Barbie

A Contentious Topic — But What Do Our Children Think?

Wild Flower
4 min readJul 29, 2023

While the rest of the world seemingly went bananas for the Barbie movie, I hadn’t quite caught the hype just yet. I mean, sure, I had a secondhand Barbie as a child, I recall dressing her up and slathering her face with a permanent marker for makeup. But I wasn’t mad about it. It wasn’t a memory I considered important.

I am, however, a bonus mum now, and I care deeply about the way my children perceive the world and it’s important to me that what they’re viewing sends the right message.

When my two young girls asked to go see the movie, that’s when I began to think about it. With a 12th birthday fast approaching, I made the decision we’d do a girl’s night and head to the local cinema and check it out. Sure enough, as soon as I booked the tickets I started seeing mixed feedback on Medium and socials.

Admittedly, I loved seeing a sea of pink everywhere, the outfits and excitement worldwide. Who doesn’t love a bit of sparkle and hype?

I discovered two of my girlfriends had seen it, so I decided to get their opinions. One girlfriend is a feminist…

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Wild Flower

Jess is my real name. Writing from sandy shores in-between the chaos of life. Community worker by day and P o e t e s s all other times. Journey with me.