The Barbie in the Middle

Barbie. Everyone’s favorite (or favorite-to-loathe) doll-slash-role model-slash-best friend-slash-impossible ideal-slash-icon of cultural demise. Even though I’ve always harbored a fairly incurious attitude toward the Barbie-as-perfection phenomenon, I nevertheless loved playing with my inanimate, buxom, rubbery friends. I didn’t compare myself to them, and they didn’t dictate my self worth. They were just one population in an only child’s universe of dessert-scented dolls, bathtub mermaids, and little plastic people who lived in a furnished tree.

I dressed my Barbie dolls, sent them shopping, held fashion shows and wedding ceremonies. Cut the requisite hair. My collection consisted of a motley assortment of Barbies and Barbie-like dolls—from Star Wars to Charlie’s Angels to whatever appeared on the shelf at Walgreens. And I never had an actual Ken (who I thought sucked, by the way). The stud of my doll stable was Steve Austin, a.k.a. the Six Million Dollar Man, whose ensemble included a red track suit and bionic eye. In fact, my favorite Barbie is still shacking up with him in my closet somewhere. But I digress.

I finally rented the Barbie movie after several months of all-consuming praise from media and friends alike. Watching it, I was as pleased with the underlying political commentary about brainwashed women turning into mindless manservants as I was with the overarching social commentary about who we are as women, who we’re expected to be, and the impossible task of constantly trying to fuse the two in some way that’s acceptable to the world at large.

As the movie rolled to a close, I finally started to feel inspired by Barbie. Then, after forty-something years, I began to compare myself to her. Because I didn’t see my Barbie self depicted anywhere: the Barbie in the middle. Despite the amazing writing and endearing, entertaining story arc, the movie’s prominent female characters sit at either end of the age spectrum. All the Barbies and their human friends are squarely in their twenties and thirties, counterbalanced only by an obligatory elderly woman waiting for a bus (probably to Heaven) and the sweet, grandmotherly Ruth, who having made it well past menopause, has transformed into a vessel of experience, wisdom, and compassion. I sat wondering, where do I fit into this grand universe of ovarian-powered ferocity?

Ultimately, what this Gen X child of the ‘80s garnered is that I’m currently irrelevant and invisible, and all I have to look forward to when I emerge from middle age and achieve Ruth status is sitting alone in a small, dark kitchen making tea and waiting for some plump, dewy, full blossom of a woman to seek out my sage advice—only because she’s running for her life, mind you. Happy to serve? Maybe Ruth is. I’m not. I’m not interested in getting pushed aside to bandy about with my superior inner self like a wizened bodhisattva lulled into submission until someone needs me to make it easier for them to traverse the path of youth. That’s bullshit. My goal isn’t to store up everything I’ve learned and keep it to myself to avoid making other people
uncomfortable until such time as they decide it might benefit them.

So I ask, where is my Barbie? The Barbie in the middle. Nowhere. Because no one wants to contend with middle-aged Barbie—not in the movies and not in real life. No one wants a stereotypical Gen X Barbie with a spirit forged from daytime soaps and toaster strudel, exhausted but still able to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. A speak-her-mind, wide-waisted Barbie in a thirty-year-old concert tee with pluckable chin hairs and permanent grey roots who’s always damp from crying or sweating.

That’s right—meet Perimenopause Barbie. Accessories include dual-use pads for period
or leaky bladder, tweezers for those pesky chin hairs, and personal lube on the off chance she and Ken (or Steve) actually want to get it on in the same lunar cycle. If she and Ken are still together, that is. Her updated dream home comes with three sets of drugstore readers for misplacing around the house, a vintage boombox for the cassettes she refuses to throw away, and a walk-in freezer to quell hot flashes. There’s also a perfectly preserved child’s room for her to wander around in and wonder where the years went.

Alas, Perimenopause Barbie would never fit into this movie because those of us in the
middle don’t fit comfortably anywhere. Neither would she fit into the greater lineup of dolls that inspire girls to give it their all. She’s just too real. Too raw. But isn’t that how Gen X has always been? We’ve never had the collective wool pulled over our eyes for long.

If Peri B materialized, Gen X would be there for it. We’d keep her hidden away with our
romance novels and good chocolate and the boxes of mixtapes we saved. Because we’re all about self-soothing behind closed doors—as much by choice as by necessity. She could live in our secret, sacred spaces filled with things that comfort. Because a miniature cultural ideal battling middle age just like us is comforting. If beloved, self-affirming, take-no-prisoners Perimenopause Barbie can do it, surely, we can too.

- Elizabeth L. Delaney

Elizabeth L. Delaney writes about art, life, and the intersection of the two. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Hi-Fructose, Art Papers, Burnaway, and Streetlight Magazine. delaneywrites.com