Pamela Cerdeira

I was never a Barbie

I have few memories of my childhood, they are like photographs, I don't know if I decided to hide them or it was a consequence of my rush to grow up.

By Pamela Cerdeira

I've been thinking about Barbies for days, some before the movie and some after. This will be my attempt to try to untangle the ideas that have been pounding in my head and wrinkling my heart.

I have few memories of my childhood, they are like photographs, I don't know if I decided to hide them or it was a consequence of my rush to grow up. But this is one of the saddest moments of my childhood. It must have been an August morning, rainy summers, white/gray skies, one of those that do not invite you to go out to the garden, I did not go to the park, it was dangerous: my brothers had their bicycles stolen, you, me, you could be stolen, I could be stolen. I was about to do one of my favorite activities, sitting on my knees in front of the three-story house of my Barbies, my tousled Barbies, most of them naked, but at the same time all of them perfect. There was Malibu Barbie, I wanted to be Malibu Barbie, the tan, the body, the sporty bikini; I've never had the body, nor the tan, nor the bikini. I keep asking myself if I'm in time to get it or should I (it would be time) start looking at myself with different eyes and love my curves. In my twenties I claimed Barbie's perfect body, I celebrated when they were diverse, but I was too old to identify myself.

My Barbies were not "something", but they always did something, and that almost always had to do with love. I had the Barbie with the button on her back that when pressed would move her head as if giving a kiss, when Ken and some Barbie met I could feel it under my belly button. My Barbies lived alone, I always wondered why that wasn't a possibility for me, I didn't even imagine it. They had their own house, I thought that to have my own the only way was to get married.

They are on the third floor, Barbie Malibu looks at Ken waiting for him to say something, Ken doesn't move, he doesn't want to talk, neither does Barbie, there is no tickle under the navel, there is no desire to kiss, for the first time they have nothing to say to each other. I don't understand what is happening, and it's just that nothing is happening, I got bored, I stopped being a child, and it was the last time I played with my Barbies, the saddest day of my childhood.

I begged my mom to save my dolls for when I had daughters.

-Your daughters are going to play with lasser dolls -and so they all went to the trash.

My daughters played and play with computers, smart phones, and Barbies. I thought of Erika's Barbies, I was forbidden to muss them, much less undress them. I never understood why she had to have so many rules for using her toys. -For when I inherit them for my daughters," she replied.

I'm 26 years old, I'm playing Barbies again, now it's with my daughter. They are in a car, I no longer know how to invent the dialogues, I wait for her to follow her.

-What if they stole some cigars and hid them without telling their mother?

He is three years old, why does he want to hide some cigars? Then came the Beauty and the Beast edition which included a Ken who with mask was Beast, without mask a long-haired prince. Pam insisted that with mask he was Beast, without mask he was Belle. After unsuccessfully explaining to her several times that men could have long hair, I took the scissors and finished off the prince's mane. I turned the Beast into a "weirdo" prince (the "weirdo" reference is related to the movie, not to our prejudices). We played a few times, I was afraid of encountering more surprises, or cigars or explanations.

So my eldest daughter inherited to the youngest a box with an unrecognizable mixture of bare plastic skin. My mom found a way to make them dresses out of balloons, the result was too provocative, Barbie oldest profession in the world, we took their clothes off again.

I have a hard time sitting down to play with Sofia, I've found that time passes slower when I do, so I set a limit.

-Let's play for ten minutes, shall we?

Ten minutes, I have set a limit to the time I plan to spend with her, I feel miserable but I don't like to sit with the Barbies, I don't want to invent dialogues, I don't know what to say, my daughter's dolls want to organize parties, mine have pending ones.

I don't know if it's just that I don't like it, or that it hurts the moment I stopped liking it. Or is it that I was always a Barbie but raised to become a Heart family. There is no Barbie tea set. I who grew up dreaming of being an adult, a few years after I got it I was again sitting on the floor playing with blocks, maybe that's it.

I went to see the movie. -It's not for children," Lilian Briseño, whom I met at the cinema, warned me. It talks about feminism, and patriarchy," I thought, without wondering if perhaps they were too long words for my six-year-old daughter.

Not even ten minutes into the film and the first big word appears on the scene: "Feminist". The first time I was asked if I considered myself one, I was afraid to answer. -It depends on what you mean by feminist," I replied. Then I timidly stuck a stamp on my cell phone, and asked myself every day if I deserved to use it.

And the movie went on, (no spoilers) I cried when the mom plays with her daughter. I laughed out loud, not only did I understand what the tape was referring to, I understood everything that wasn't said.

-I wish I had the pause button so I could go to the bathroom," Sofia told me.

My husband was looking at his phone, noticed it, immediately said, I'll take her. It was the stupidest little big act of emancipation. I didn't marry Ken, I married Alan. Alan is starring in his own movie, we just don't know it, because we're watching Barbie's, and that's okay. Alan is an ally, Alan unlike everyone else in the film, is not lost, and although he doesn't use words to name it, he recognizes when things are not right, and does what he can to change it without waiting for acknowledgements, or making noise.

Maybe today I will sit down to play with my daughter, maybe today I will not wear the watch, maybe today I will allow my own doll to start talking, maybe I will find the sad little girl who got bored, maybe today I will allow myself to be Barbie.