Growing up, if something was pink, it was Barbie. I have camcorder videos of my early birthdays where my mum has dyed cake icing pink, making it a Barbie cake obviously. The same went for clothing, room decorations and hair accessories. If it was pink, it was something that Barbie would have, meaning that child me needed it.
As I got older, and outgrew my actual branded Barbie tricycle, this blonde plastic toy suddenly felt wrong. She wore bright pink heels and make up, and going through an era of finding myself as a preteen made liking Barbie sacrilegious. It was actually nothing to do with our different styles, more to do with wanting to get away from being a typical “girl”, and feeling the need to prove myself to a world often preferring men or people who act like them.
Suddenly purple was my favourite colour, and I got into superhero films and traumatic Jacqueline Wilson books. Between the ages of 10 and 14, I felt the need to prove myself as more than just a girl, not liking typical things like One Direction and even the colour pink. It’s funny, I look back on this time in my life and I just feel so sad that I was forcing myself to prove my feminism and “not like the other girls” mentality, that I ended up putting people down who stayed strong to their Barbie roots and championed the colour pink.
Over the last few years, I’ve totally gotten out of that zone. I’d still say my favourite colours are purple and green, but I now allow myself to love pink, enjoy what women enjoy, wear trousers as well as skirts. I won’t let anyone tell me how I should or shouldn’t act just to prove myself and my gender.
With Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie being the most talked about cinema release of the year, I wanted to share my excitement for it, but also reiterate the permissions I’ve had to relearn to give myself over the last few years. No matter your gender, whether you had Barbies as a child or your care givers used certain colours to create the illusion that your favourite toy was always with you, this movie is for everyone. No need to pretend to be one way or another, if you want to see it, you should. I know I’m not the only person who has had these feelings whilst growing up, the need to push away anything feminine to seem cool, but I hate to break it to you… this movie is gonna be the coolest release at the cinema.
I think loving something as a child, feeling resentment whilst discovering yourself, and then wanting to love it again is the normal thing to do. For some people, the Barbie movie is their Avenger’s Endgame, their lottery win, their ticket to the hottest tour in town. For others it’s a guilty pleasure. And for people like me, it’s the joy of accepting their feminine side, however they decide to present that, and holding close what Barbie means for them. Whoever you are, this movie is the must see of the year. It really is Barbie’s world, we’re all just living in it.