the whole gang, as the clothes I think are Stacie clothes mostly fit Kelly, Skipper, and hypothetical other dolls that may not exist.

Let's see what's under the clothing.

Katie has a pretty simple body, but because she's Kid Kore, she has a secret.

It's not in how she does splits.

It's not in how she sits much more gracefully than Hilary.

No, it's in how Kid Kore handled articulation. Those legs are bendy!

It's unsettling, but allows for a range of motion.

Her face is adorable! I might want to do a little washing on her hair, but it's in great shape for a doll that's almost 30 years old. Unlike Hilary, she has kept her eyebrows.

She's looking forward to hanging out with her new friends... oh wait... her name!

Well, I'm not going to call her Dancing Brook. That's an obvious "white person romanticizing" name. I haven't decided what tribe she belongs to (which is going to be important in making her a more accurate festival dress). The major candidates are Northern Yokuts, Miwok, or Tohono O'odham [the first two for where I live now, the third for my 10 years in Arizona]. For naming, though, it doesn't really matter because west coast natives usually don't disclose their native names to white folk, for reasons that should be pretty obvious. So I'd only know her Anglo name, and... she's a Kid Kore Katie. As the first Katie in my little doll community, she gets the name.