The Unexpected Validation from Barbie

There's been a lot said about the new, record-breaking Barbie movie, and I will add one more take on it. Spoiler alerts all the way through. I've heard voices within the disability community that there is a lack of representation of disabled folk in the Barbie movie. And I think that that's mostly, a fair critique. I did see a dancing Barbie in a wheelchair, and at least one and possibly two Barbie's with limb differences. I'm not saying that's "Kenough", or that that number of Barbie's with disabilities is at all representative of the population. I am saying that these Barbie's have visible disabilities. But how does a movie represent and 'see' an invisible disability? The point is, you overtly can't, but I think it was there all along.

I went to see the movie alone for a second time this weekend because a question was rattling around my brain. Is the Barbie story arc an allegory for the emotional journey of someone with a disability? Visible or invisible?

The evidence points to: yes.

She starts out as Stereotypical Barbie. The Barbie that you think of when you think of, well, Barbie. Everything is good, yesterday was good, today was good, and tomorrow will be good too. She's good, everything is fine, nothing to worry about.

Boom! "Do you guys ever think about dying?" She shares a thought, and then immediately feels the intensity of the awkward stares, and throws the mask back on in a "haha j/k" moment and everyone around her gets to stop feeling uncomfortable with the change, and how that impacted their fun.

The next day is a morning of masking, spending spoons, and the "Oh but you look fine, so please keep pretending for everyone else". Don't stand out, don't show your symptoms, and don't bring other people down with your feelings. She opens up to Barbie's she thinks she can trust, and they recoil - everyone in the theatre laughs. I laughed the first time too, but then I saw a truth, reflecting my lived experiences with disabilities. That mirror was a looking glass.

"You're malfunctioning", Barbie hears. She wants to be seen, heard, and understood. Instead, she's seen as different, gross, and the people closest to her can be the most hurtful. The flat feet, the cellulite, and the irrepressible thoughts of death are outward and inward 'symptoms' of a change outside of Barbie's control. They are physical, they are mental, and she doesn't have the tools to process them.

It wasn't lost on me that when Ken hit a wave and was rushed to the doctor for his pain, he was believed, but then when Barbie had an issue, the message was, "Go see Weird Barbie". Weird Barbie's seen this before, Weird Barbie knows how to navigate and solve it, but Stereotypical Barbie doesn't want the answer, she wants it to go back to the way it was. She doesn't want this new reality (Birkenstocks) she wants the old one (the pretty pink Manolo's). She resists the truth and the answers of the universe. Weird Barbie tells her, no I made you believe that you have a choice, you can't choose the Manolo's, the Birkenstocks chose you. You can't go back, there is only forward. Weird Barbie knows that Stereotypical Barbie can't undo what's been done, and she can't give her the answer, so she sends Stereotypical Barbie on the quest to discover it for herself.

Barbie thinks that if she just finds the solution, things can go back to normal, she can be the Stereotypical Barbie that's expected of her, the Barbie that she was.

But, Barbie doesn't get the answer that she wanted. It's messed up, unfair, and it's out of her control, they want to put her away. She finds her fight, her allies, and she's on the right path. The reality of the human world that she finds herself in is also not what she thought. There's pain, misogyny, and more ableism, and when she goes back to Barbieland, finds that the patriarchy anywhere wasn't designed for anyone that's different. She wants to give up, has the obligatory existential crisis, and doesn't think that she's the Barbie that she's supposed to be. Then, she's validated, seen, and gets out of her wallow and into her community of other "discontinued", non-Normie Barbies.

When she realizes that she doesn't feel like the self she was told to be, she gets to shed that part of her identity that doesn't serve her anymore, that part that she's been clinging to by a couture thread. She's not sure where she belongs anymore but doesn't believe that it's in a system, or among people, that doesn't suit her any longer. When she's given the opportunity to voice this openly, safely, she sees that there's another possible reality for her in which she can be complex, and experience all the nuance and mess of what it is to be human. So she chooses. She chooses to walk away from the idea that there is more to her than being an ideal. She's free to be Barbara and Barbie. Both, and.

I know that this movie had some flaws but for those who, like myself, have been on a disability journey that includes self-discovery, denial, pain, masking, sugar-coating, anger, questioning why me, finding acceptance, and ultimately, finding the joy in everything, this film told a story that is often invisible.

#representationmatters #inclusion #diversity #belonging #intersectionality #disability #invisibledisability #spoonie #mentalillness #chronicillness #prettyprivilege #toxicpositivity

Photo by Katarzyna Grabowska on Unsplash

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