Anyway Barbie sitting on a bench, just having cried for the first time and looking over at an old woman and very genuinely complimenting her beauty was such a lovely moment. Because not long before, Barbie was freaking out about cellulite. But here in the Real World, where everything is so much more complicated than she could have imagined, so much more painful, she looks over and sees a woman who has actually lived. Aging is a privilege not afforded to everybody, and this little old woman, with all these years and experiences inside her, quite happy and at peace and secure with herself (she knows she’s beautiful), represents what Barbie is only starting to understand, that real death is staying the same forever.
That’s why it’s so important that The Ghost Of Ruth Handler, a little old lady herself, is the one who guides her into real life. She warns Barbie that by choosing to live, she must by necessity die. But in keeping with the themes of growing up, of adulthood, of womanhood, Barbie now knows that you can’t ever really return to the version of yourself that didn’t know something. Children, most children anyway, don’t really understand death. Part of the emotional struggle of adolescence and young adulthood is having to come to grips with the inevitable fact that your parents will die someday, as will everyone you love, and you yourself. If you’re lucky, not for many years. But it will happen.
And I think that’s why the turning point is “do you guys ever think about dying?” That’s why it matters that the girl playing with Barbie and changing her is a middle-aged woman. Gloria is grappling with her own morality and stifled creativity and feeling her daughter slip away from her and looking back on those days of innocent joyful play and the thing is that it’s all so sweetly painfully joyously human that it changes Barbie.
There’s a maiden(s), mother(s), and crone(s) aspect at play, and Barbie is all three and none at all. She is Ruth’s daughter and she is at once old (64 this year) and young (a toy for children, sexless and innocent and optimistic). Sasha is her past and Gloria is her present and the old woman on the park bench, filled up with years and life and peace and joy, is her future.
Barbie chose to become human, but it was also never really a choice. You can’t un-know something, you can’t ever go backward, you can only go forward. Humans only have one ending. The only alternative to growing is dying. And death may be inevitable, but better later than sooner. The child must become the adult. The adult must become the elder. The elder must eventually die. And living all those years is a gift even when it’s painful and Barbie embraces it.
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