Barbie Bru Ha Ha

I haven't been on here in a while, but I've had some thoughts percolating that I needed to get out and it just seemed too long for FaceBook. I'm gonna just lay it out. I am sick of people baggin on Barbie. No, wait! Hear me out!

Yep. I longed for this kind of body when I was a wee one.

When I was young, I would look at the women on TV and in the cartoons and I would see, in general, bodies that were stick thin. No boobs, no hips. Basically, it seemed to me, the perfect woman looked a little like a boy with just a few curves. Then there was my mom. She did not look anything like a boy. She had boobs till tomorrow and a ghetto booty that she practically needed a wagon to carry. Even when she was thin she had those dominant features. I was not stupid. I saw what my future was, and it was confirmed when I was out of my training bra and into a regular bra by the end of 4th grade.

Luscious and lovely was more my destiny.

Now, I didn't get my mom's booty, but (when I was thin, which I'm not right now) I literally had an classic hourglass figure. No matter how much weight I lose, I will never ever be model or even actress thin. The smallest I have ever been as an adult is a size 11 (size 12 is considered "plus size" in case you weren't aware), and at that point people started telling me I needed to gain weight. I'm not complaining, I love being a curvy woman (although at the moment I wish my belly didn't curve out quite so much. lol). Today there's a big ole "curves are beautiful" movement. My son tells me that I'm a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman). All over the media people are telling you to love yourself how you are, but I was living in the 80's. That message was nowhere to be seen at that point. Yes, I know that the women in hairband videos were curvy, and that's great and all, but I didn't have MTV. I was watching regular TV and looking at regular movies. And everywhere I looked, there were women who were thin and didn't even really need a bra to constrain the ladies.

Enter Barbie. Barbie was beautiful, successful (in her imaginary world), and could be anything, she wasn't tied down to traditional female rolls. I never heard any controversy about whether or not Barbie would change HER name when she and Ken married! But bigger, and far more important than all that was that BARBIE HAD BOOBS! Barbie was built the way I was destined to be built someday! I loved her for that. And people rant about her waist being so thin, but guess what happens when you make clothes for Barbie? The fabric is super bulky on her because she is much smaller than people. When you gather up the cloth, it makes her waist look normal sized.

Released in 1981

Current Barbie

 Now compare these Barbies. The first is the Barbie model that was actually my very favorite Barbie. It's because the curly hair was easier to style. What do you see? Ok, the neck may be a little swan-like, but other than that, when Barbie is wearing clothes, she looks like a woman, one who has boobs and hips. One who looks like (the ideal) me.

And then you have modern Barbie. The one that has been made "more realistic" to appease nay-sayers. You know what I see here? Yet another completely unrealistic stick-thin, boobless, hipless, gap between the thigh having example of why women like me are clearly lower-class than those fortunate enough to have inherited the stick-thin gene.

Way to go, Mattel. Good work "fixing" that situation.

Just in case you were curious, this was my other Barbie. Her outfit could change to make all these combos and more! I chopped her hair off so it was a cute chin length bob, though.