i'm a barbie girl.........................or am i?
In 2004, Mattel released the first musical in its longrunning Barbie movie series: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper. Loosely based on Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, it follows the dual heroes of Annalise, the titular princess of a grand, ambiguously Victorian-ish kingdom, and Erika, the titular pauper, who lives in indentured servitude at a dress emporium. I’ll quickly sketch the relevant plot details; a more exhaustive summary is available here. Basically, the main point of the movie is that though Annalise and Erika appear to lead completely different lives, they in fact are very similar. They were both born with familial obligations they didn’t ask for, but must follow through on (explored in the musical’s opener, a classic Disney-style “I Want” song.) Annalise is expected to marry Prince Dominick of nearby Dulcinea in order to save the kingdom from bankruptcy (actually caused by the queen’s adviser/the main antagonist), which means giving up on Julian, her science tutor and true love (fun fact: his voice actor also played L in the English dub of Death Note). Erika must constantly work to pay off her family’s debt, forgoing her dream of a singing career. The major difference is in trajectory. Annalise has lived a life of privilege, but will never be truly free. Meanwhile, Erika has suffered endless poverty, but will soon have earned enough to leave.
One day, the two come across each other and realize they look practically identical, aside from Annalise’s birthmark and their hair color (the color palette is consistent throughout the movie: pink/blonde = Annalise, and blue/brunette = Erika). From there, they list the myriad other similarities. The adviser then kidnaps Annalise (basically his plan is to kidnap Annalise, make the queen sad, and then ‘find’ her. The queen will be grateful and marry him, and then it’ll all be smooth sailing. He gets a song about it that’s actually pretty great). Julian asks Erika to take her place and becomes her mentor in all things royal. When Annalise escapes, she pretends to be Erika and works in the dress emporium. From there follows a fairly typical fairytale arc, as Erika falls for the visiting Prince Dominick (who believes she’s Annalise and falls for her as well) and the two girls expose the evil adviser, save the day, etc etc. True love wins in the end- Annalise marries Julian, Erika marries Dominick, and the two share a double wedding. Heck, even their cats wind up in matrimonial bliss.
Looking back, it’s not hard to see why my kindergarten self loved this movie so much. The story/songs are genuinely pretty fun, it had a classic happy ending, and I was basically blind to the plot holes and animation failures. Further, I could identify with Barbie for a simple reason: she had blonde hair and blue eyes, and I have blonde hair and blue eyes. That let me feel like I could be swept up along in the adventure, that I could be plucked out of my boring, ordinary existence and help save the kingdom. And although I can acknowledge the issues now, I still see it as a fun take on an old classic.
But I don’t think it was necessarily the best media for me to see. The culture I consumed as a kid told me a lot about what to expect from teenagerhood/femaleness, and it basically centered around two things: femininity and heterosexuality. People talk a lot about the need for ‘women who can kick ass in heels’ or whatever, and honestly, I disagree. In 2019, at least, we have plenty of representation for gender-conforming, thin, straight women doing cool things, while butch/queer/fat women are rarely portrayed sympathetically. A classic example: compare the thin, pretty Ms. Honey and the brutish, overweight Ms. Trunchbull from Matilda. Their values and morality are clearly wrapped up in their physical appearances. Even if you’ve never heard the story, I could show you a picture of each and you’d be instantly able to identify the villain. Spoiler, it’s the one deemed ‘ugly’. (Seriously, try and name a female protagonist in a mainstream book, movie, etc, who isn’t hyperfeminine. Buttercup from The Powerpuff Girls? Maybe? Not really. I truly don’t understand where we got the idea that we specifically need more girly-girl heroes; that’s all we have.) The cultural notion is not that women must be masculine to be in power, as I so often see it stated, but that masculine women must, by definition, be evil, untrustworthy, and contemptible.
The Princess and the Pauper, while arguably a somewhat feminist movie, plays straight into this notion. Erika and Annalise are good because they are beautiful and beautiful because they are good. Beauty isn’t just a virtue, it’s a fundamental aspect of humanity- as is falling in love with a similarly beautiful man.
And this was the typical hero’s journey narrative I was exposed to. I read and watched a lot of stuff about girls doing heroic things, which was cool. Except they were pretty much invariably thin, straight, and beautiful, and these traits were typically established within the first few minutes. So I began to consider those the essential characteristics of a valuable person, which of course wrought all kinds of havoc on my adolescent self-confidence.
