Barbie’s Psychological Makeover | Psychology Now Australia

Barbie Nostalgia

When I was a female, I had a toy named Barbie Manner Facial area. Barbie’s head was around the measurement of a cantaloupe. Minimal women gave Barbie a makeover with reckless abandon, styling her hair and making use of lipstick and eyeshadow. As a plastic vogue icon, this is the form of makeover you hope from a Barbie.

Flash forward to the current time, and we see Barbie going as a result of a makeover once again. Only this time, her makeover is largely psychological. Barbie, it turns out, was up for a pretty big evolution.

Directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie, the Barbie film experienced extra than a couple of magic methods in its bag of components. Gerwig and Robbie took Barbie to a put she’d in no way been in advance of, and audiences responded with a somewhat shocking level of enthusiasm.

Lots of progressive-considering females have had a intricate romance with Barbie. Potentially we come to feel nostalgic since we grew up with her as a pal. We felt awkward with her stereotypical illustration of women—totally unattainable determine, little ft whose heels never get to the floor, and recommended eyesight of elegance.

The author’s yoga Barbie

Photo by the writer, Karen Shackleford, 2023

Barbie Reimagined

The dolls by themselves have progressed to some degree. There are now “curvy” Barbies, “made-to-move” Barbies, and even “extra” Barbies. In the weeks leading up to the film’s release, I procured a curvy, designed-to-transfer yoga Barbie with strawberry blonde hair and what appeared to be serious-girl thighs.

I should convey to you, searching at a Barbie who has the thighs of a more standard contemporary female has supplied me extra aid than I imagined it would. I train yoga, and I introduced yoga Barbie with me to class. I was touched when a lot more than just one student said she looked like me. A Barbie who appears like a normal mom: now, that was an unexpected surprise.

Spoiler alert—The adhering to contains film spoilers.

You may perhaps have listened to by now that the Barbie motion picture outperformed expectations, location a amount of information, such as the top rated North American box business opening for a movie directed by a lady and the “biggest debut for a comedic movie.”

In the film’s intelligent plot, a stay Barbie doll, played by Margot Robbie, by some means mystically merges with the consciousness of Gloria, a center-aged mother of a tween daughter performed by The usa Ferrara. For that reason, Barbie commences to believe about dying and has a general existential crisis.

Although we assume the film is about Barbie’s journey, and it is, it is also extremely a lot about the American woman’s journey, as represented by Ferrara’s character. Barbie is just a single illustration of the conflicts she’s felt about being a modern American woman.

In one of the most memorable speeches I have at any time witnessed in a movie, Gloria deftly explains the deep and unsolvable contradictions inherent in the life of an common American lady. The speech was so spot-on that it manufactured me feel like sobbing brazenly in the theater—and I did lose some tears. Gloria gets it. It’s a no-earn condition. Until we can find a way out for ourselves.

And that’s what the film calls American females to do: see the situation—our situation—and ask if we can find a way out. What it phone calls for is not only or even essentially transforming the earth, but initial observing what we can transform in our individual heads.

I did not expect to get that message from this movie. Our aged mate Barbie, it turns out, is complete of surprises.