The Barbie doll carries more weight in the cultural consciousness than she can bear on her famously disproportionate frame.
She’s at once a symbol of feminine aspiration, the careerist everywoman who in 1962 owned a home before most real women could have credit cards — and she is also, as a teenage character in the newly released Barbie movie puts it, “a professional bimbo,” “a symbol of sexualized capitalism,” “a glorification of rampant consumerism,” and “a fascist.” Welp!
As narrator Helen Mirren tells us during the film’s opening scene, which playfully mirrors that of 2001: A Space Odyssey, girls have always had dolls.
