Pink: A Barbie Movie Post

Barbie rocks her pink gingham dress in the Barbie movie. I pulled the image from this article.

Hello all! I hope you’re wearing pink today because it’s Wednesday, and because I want to talk about the Barbie movie. Originally, I wanted to make a post about the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, but since I haven’t written about the Barbie movie yet, I thought it would be disrespectful to skip over it.

Specifically, this post is dedicated to the color pink and how since I grew up, it has come to represent a lot of things. From the stereotype that pink is every little girl’s favorite color, to the “Real men wear pink” idea, this color in particular seems to have a lot of representation when it comes to gender identity.

The color’s very presence in the Barbie movie almost deterred one of my coworkers from going to see the movie. She didn’t like the stereotype that all little girls have to like pink or wear pink, and I explained to her that’s not really what the Barbie movie is about. Barbie herself wears different colors in her outfits each day, and in the opening song, titled “Pink” of course, Lizzo sings, “We like other colors, but pink just looks so good on us.”

The Barbie movie actually tries to break the stereotype of associating pink with femininity because the men in the Barbie movie wear pink too. It’s not because “realy men wear pink,” but because Barbieland is a place where gender stereotypes aren’t really present (aside from, of course, that women go out to work and men stay at home).

Speaking of which, I’ve heard a lot of complaints that the Barbie movie puts women on a “pedestal.” Yeah. That’s the point. The movie imagines a world where gender roles were flipped to show that society can’t function when there are gender binaries making one gender oppressed or reliant on the other.

This is why the Kens have an uprising, and why Barbie tells Ken to discover who he is without Barbie. He is capable of being his own person and finding himself without association to others. People who actually watch the movie would know that.

It’s okay to not like the Barbie movie, but don’t hate others for liking it. Those who liked the Barbie movie probably just needed someone to articulate how it feels when you are on the receiving end of gender binaries and stereotypes.

Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, writers of Barbie, took the direction of putting men into the traditionally female role, and what do you know? A lot of men lost their minds. Again, yeah. That’s the point. Any person in their right mind would lose it if they were oppressed just because society favors one gender over the other and they were born into the wrong one.

And certainly, now that pink has begun to bring women joy, it’s a problem. Any woman who likes the color pink is now accused of perpetuating gender stereotypes when in fact they are trying to break them. The Barbie movie tried to show women and girls that it’s okay to like the color pink, it’s not just a color for little girls and it also doesn’t have to be every little girl’s favorite color. They don’t even have to like pink, but they should be able to like whatever color they want without judgement.

I know I talked in another post about pick-me girls and how I used to sort-of be one of them. I also used to not be as big a fan of the color pink because I thought I would be judged for it.

When I was six years old and my sister and I got our own rooms instead of sharing one, I chose a shade of pink called “Delicate Rose” to paint the walls. My parents warned me about choosing pink because they thought I wouldn’t like it as much when I got older, as if pink is something I was supposed to grow out of.

And they were right. All of the outer influences in my life taught me that the color pink was juvenile and that I needed to like more adult colors. I picked blue as my favorite color for a while because I thought that might impress more people that wow, a young girl likes blue (a stereotypical boy color) rather than pink.

I’m finally starting to get back into pink nowadays. The walls in my old room are still “Delicate Rose.” We never painted over them, and it’s a pretty shade of pink. Six-year-old Ashley had good taste.

So, what we learn from this (hopefully) is that while pink is not a universal color, it’s also not limited to only young girls or only women/femininity. The Barbie movie helped me realize how much I love pink and to start embracing it instead of pushing it away.

I recognize that a lot of young girls’ toys and clothing are pink, but I’m glad clothing stores are beginning to give young girls more options. I think this will play a bigger role than people realize in helping young girls be their authentic selves.

I know I feel most like myself in my pink sweater that I found at a Sear’s closing sale (of all places) when I was like, 12. I still have it after almost 10 years.

Please, just let people love what they love, no matter their age.