for me, the way i viewed the conversation between the old woman and barbie on the bench is also a matter of confidence.
when you compare the barbies in barbieland and the old woman on the bench, they practically say the same thing ("i'm beautiful") but their confidence and the core and roots behind it is so different.
the barbies in barbieland are confident out of ignorant, they have nothing to not be confident about. they're made of plastic, they have no cellulite, no private parts; it's always perfect in barbieland, so their hair is always perfect, their clothes, their shoes, everything is perfect. there's no bad day, no prejudice, no standards that you can't be part of in barbieland. so when the barbies say "i'm beautiful", they say it because they're ignorant. the core of their confidence is ignorance.
but when the old woman responds to barbie with "i know" to the "you're beautiful" comment, the confidence she has has a completely different core than the barbies. the old woman is the antithesis of everything you should be in barbieland. she's old, she has wrinkles, crow's feet, white hair, no hair. she has all of these qualities that our society will say is not beautiful, is ugly that these are things you avoid with skincare, retinol, botox all these things. the old woman lives in a society where the mass will not view her as beautiful.
and yet she's still confident, she still says "i know" because despite what everyone says, what all the standards are, she knows she's beautiful. thousands of people can disagree and say she's not, it won't matter because she knows she is. the old woman is confident despite knowing.
