After years of hearing mothers’ laments about how Barbie
poisons young girls’ minds with an unrealistic ideal of womanhood, Mattel
created a new line of Barbies with three different body types (short, tall and
curvy), 22 eye colors and 24 hairstyles. These are not “friends” of Barbie, but
actual Barbies.
I should be rejoicing. But instead, I feel a little
disquieted.
It was so much easier to bash Barbie when she was the mean
girl from high school with the perfect coif and the impossible bust-line. But
seeing her transformation is like running into your nemesis 20 years after
graduation in the plus-size aisle at Target and having her bend your ear about
her scaring divorce.
I need Barbie to remain ridiculously proportioned and
blonde. The uber shiksa with the unobtainable curves. I need her to be that way
because – after all these years – I realize that my problem with Barbie wasn’t
a problem at all.
As it turns out, I relied on Barbie to be blonde and
button-nosed because I needed a foil for my Jewishness. I needed her to represent
the ideal for assimilation and the ideal for womanhood, so that I could know
what to push back against, as well as what to embrace.
