One of the things I’ve been thinking about in the week plus since I saw the Barbie movie is how — this is not really a spoiler — for all the discussions of its feminism, it never really offers any exciting vision of what a feminist utopia might look like. I mean, yeah, there’s Barbie Land, but that’s more of a matriarchy as reverse patriarchy, with empowered women for whom the world is an oyster buffet, and men who are nothing more than eye candy; aside from that, we get the cartoonish Ken patriarchy and… the real world, which we’re warned is kind of fraught. The movie is very capable of pointing out a wide array of problems — and for some people that might be enough! — but it doesn’t really go beyond that, which for me, personally, is kind of a bummer.
And like, yes, I know. It’s a Mattel movie, it’s a blockbuster, it is about a child’s toy, what more can we expect??? But I don’t know if I totally buy that, because I feel like I’ve seen quite a few mainstream properties for literal children (including one that was a reboot of a glorified toy commercial from the 1980s) that have actually managed to be exciting and fun and offer up a glimpse of what a post-heteropatriarchy world might look like that’s more than just “women run the show now.” I think the biggest difference, the thing that helps to make those shows — in which I’m including, off the top of my head, stuff like Steven Universe, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and The Owl House — is that they are all made by queer people (and in two out of three, bi people).
[Feels like I should note here that I don’t actually know if Gerwig is or isn’t queer — yes she’s married to Noah Baumbach but that… doesn’t mean anything, I mean she also went to Barnard so who knows, amirite?]
I don’t think this should really be a surprise. The thing about queerness is that it forces one to reinvent. Queer people have far fewer road maps for what our lives, our relationships, our families are supposed to look like; while some of us certainly just rejigger the hetero model but with different genders (not unlike, uh, the whole matriarchy as reverse patriarchy idea), many of us… don’t. When presented with a blank slate, why would you just recreate a paint by numbers picture, you know? Why wouldn’t you use the freedom to create an original vision that more readily represents your heart’s song?
And while I don’t personally love the whole “bi people cannot do heteronormativity because we are bi” argument — I think bi people are, uh, people first, and people can participate in all manner of shitty relationship structures if they feel enough pressure to from society! — I do think that being bi gives you a window into other ways of being that can make it easier to envision different ways of structuring your life, your relationships, your family than it is for straight people. Even when that life, those relationships, that family are superficially straight.
And I mean, I don’t think it necessarily has to be this way. I think everyone has the capacity to envision better futures, even straight people! It’s just that for so many folks, hetero structures are like water to fish. Maybe you can recognize that the water is tainted, that it’s slowly poisoning you. But to imagine your world without water? How would that even work?
Which is why I’m glad to be an amphibious creature, I guess.
"When pre[s]ented with a blank slate, why would you just recreate a paint by numbers picture, you know?" Great line
Good to be amphibious.
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