Monday, June 4, 2012

Barbie Needs Wrinkles

A horrible thing has happened to me. I have gotten old and Barbie hasn’t. I can’t tell you how much this sucks. Look, Barbie is way older than me, for Pete’s sake – she’s 52. And I look like a hag compared to her. Yeah, yeah, she’s plastic, but does that really make a difference? I mean, look at the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. They’re plastic and yet some of them can still move their faces.
Still, Barbie still doesn’t look a day over 22, despite her numerous careers, hair color changes, and a chest that would require specially made bras if she were a real woman.  I, on the other hand, look a bit more than one decade past 22 and that’s on a really good day when my skin is hydrated and all the creams and retinol have done their stuff. And I refuse to even discuss my chest in this blog (much to the relief of everyone who reads this, I’m sure). Let’s just say I don’t need my bras to be specially made.
Now, when I was a girl, I loved Barbie. She was cool, she was gorgeous and she had great stuff. Barbie had a townhouse—no—a dream house. I had my own room, but that really wasn’t the same. My room didn’t have an elevator.  Barbie had tons of cute clothes and shoes that matched—so what if her feet were horribly misshapen to fit into the teeny, tiny, torturous high heels? She was beautifully dressed in the latest fashions and it’s not like she was walking anywhere. I had jeans and T-shirts with dirty Keds and a mother that made me walk to the bus stop. Barbie had a pink convertible, a jeep, a Winnebago, an airplane and a ski cabin. What’s not to like? The girl had everything.
But you would have though that by 52, time would have caught up to Barbie. Certainly all that sun tanning she did in the seventies during her Malibu Barbie phase should at least have produced a few crow’s feet. Or one or two tiny little wrinkles around the mouth. But no. Barbie’s plastic face is unmarked by the savages of time or sun or both. But I still wonder, what was she thinking? Didn’t she understand the advantages of sunscreen? Is skin cancer just not a concern for Barbie and her pals?
Barbie doesn’t even have the problem that other 50-something women have–visible panty lines. While most 40-something women (and, ahem, we 30-somethings as well) are stuffing themselves into grandma panties that have some sort of tummy control, Barbie is underwearless. Yes, your child’s Barbie is currently sitting in the toy box, charming the heck out of Ken and GI Joe and she’s not wearing any panties. Kind of sick, isn’t it?
Barbie is so cool, gravity doesn’t even affect her. How many women do you know with a 39-inch bust who can go braless their entire lives? And how does she do all those sports without a sports bra anyway? You’d think one game of tennis would give her a black eye, if nothing else.
Now I have to say that Barbie has been unlucky in love. Really. Look at her, she’s stuck with Ken. This is a guy who first started with plastic molded hair, then progressed to a Velcro-like strip of brown on his scalp, finally stopping with the short, pseudo-hair he sports now. Still, even the new hair doesn’t make Ken the right guy for Barbie. Look, am I the only person on earth who thought that Ken would have preferred dinner and a movie with GI Joe, rather than Barbie?
All in all, I’m glad I'm not Barbie. But you know what? I’d still love to have an elevator in my house, Seriously. Wouldn’t that be too cool?

No comments:

Post a Comment