I want everybody who’s calling Ken a Trophy Husband to know that he’s actually a Trophy Boyfriend, because when Ruth Handler invented Ken in the 1960s, she was adamant that he would never marry her and instead be her “handsome steady”, so that Barbie remained a figure of independence for the little girls and was never put in the position of housewife.
Her house is hers. She bought it and furnished it with money she made in her own job. In STEM, in politics, in healthcare, in fashion, in academy, in customer service. Her credit card is in her name (women in the US couldn’t have their own regardless of marital status until 1974). And it’s all pink and fashionable because femininity and badassness aren’t mutually exclusive. No matter who you are, you can be anything.
That’s why Barbie’s slogan is “you can be anything”. Teaching these ideals to little girls is why Barbie was created. Empowering women and empowering femininity is the original meaning of the Barbie doll. It’s not that you have to be all this to be a woman, but if you are all or some of this, you too are awesome.
And somehow pop culture deliberately changed that narrative. Sexualised, bimbofied, and villainised her, when she actually isn’t responsible for the impossible beauty standards — people are, she’s just a stylised, not-to-scale toy like most others.
Men are frothing because he’s just Ken and I guess they were expecting her to be just Barbie, but that’s exactly what Ken is. Canonically. A badass woman’s himbo boyfriend.
This movie has the potential to radically change the way we collectively see Barbie into what Ruth Handler originally intended, I’m so very excited
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surrounding myself with a bubble of diversity and self love and body positivity online and then being exposed to normies who actually care about conventional beauty standards feels so fucking bizarre. like you people just live like this??? are you not tired???
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can't stop thinking about tamsyn muir's choice to present her deep, morally and politically complex science fantasy world with a central web of magic, secrets and lies reaching back ten thousand years through the eyes of three characters who:
1. tune out and start thinking about hot women whenever the magic system or worldbuilding are being explained
2. experience hallucinations on a daily basis, have brain damage and are being deceived and misled by their peers, authority figures, themselves and God
3. don't know who they are, have spent their entire life in one place and are, on all levels but physical, six months old
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Biggest hindrance of Doctor Who being a family show is that it ends up preventing authenticity. By which I specifically mean there's no damn way that Donna's response to some of the things The Doctor says wouldn't have been "Fuck off."
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Jill McDonough, “Love and the Deli Counter”
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