Quit Life. Join Circus. Win Prizes.

 I hate people who bitch about Barbie fucking up our youth. “She gives girls eating disorders!” That’s funny because I would say grandmas poking at girls’ bellies telling them to lose weight gives girls eating disorders. (Seriously, I have so many friends who say they are self-conscious about their weight because their grandmothers always had something to say about it. What grandmother does that? “You’re getting kinda fat Susie” “Really grandma because you’re getting kind of old and senile, so you can just suck my cellulite”. Both of my grandmothers are wonderful ladies who never hand anything to say about my weight. Don’t do that to your granddaughters, call your grandsons fat little ho-ho hoarders if you must, but leave those girls alone.)

When I was a child I cared about my sex appeal just about as much as I cared about my rate of toenail growth. Don’t get me wrong, both were occasionally on my mind, but they weren’t like at the forefront of my thoughts you know. I was so detached from what was sexy as a child I would use stuffed animals instead while my friends used my Barbies. Not because I was awesome at sharing or anything because I still claimed all the good Barbie accessories for myself. I thought my animals looked better in the dresses anyways after I gave them glass marble boobs, and you best believe my bunny rabbits looked like pimps in that pink convertible. I didn’t really get into using the actual Barbies until middle school. What can I say I was late bloomer.

What I’ve noticed is that there are three types of Barbie players. The decorator, then one night stand, and the soap opera. The decorator would enjoy having lots and lots of accessories, often making some of their own. They would spend forever setting up intricate little houses to be abandoned all over the big people house they themselves lived in. Shelves in the pantry, underneath chairs, and bookshelves were popular places for unplayed-with miniature families to sit for weeks.

The one night stand was the girl who always wanted whatever new ‘Peeing Kitty Barbie’ was on the market. “Litter box and three different colors of litter included to ensure hours of pretend cat turd scooping fun!!!” (I’m not kidding you about peeing kitty barbie by the way. She was called Barbie Kitty Fun and last I checked she was like 70$ on amazon.com, Google that shit.) As soon as this girl had her latest barbie she would rip open the packaging and spend about an hour playing with the themed accessories the doll came with before leaving it on the coffee table to be forgotten forever, just like all her previously attained Barbies. This was the most common kind of Barbie player and we all knew one. You know that kid who had every Barbie known to man but they had lost all the accessories. What’s more, even though most of the Barbies would come with two changes of clothes this kid would have three Barbie dresses and like 40 naked Barbies, so you’re doing the math and even at age seven you’re like “what the hell”. This girl never played with any one Barbie long enough to develop personalities or even names for any of her dolls. She referred to them by the titles on the boxes they came in or in the likely event she forgot those she would use visual descriptions as if they were names. Things like “Sharpie tatoo Barbie” or “Barbie without a pinky”. I distinctly remember one of these girls referencing with some small level of disdain “the one with painted underwear you can’t take off”. I looked down at the Barbie thinking ‘why, so you could lose those too.’ That Barbie had dignity and planned ahead, she knew what the fuck she was getting herself into.

The last kind of Barbie player was the soap opera, and I’m proud to call myself one. These Barbie players would have uniquely chosen names for their dolls and usually never had one actually named Barbie. These were the girls who would usually have real Barbie houses or permanent set ups in the closet so they didn’t have to waste time resetting the dolls each time. This also allowed them to pick up play each time from where ever they last left off, thus continuing a linear plot. Over time all of the dolls would have back-stories and intricate relationships with each other. I never had enough accessories or space for all my Barbies to have houses so a lot of them just went back “home” in the Barbie box which was a sort of rabbit-hole type deal for all Barbie activities I didn’t play out. When Kelly went to school, she was in the box. When Ken went to work, he was in the box. And because a lot of Barbies spent a lot of time in the box, you wound up with main characters and supporting characters in the Barbie universe.

When you’re 12 you play Barbies a little differently than when you’re 6. Shit gets real. Just about every melodrama from Days of Our Lives came up at some point. We had weddings, births, deaths, and evil twin sisters that we thought died years ago. We had kidnappings and robberies. We had Barbies in a comatose state wake up only to find they had amnesia. Ironically the things we didn’t do on purpose were the things that were closest to being realistic. Because of the ridiculous Barbie to Ken ratio fidelity would have meant a lot of lonely Barbies. Instead Ken wound up being a lying, cheating, whorebag just like real life Ken :D . Also, if one of the two or three Kens settled down and got married he stopped doing nice things for Barbie. Truthfully he stopped doing anything at all for that matter. Married Ken didn’t have much to say and often ceased being interesting or intricate to the plot. Just like real life, once Ken agreed to get married he didn’t get touched for months at a time and we usually just left him to his own devices in front of the T.V. Like he was just another piece of furniture in Barbie’s house. My friend and I had been in the middle of a very long all-night Barbie session with lots of plot twists and drama only to realize as a Barbie was giving birth to his child, that Ken had been watching the same football game for pretty much the entire pregnancy. Because we forgot him so often and still found boys so alien, Ken usually wound up being a source of comic relief, throwing out random one liners that would have us pausing play to roll on the floor and laugh. Oh Ken, you so crazy.

Most of the things we thought up were crazy and over the top, but it wasn’t important how fucked up it all was. It was important how imaginative it all was. Being a creative thinker is one of the most valuable life skills you can have, and a child’s imagination is the key to unlocking that mindset. Barbie is one of the best tools for tapping into a little girls imagination because she likes the same things little girls do, like dress up, and she can be what girls want to be. Rock stars, ballerinas, teachers, astronauts, race-car drivers, world-class chefs, and fucking princesses and mermaids.

When you’re a kid you still have the imagination to look at a playground and decide the jungle gym equipment are trees and the surrounding mulch is an island. You can still think the grass is lava and you’ll drown/burn to death if you step in it. Exploring that type of play develops creative thought you can use later in life. Now I don’t still scream “The grass is lava!” to pedestrians on the sidewalk unless I’ve had a bit to drink. What I can do is use my imagination for creative problem solving and even just to entertain my happy ass when I’m home alone. Barbie was that friend that always agreed with me, and if she had my back why did I care what other little girls thought. Thank you Sharpie Tatoo Barbie for playing along throughout my childhood. I promise someday to take back out of the box you’re saved in and let you be a part of my children’s lives too.