Dollface.

One surefire way to annoy your friends is to play the “Which American Girl doll did you have?” and then to insist that your friend was “totally a Molly.”  You see, Kirsten was a free-spirited, independent type (“Keeer-sten, not Kris-ten”) with rad hair and pioneer clothes.  Felicity was of the more traditional ilk but had that offbeat, rebellious-looking reddish hair and cool bed-heating pan thing from the 1700s that I desperately wanted for my own doll’s bed.  I think she played an instrument — also admirable.  Samantha was a snob, but clearly had the best wardrobe and accoutrements.  (A sailor dress with a little beret?  A red satin Christmas dress?!  She had it all.  For the record, I owned Samantha and was one of those girls who kept her doll in pristine condition, meaning that I would only comb halfway down her hair to avoid brushing out the curl.  I loved Samantha.)  And then there was Molly, the resident dork.

My bestie hates when I suggest that she was a Molly.

It’s amusing to reflect on how fiercely we identify with specific characters as young girls.  I’ve recently referenced my love for both Mary Anne Spier and Claudia Kishi of the Baby Sitter’s Club.  I was a huge Nancy Drew junky.  I loved Cam Jansen and her photographic memory for a spell or two.  I was also very into all of the Disney movies, but loved Belle of Beauty and the Beast most.  Spunky but bookish, a doting daughter and yet willing to defy men when needed, and — above all — able to see beyond appearances, Belle was the jam, and a powerful heroine for a little lass to look up to.  Sometimes I wonder about what kinds of characters kids these days look up to.  There’s a general sense, as I age, that things are “way worse” for “kids these days.”  This is the necessary mantle one assumes as one ages, I believe — an inevitability one can’t avoid, along with wrinkles, a preoccupation with taking vitamins (and performing other old-age- and illness-prevention tactics), and comments like: “I can’t believe we stayed up after midnight last night.”

After reading Roxane Gay’s take on Katniss Everdeen from Hunger Games, I’m encouraged.  (I’ve written about Roxane Gay before, but as a refresh: she wrote a fascinating little book of essays called Bad Feminist: Essays that has left me with a lot to think about, refute, and hope to change about myself.  Strongly recommend.  You will wince and disagree and laugh and nod vigorously within the space of a few chapters.  At least I did.  I kind of want to be friends with her, but I’d live in a constant state of panic as to what she’s read into a likely innocuous comment from yours truly.  She has one of those fierce minds that dissects and interprets and reframes everything.  She’d probably make the point that there’s no such thing as an “innocuous comment,” come to think of it.  At one point in the book, she takes a rap artist to task for his “laziness” with language.)  The fact that heroines like Katniss exist — say what you will about the quality of the books themselves — makes me happy.

But today I want to talk about a different kind of character that I have often discussed on le blog: Barbie.  Ol’ Barb has come under a lot of fire over the past decade.  And while I can appreciate the concerns folks have with the fact that she represents an unrealistic, unhealthy, totally untenable kind of beauty and body type, I am convinced that Barbie taught me to dream, to create, and to play.  My brother had legos and lincoln logs to build things.  (I actually had both of those, too.)  But my sisters and I created enormous, complex, multi-faceted narratives for our Barbies.  We would re-cast our Barbies in new storylines and plots, re-imagining them time and time again (though there were a few George Clooney-types, meaning Barbies who had pretty recognizable traits that transcended the character they were currently playing; we had Midge, for example, who always played the role of wealthy grandmother).  We would recreate elaborate movie scripts, changing up the parts we didn’t like and embellishing the parts we did.  We would build entire towns with banks, car washes, drive-thrus, doctors, mansions, and trailer parks.  There were marriages, deaths, births, divorces, and “accidents” (poor one-legged Barbie was in a wheelchair for the vast majority of our games after the year 1992).  And we learned to play together — fairly and creatively — forging our own rules for “picking Barbs” from the pile (basically, a long process of drafting our Barbie families that involved covering our eyes and drawing Barbies from a heap, in sequential order, the oldest first) and not starting to play until everyone was awake.  Barbies taught us to create, narrate, recreate, and renarrate — together.

Maybe I’m overstating the value of ol’ Barb as a look back on my childhood with rose-colored glasses, but, just in case, here’s a little tribute to the good ol gal with a couple of items Barbie would have loved:

+Pearl drop earrings (Ben Amun, $115);

+Miu-Miu bow-embellished top ($1,140);

+Gilded brush ($85);

+Zac Posen bow clutch ($195);

+Pink satin Manolos ($595);

+Silken Matthew Williamson shorts ($475);

+Cynthia Rowley flounce dress ($375);

+Dramatic Maison Michel hat ($450);

+The Row shades ($425);

+Norma Kamali one-piece ($350);

+Gucci wedge sandals ($698);

+Gingham bikini (Ete, on sale for $90);

+Tabitha Simmons wedges ($545);

+Wildfox shades in lavender or blush ($189);

+Pink PB 0110 purse ($1,075).