Record-breaking heat this summer has raised risks for millions of American workers in hot conditions. This is helping to spur a rethink of how the country manages extreme heat and labor.
When I tell people a generation younger that I went to the 鈥淏arbie鈥 movie, the response is often, 鈥淲hy?!鈥澛
To which I respond, 鈥淲hy not?鈥 What better way to escape the Washington heat 鈥撀燼nd politics 鈥撀爋n a Sunday afternoon in July than with a live-action fantasy about an iconically kitschy, mass-produced doll? Plus, I wanted a good laugh.
But I soon discovered there was more to the film than a frothy pink romp through Barbie Land (and beyond) and many jokes at the expense of poor Ken. 鈥淏arbie鈥 the movie 鈥撀reviewed here聽by the Monitor 鈥 is really an invitation to think about how we raise our children, and about expectations.聽
It also invites introspection about our own childhoods. I remember, as a kid in the 1960s, playing with Barbies at friends鈥 houses but not having Barbies of my own. So, as I often do, I tested my memory in a call to Mom. And indeed, I was right. We were a Barbie-free household.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 really believe in Barbies,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 just thought they were a little bit much 鈥 the body shape, then all the clothes.鈥
My own daughter, now well into adulthood, had lots of Barbies: six, to be precise, recently discovered in varying degrees of disarray in a box in the basement. I didn鈥檛 buy them; Barbies just had a habit of walking in the door. Ultimately, I don鈥檛 think all those Barbies shaped my daughter鈥檚 worldview in any meaningful way.聽
Barbies are hardly 鈥渇eminist icons,鈥 no matter how hard Mattel marketed President Barbie or Astrophysicist Barbie. But I also don鈥檛 see them as necessarily damaging to young psyches. Sometimes a doll is just a doll.