If you're dressing as Barbie for Halloween this year, no one needs to tell you how to slay it. After all, you're Barbie and in charge of your own destiny. Loving that rollerblade costume from the beach scene, or the formal admission of Weird Barbie into Barbie Land? Your costume is only a pink dream away.
If there's one thing we learned from watching this year's "Barbie" movie, it's that everyone can be Barbie, and no one's Barbie needs to be quite like yours. And while your look may be unique, you won't be alone in dressing up as Barbie this Halloween. The beloved-then-reviled-then-redeemed doll and her Big Movie is the top-searched-for Halloween costume for 2023, according to Google's FrightGeist. That, along with the facts that "Barbie" has cleared $1.4 billion at the box office and is ranked as the 14th highest-grossing film of all time (as of press time), it's more than apparent that Barbs is 2023's juggernaut.
I, for one, could not have seen this coming.
I'm fairly certain I'm not alone.
A brief history of an '80s Barbie fan
I think my arc of devotion for Barbie follows that of a lot of femmes my age – from love to distaste and back to a loving kind of nostalgia and the promise of a renewed feminism for the next generation. I am among those legions of Gen Xers and Millennials and even some Gen Zers whose Barbie collections loomed large; who dreamed of their own Barbie Dream Houses but who, damn you Santa, had to settle for the Beach Shack or, in a canny prelude to the pandemic of our adulthoods, the combined Barbie Home and Office.
In the '80s, my cousin Tara and I would spend entire summer days playing Barbies, never getting out of our pajamas while we spun worlds involving parties, boyfriends and social intrigue. As the '90s approached, the pending agony of junior high meant I was forced to give up my hard-core fantasy world of pink before I was quite ready. Lucky for me, schools back then tended to be broken up into junior highs made up of seventh to ninth graders rather than middle schools populated by sixth to eighth graders, so I was able to remain a child, eligible for Barbie-playing, all the way through sixth grade. I continued to drop in on my sisters' Barbie adventures for a while longer, a good way to seem the nice big sister whilst also reliving a childhood fantasy.
The mid-'90s brought grunge and attitude and the notion of feminism to my life. Who was this Barbie chick, with her big breasts, giant thigh gap and plastic smile making all women feel bad about themselves for never measuring up? College and young adulthood produced vibes eerily similar to the middle-school daughter in this year's blockbuster film.
Even then, though, my Barbie collection remained in the attic of my parents' home, brought out when I eventually had my own daughter. Here came a new challenge for the type of open-minded parent I wanted to be: Let the girl-child play with the '80s relics and find her own way to rejection or embrace of Barbie, or play the heavy and ban these anti-feminist, big-boob dolls outright? I opted for the former. Banning Barbie seemed all too much like banning books, and I favor exploration over exile. That Barbie collection remains under my roof today, where now my nieces beg for the box to come out when they visit. (Said Barbies also grace this week's Source Weekly cover. You'd better believe we had some fun "playing" Barbies once again.)
Still, it's not like I really thought about Barbie – about her flaws, her promise and all of that – until the movie came out this year. I, like many people, figured this new movie would be a blast from the past where we'd suspend our disbelief long enough to let Margot Robbie enchant us with yet another rendition of America's favorite doll, IRL. I'd go to the movie with my nieces as cover, I figured, since no grown woman with any self-respect would see this movie except to relive childhood with the next generation.
I was so wrong. "Barbie" takes us on a journey, from the candy-coated world of Barbie Land and its inside jokes about Weird Barbie and pregnant Barbie (whoops! She didn't last long....) and then so much further. After an elaborate dance number, Barbie has thoughts of death. What follows is a hero's quest: discovering the perils of patriarchy, encountering self-doubt and society's pressures, feeling bought and paid for, understanding that those in feminine bodies (and those in any body, really) often feel as if they're not enough — and that despite their unique struggles, they are united in this delicate balancing act. Director Greta Gerwig and company performed a miracle: Encapsulating the wonder of childhood Barbie while also casting her in a wild modern world full of contradiction and unanswered questions, with a Ken who badly needs a purpose and a place to live. We are all Barbie, and yet no one is your Barbie.
It's still a surprise to me that this movie, which caused the world to run out of pink paint for a while, would be the one to bring this skeptical world-weary feminist back from some type of brink. But it did.
So, if you're like me and you're thinking of dressing as the #1 costume of 2023, don't worry. No one is going to slay it quite like you.
