Can we please stop associating being a good person with how much you’re willing to suffer in silence for other people? You can be a kind person and still say “no, I don’t have the time/energy to help you with that.” You can be a kind person and still say “this makes me uncomfortable, please stop.” You can be a kind person and still say “I disagree and here’s why.” You can be kind and still say “I’m not okay with this.” Being kind is about treating people with kindness and respect, not about being the human equivalent of a doormat!
thinking about the scene in barbie where she asks for permission to be herself and she’s told she doesn’t need permission, and no one can give her permission for that, because it’s just something you start doing
thinking about the scene in barbie where they say you don’t need to be exceptional to have worth and deserve love, because just getting through the day is often hard enough
also thinking about the scene in barbie where barbie tells a bunch of construction workers she doesn’t have a vagina and the construction workers who have no context beyond her being a pretty girl are like “oh okay that’s cool”
And personally? To be in the tickets booth, and see young girls, teenagers, adult women, coming in to see Barbie,
the most highlighter pink outfits, some of them coming in with the dolls they’re dressed as, laughing to each other, cheering for each other,
to see the men they’re coming to see it with, dressed in pink, cheering them on, taking their pictures with smiles and cheers in the lobby at the photo op
touches something so deep in me
I can’t say any nuances of the movie that haven’t already been said, but like, fuck man, love is so deep and so kind and to be able to see glimpses of it from behind my little ticket desk makes me a little less nihilistic.
I hope Barbie is so good and successful it makes every executive that’s turned everything bright and fun made for young girls into edgy boring teen dramas for the last ten years spontaneously combust into flames
