And I'm bad like the Barbie 💕

Playing with Barbies was a core part of my relationship with my sister. But there was one thing I kept hidden…

I know what you’re thinking: ‘Not another Barbie think piece!’ But yes, yes it is. Sorry not sorry. 

1pm showing on opening day. Pink clothes everyday for 10 days. Shouting ‘Hi Barbie!’ at random people wearing pink.  I well and truly have come down with Barbie Fever. But maybe that’s not a surprise.

I’m a Barbie girl

Barbie played a big part in my childhood, alongside Ken and Action Man. I don’t have brothers so Action Man felt like it was as much for me as Ken or Barbie and no one ever told me otherwise, so they would all play together in my imaginary world. 

But it wasn’t just my imaginary world — it co-belonged to my middle sister. We’d fight over what drama we were going to play out that day; who would play with which doll; what clothes we’d dress our respective dolls in; which characters were going to fall in love... Side note: Why was it that I always ended up playing the men? It’s probably because I’m the eldest and a massive push over when faced with big pleading eyes. Anyway, I digress. I remember our games like they were yesterday. They were so core to my relationship with my sister. But there was one thing that I kept hidden…

In our stories, Barbie would eventually fall in love with Ken or Action man, depending on the day. The stories would always end with a kiss. But when my sister would leave the room at the end of our games in search of a snack, I would take the loved up couple to bed and make them take their clothes off like I’d seen people do on TV. I would then rub them together and put them to sleep. 

Barbie and Ken

It felt ‘wrong’ — I was hiding it from my family, after all — but I didn’t actually know what I was doing, except that it made me feel something. Some butterflies in my stomach, some nervousness.

And it turns out I wasn’t the only one. In fact, there’s a whole Reddit thread on the topic with people wondering if they were weird or perverted as kids — or, in some instances, if their kids, who they’ve caught doing the same thing, are weird or perverted. I’ve also seen countless Tweets and TikToks of girls who made Barbies ‘scissor’, that is, putting one Barbie’s legs between another Barbie’s legs (see this TikTok). Many of these stories come from gay or bisexual Millenial women, explaining how Barbie gave them a way explore sexuality before they were fully able to comprehend what it meant to them. I don’t think the Barbie movie accounted for how many women discovered their sexuality through play. Although, the references to her not having a vagina slightly alludes to it.

Joyce McFadden, a psychoanalyst and author of Your Daughter’s Bedroom: Insights for Raising Confident Women, explained to The Cut that ‘Barbie [provides] a safe way for girls to explore dangerously adult concepts like sexuality. Little girls are starting to understand their own sexuality but also what it means to be a grown woman, and Barbie is the perfect vehicle for that.’ She likens young girls’ play-acting Barbie sex with them trying on their mothers’ makeup or bras. They’re trying to imagine what life is like for grown-ups.

All this to say, if you did this or your kid is doing this, it’s perfectly normal.

Some final thoughts

I’ve been determined to enjoy the current wave of Barbie mania without trying to intellectualise it too much but it’s also impossible to talk about Barbie without talking about race.

I think one of the reasons that I could enjoy Barbie as a child was because most of the Barbies I had were quite ambiguous, race wise. Maybe it’s because I lived in Spain, but my Barbies had dark hair and olive skin. As a mixed race child, they didn’t feel a million miles away from my skin tone. I did have a blonde blue eye one too but it was my least favourite and I wonder if deep down I knew she wasn’t like me. 

Until I moved to India, all my Barbies were hand me downs or birthday presents from friends as my parents weren’t the most supportive of the dolls — they tried to bring us up without gender norms holding us back (and it’s worked pretty damn well, I’d say). But then, I saw the one below in Walkover — a toy store in Goa — and I begged and begged my parents for one. The persistence paid off and she was gifted to me on my 12th birthday. I still have her to this day (she miraculously survived the carnage my youngest sister brought upon all of my dolls).

I can’t help but think about what that doll says about what is expected of young brown girls — the ambition she personifies is ‘lavish bride’. The ambition is marriage. Yet, the Barbie film tells us Barbie is meant to be independent and child-free. So why was the brown Barbie a bride?  How much did those messages influence what we desired growing up and what we felt success meant? How much did it influence how boys saw us? Maybe it isn’t that deep.

That was almost 20 years ago. It’s been exciting to see a diverse range of Barbies (and Kens) represented in the Barbie movie, all with exciting careers, ambitions, personalities. I’ve seen little girls on Instagram dressed up as their favourite one — lawyers, presidents, builders…So maybe it is that deep.

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Sorry this comes late this week. After a week of sickness in our house and different family members needing care, it’s been hard to find time to write! I’m curious though, do you prefer a Thursday or a Sunday? Hit reply and let me know!

Here’s what I’ve been watching/reading/enjoying

1. The Off Beat Sari. The exhibition currently on at The Design Museum explores the role of the sari in South Asian and diaspora culture. It’s a gorgeous mix of fashion, history, innovation and activism. I adored it. It’s £12.60 for an adult ticket.

   

   This may or may not have something to do with Barbie.

2. What’s love got to do with it? The British Asian film is now on Netflix. Do you know what? I thought I was going to hate it, but I actually think they did it really well. They were respectful of all cultures and of nuance, and they didn’t over explain any of it. They were respectful of all types of love…It wasn’t black or white. It didn’t trivialise marriage or familial duty which often happens when its contextualised in Britishness. I loved the varied representation of Muslims. And yes, I balled my eyes out near the end. Listen, it’s not a masterpiece but it’s enjoyable.

3. Lust stories 2. Ok so I finished this and, honestly, I’m disgusted. The last episode features Kajol as an ex-sex worker who marries a land lord who sexually abuses her and their workers. She hires a girl who has HIV as a maid in the hope that her husband sleeps with her so that he dies. Like, what? But it gets worse. The climax is that her son ends up sleeping with her instead and the insinuation is that he is going to get HIV. There has been so much work to dispel the misinformation around HIV and this just feels dangerous. To learn more about HIV and just how far we’ve come read here.

4. Wear protection. This reel had me giggling for 5 minutes. It took me straight back to GCSE drama. Please tell me my sense of humour isn’t broken.

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Thanks for reading! If you could forward Brown Bodies to just one person who you think might enjoy reading about sex in the South Asian diaspora, I’d be very grateful!

Bye Barbie! 💕