bodies bodies bodies

my mother is a hippie and my father hates the government so one thing i missed out on is Barbie. i felt nothing when i watched the trailer for Greta Gerwig’s movie, except mild astonishment. it’s not that i’m immune to beauty standards. i understand what Barbie represents in femininity, docility, blondness, the mashup of hyper-sexualization and extreme innocence that has become a hallmark of mainstream pornography. i just don’t associate any of it specifically with Barbie. i wonder if other children really learned lessons about body image from their dolls, a kind of disordered object attachment theory that has become a cultural truism. i remember primarily learning my lessons about body image from other people.

this isn’t to discount the role that pop culture iconography plays in damaging the boundaries of self-image. but i do think it’s hard to pinpoint a starting place in the feedback loop of abnegation. it’s obvious to point out that the language of self-esteem doesn’t account for y…