I watched Barbie for the first time after having thoughts of death. Here’s how it went
During a cold, hibernation-friendly, month of a January, full of my existential crises and despair at the world..
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I finally watched Barbie. Late to the sweet, sickly, pastel party, I knew I might find some of the plasticky ‘hi’s’ annoying, but I’d also seen sections of America Ferrera’s power speech. For months, I’d awaited all the feelings I knew I would have. I was not disappointed.
Today, I’d needed something to take me ‘out of my head’. A distraction technique. But, I also needed a reminder that our words matter and that there is so much beyond my self-doubt and self-loathing. That wasn’t put on the box. That was taught to us. And pitting women against each other is something that I hate, but I’m also very much aware that it serves a purpose.
Would so many want to buy the latest beauty product, if they knew, intrinsically, that what they already have is imperfect perfection. An enhancement to this gorgeousness, or different shades of it, perhaps. Buying to determine your worth, and starting from scratch each time the ‘ideal’ is set. No, thank you very much.
My sadness and my constant questioning of reality, has brought me to a low place. I think I believed that by my age of 42, that I would feel happier and more peaceful. That all those teenage issues would have been slain by now.
They are very much still there, with a whole list of new ones who have arrived to join the party!
What does it all mean? What is my purpose?
These are the big ones for me.
January hibernation and reflection so far, have kept me fairly isolated. Trust and relationships are still such a difficult area for me. And the abject fear of expressing what I truly feel, knowing what that is and that being accepted, overwhelms me.
Not just intellectualising my reality, but actually feeling it, also leaves me with a sense of dread.
People often talk about being scared to cry, because they will never stop. At times, I’m afraid to be afraid!
When I am busy, I can keep going.
As soon as I have time to think, well that’s just exhausting!
These times feel like moments when the powerful and elite, miraculously and disgustingly, seem to be protected, have chained themselves together and are parading themselves before us mere mortals. Just for their own amusement.
We hope for change.
Entitlement holds them, like the slime of ‘because I am’ and ‘because I know’, oozing through their veins.
Who am I kidding? This has just felt like an all-encompassing reality for so long now.
Today felt like a, much-needed, Barbie moment for me. I’ve had the digital download for a few months now, but, as a woman, am trained to not take a couple of hours aside ‘just’ for me. Ironic as I am the only me, so how’s there ever a ‘just’?
I fall into that people pleasing, needing to be doing things for others to have purpose, - trap. Working on a cure for that or, at least, an antibiotic of some sort..
There is this feeling of erroneous, and dangerous, pressure, confronting those that speak out against anyone in positions of power. And society’s attempt to dictate what our realities are, just hurts. In the way that people ask ‘What was she wearing? How much had she had to drink? Why did she go there?’ Vile and shocking, yet not always surprising.
The women who bravely fight for change and awareness, seem to battle so hard, and get trampled upon, hushed and, sometimes, completely silenced. This infuriates me. I cannot stand hearing about how they are treated, so can’t even imagine what they go through.
I needed a gear shift.
As a highly sensitive and intuitive women, who grew surrounded by misogyny’s voices, like twenty train sets, I already feel overwhelmed in the second week of January. These jolts and judgements don’t feel like whispers, but like every spoken word and look, directed towards us for years. And, as America Fererra’s Gloria so perfectly states, we then blame ourselves.
‘I’m so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself in knots’.
Gloria, Barbie
I couldn’t agree more.
There are days when, on re-living moments of string-ness, or when I was told to be the rope, I despise myself for ever appearing to stand with any of the patriarchy’s evolving ideologies. Not wanting to ‘make a fuss’ or be the girl that ‘complains’.
Believe me, I don’t feel that way anymore.
Being fed toxic truths are part of being a woman, and part of being a man. I enjoyed what the film brought up for me, the questions it raised and the ideal of togetherness, kindness and connectivity.
‘I wanna do the imagining, not be the idea’ -
was the perfect Margot Robbie (as ex - ‘mainstream’ Barbie) line, on realising that she wanted to be human.
A solitary tear rolled down my face, like the moment when the doll, bewildered, first discovers she can cry.
The tear first came from the left eye, from the pain that we have all experienced. The harassment, catcalling. Being viewed as a ‘body’ and not feeling seen. (I have no idea if there’s any truth in that whole which eye the first tear comes from, idea)
Barbie made me feel connection. I don’t want to be a doll, dissociating and skipping over this life.
Imagine, feeling connection with actual people? It will get easier to build on that again.
I am a person who adores music and has a soundtrack for every significant moment in my life. The scene when Barbie holds hands with Ruth Handler (who created Barbie and became ‘Ruth from Martel’), left me floored.
I don’t want to be Barbie, flat.
The emotion in that moment was really elevated by Billie Eilish’s luscious melody and lyrics.
Being happy is ‘Something I wait for’
but, I guess, it’s the process of feeling all the feelings about what a s t show the world is at the moment. My self - involved and internalised interpretation, naturally, proves that I’m a writer. Or just very self-involved. And all of the numbing and dishonesty in pretending I feel ok, was nudging me hard, whilst I looked at the world thinking ‘ what is this?’
I needed reinforcements.
Barbie was a miniature army. Or just the boost I needed in that moment.
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