“Representation” this, “Disney’s First Gay Character” that, “Queercoded Disney Villain” my eye, Disney had its first gay character in 1942 and y’all better be putting some RESPECT on my boy’s name–
ask me to elaborate on this some other time when i’m not super stoned but i do think a lot of people ascribe a lot of negative social conditioning that young girls deal with to the existence of barbie that could better be explained by misogynistic parenting. like if you have parents who teach you that your role as a girl is to be as pretty, thin, and superficially “perfect” as possible, of course that’s what you’re gonna get from barbie. but that’s not barbie’s fault. that’s the body image stuff that you’re already marinating in, coming out through how you engage with a toy. like i do think it’s possible to be a little girl who really enjoys playing with barbies who doesn’t come away with any kind of negative body or self-image feelings from it, because that stuff is just not in your orbit in the first place, and there’s such a wide spread of experiences that women will self-report from their own childhoods spent playing with barbies that i don’t think it’s a particularly representative example anyway. like yes barbie is a fashion doll with unrealistic body proportions and there’s plenty to be unpacked about how little girls are drawn to certain representations of womanhood that appeal to certain feminine gender presentation standards and tropes, but also i do think that a LOT of us were just using barbies as the conduit for a kind of creative expression that later turned into a love for storytelling and performing and role-playing and general creativity that had nothing to do with being “pretty,” and the sheer number of women who can still recount the crazy soap opera plot twists and the ways they butchered their barbies’ haircuts and buried ken outdoors in the peaty topsoil would support that