Though I can’t say I regret fixating on The Princess and the Pauper -- it is, indeed, a very fun watch -- I do wish I’d had more exposure to diverse girls: girls in suits and butch girls and fat girls and ugly girls and girls who kissed other girls. Sure, it’s great that I had lots of strong women to look up to or whatever, and I’m certainly not saying those things are worthless, but the version of womanhood presented to me was narrow and claustrophobic.
Today, I’ve done a lot of work to unlearn those ideas, and I think I’m doing pretty well. Ultimately, I guess I’m making a plea for diverse media, especially for kids. All I can do now is try and understand how these ideas have influenced my biases and try to work from there. A key part of that process is learning that a hero doesn’t have to be beautiful to be worthwhile (and also don’t try and tell me that ‘anyone can be beautiful’ or ‘curvy girls are beautiful’ or whatever, we need to be eliminating the concept of beauty as an arbiter of worth rather than expanding it to be more ‘inclusive’, beauty itself as an idea is the problem.)
Anyways, all I’m saying is that princess movies are great, but it’d be nice to see a fat girl on stage too. Maybe someday?
First off, I just want to say that I also loved this movie (and various other Barbie movies) growing up, so this post was a nice trip down memory lane. However, I agree with you in that Barbie's "brand" isn't necessarily the best thing for young girls to be consuming - but there were generally no other options, especially in the mid-2000s era that this movie comes from. I remember every female "hero" or role model being, as you said, hyperfeminine (in sexuality, sexualization, or portrayal of beauty). Even female superheroes like Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow from the Marvel universe) are portrayals of the "beautiful badass in heels" archetype that you referred to. Hopefully, this is changing a bit now, with the rise of characters like Moana and Vanellope von Schweetz. I understand that neither of them are truly outside-of-the-box, but they aren't portrayed as ultra-feminine or "rebelliously" masculine, either.
ReplyDeleteOk so. I was most definitely a Barbie girl. Barbie taught me a lot about who I am and who I could be. Though now I don't agree with some of the ideals I picked up from her movies (romanticizing things like young relationships, war, etc.), I do think I have Barbie to thank for teaching me that life is made for me to take and that a lot of my problems could be solved with my friends and, of course, a song. That is not to say that Barbie, the tall, thin, blonde heroine I idolized, should not have been more diverse. If anything, I think that Barbie from a variety of backgrounds, shapes, gender presentations etc. could do great things for children around the world. Now there are more dolls to reflect what people actually look like, I'm excited to see where our favorite hero will take the next generation. Great post, Nathalie!
ReplyDeleteI too can relate to a love of Barbie movies as a kid (although my favorite was the Diamond Castle), but although I think the point should be made that Mattel has worked pretty hard to introduce more diverse body types and ethnicities to Barbie, you are totally right that both for Barbie and mainstream media, the gorgeous thin woman remains the standard for entertainment. Trying to think of a female hero who doesn't fit that box is actually impossible for me (something that I didn't know before, and now worries me).
ReplyDeleteYour point about female heroes having certain personalities (feminine, sexy, or masculine) is also super accurate, although I would offer Arya Stark as breaking that mold. She starts out in the "rebelliously masculine" mindset Elisha mentions but transitions out of that into a state of general badassery while being neither explicitly masculine or feminine. Also maybe Riza Hawkeye.
But neither of those characters are really from the sort of media we would consume as kids, and that's not a great thing. We all grow up with these stupid perceived notions of what makes beauty and female heroism, and then, inevitably, we have to unlearn them. Seems like it would be easier just to stop putting such a whitewashed filter on all of our female children's heroines and skip the problem.
I also loved the Barbie movies when I was little, though I admit I only really wanted to watch the ones where she was a ballerina. I also played with Barbie dolls. I want to say that I didn't internalize the ideas of femininity that it put out there, but I probably did at least somewhat. I think it's just easier if you look like Barbie (or ballerina Barbie) to not be negatively effected by Barbie media, and I basically did as a kid (I mean, ignoring the whole being black thing, which, on that front, my mom would only ever buy me the black Barbies and I didn't object). My actual nickname was beanpole. Most media for kids is idealized rather than representative, which is kind of terrible considering that kids are just kids and they shouldn't even have beauty standards.
ReplyDeleteI think having more strong female role models in media as a kid helped to offset whatever damage Barbie did. Tiffany Aching, for example, who I'm writing about, is special and good because of her talents not her appearance (in fact, she's quite plain). The same was true for the girls in all of the other books I liked when I was little, except maybe Anne of Green Gables.