Welcome. Your Plastic Box Is This Way
ON BARBIE AT THE OSCARS, PLASTIC PERFECTION, AND BEAUTY IN A BOX
INCLUDED IN THIS PACKAGE:
Welcome. Your Plastic Box Is This Way
Media in Review
Anisa’s Writing Corner
Conclusion
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Welcome. Your Plastic Box Is This Way
Like most people, I was disappointed by the simple fact that Barbie was snubbed at the Oscars. Like a lot of people, I wasn’t quite surprised. Commercial success has never equaled the favor of the most fickle movie gods. In fact, it’s usually the antithesis of the aforementioned. (Especially when a female actor-turned-director is responsible for a movie people loved. Some people may remember Barbra Streisand being snubbed for The Prince of Tides)
The Oscars are meant to feel ridiculously selective, so although Barbie ranked in some nominations, it wasn’t going to win, and some key ones were bound to be missing.
Barbie could have been as lofty and high-brow as it liked, and it still would have been too female to be Kenough. I won’t dwell on this subject, seeing as this article said it better than I could, but it got the cogs turning in my brain.
I started thinking about Barbie—the figure, not the movie—and also the standards set for women in general. There’s a lot to say, but we’ve all been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt, and watched the movie (figuratively, but also quite literally).
I probably wouldn’t have said anything if not for the video I saw on Instagram last week.
I don’t remember the first time I took a second look at someone to reassess their beauty, but I remember the last time it did. It happened, as it usually does, with a social-media scroll after dinner. A girl was trying a new style of make-up—think old money with a gangster edge.
(I could write a whole different newsletter about the way make-up artists have been inventively using the TikTok POV format, but that’s not why you clicked on this headline.)
Point is, it was pretty. I thought she was pretty. And then the comments made a big deal of her nose and suddenly I was looking again. It was as if some latent bomb labeled “critique” had been externally detonated, without a moment of reflection or mercy from either end of the explosion. Such damage, so easily done. This is a story penned by the fast-moving fingers of belligerent, faceless anons.
I caught myself before I fell too far, but it made me think. Modernity means a lot of good things, but it also means existing under the fluorescent gaze of the bright, Big Data lights. Being a female content creator means that netizens, like Big Brother, are always watching. Perfection must be maintained, or you will be picked apart by the lacquered fingernails of the person they want you to be. It’s not the only thing that makes living in this decade feel more dystopian each day, but it’s significant nonetheless.
For me to be pretty, you have to be able to buy me in a box. In a shelf of identical others, you chose me. You went to the store with a wish-list that all girls are meant to fit. And then you chose me, sameness in a sea of it, and you tell me that’s meant to be special?
In such a model, what room is there for the unique, the alternative, the wildly irregular and unchained? The non-conforming, the asymmetrical, the human, the real? The answer, as always, is none.
Few of us will step out of a Barbiecore plastic box and be received with breathless adoration. Few of us are new and the same in exactly the way they want us to be.
Beauty has always meant conformity, but standards change. The exact nose that the girl was shamed for sits firmly on the face of Botticelli’s Venus, is echoed in the paintings of the greats. The loose flesh modernity hates is Aphrodite’s too. Not all of us are angular, not all of us are soft. All of us can be beautiful to someone.
People are not designed to be held up to the light and scrutinized like freshly-cut diamonds. We are not, and have never been one-size-fits-all.
But those of us born within a certain bracket of years grew up with Barbies. Blonde, skinny, with impossible proportions, and we were taught that’s the only way to be. She belonged to all of us, looked like none of us, and yet we still wanted to be her. And those of us born later grew up with new Barbies, all of which could potentially look like us, and so of course it meant something when Barbie World came out and affirmed that “all of the Barbies is pretty.*” As such, these values of identical beauty can and should feel prehistoric, but people are—have always been—so very mean online.
I urge us all to be kinder, and at risk of sounding like a preacher on a pulpit if I go on any longer, I humbly step down from my soap-box. Is anyone up for some Media recommendations I’ve inherited from January?
*In Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj’s words.
MEDIA IN REVIEW
BOOKS:
I was very uninteresting and staid in January—I miss the months of reading about unhinged women—but I did read some things that may be of some interest.
A few of these reads are short and snappy, perfect for an afternoon with spare change. others are a bit longer, but still worthwhile.
I enjoyed:
Misunderstanding in Moscow by Simone de Beauvoir—it’s a wry, slice of life, politically-charged novella and is also deeply human.
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky—worth all the stars in the world. I read it because Jack Edwards (@jackbenedwards) said he read a tweet that said you won’t understand love till you read it, and I am pleased to say that this was a correct assessment. I cried. Please go into it knowing absolutely nothing else but that.
If you’ve got the Penguin Classics version, make sure you watch out for Bobok at the back—it is, in my opinion, typical Dostoevsky and is such a delightful read.
You’ve Been Summoned by Lindsey Lamar—this is an ARC, and I’m not sure if it’s out yet, but it was a great deal of fun. It’s the kind of interactive murder mystery I haven’t read since my childhood, and I’d highly recommend it to everyone immediately upon release.
The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes—took me a while to get to it, but it ended up being my favorite Hawthorne novel. That’s what I get for procrastinating.
Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl—I only read this because its premise sounded similar to a short story I wrote, but I’m so glad I read it. It’s not your typical Roald Dahl, but it’s unmissable and so deeply clever.
Right now, I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov and Truly Devious, as well as the delightfully bizarre novel Vita Nostra. Perhaps next month I’ll write and tell you all how they were, but I’m having a good time so far. What’s on your reading list this month? (If you’re ready and willing to tell me, reply to this email, and Substack should send it my way)
THEATER:
The fact that this is even a subcategory has me kicking my feet. In January, I got do something I’ve been waiting to do for four years— see Hamilton on a stage.
I wouldn’t have expected it, but it just so happened that the international tour brought Hamilton my way. I went to go see it on Yas Island, and it was marvelous. The cast was amazing—I can’t believe I got to see THE Rachelle Ann Ngo as Eliza???? HELLO???—and the performance was flawless. I tried my very best not to sing but I ended up murmuring/mouthing the words under my breath anyway (and was rewarded with a smile from Burr)
I will always have a soft spot for the original Broadway cast, but everyone in this production did amazing. It was brilliant to be in the Room Where it Happened (sorry, I had to). Rachelle as Eliza was heart-breaking, Burr stole the show, Lafayette/Jefferson was amazing, Laurens/Philip was devastating, and our Washington had some seriously impressive pipes. Our Hamilton also sounded eerily like Lin, which was interesting. If you’re in the city, maybe you can catch it! It’s running till the eleventh.
ANISA’S WRITING CORNER
In all honesty, most of my writing this year has been academic, and while that is my second love, I’m mourning the lack of time for my first. Writing about Sartre and Piaget and Erikson may be fun, but I’m wildly missing my manuscripts.
Alas, that means I have nothing news-worthy to tell you (sorrow of sorrows!). My first draft is still in the revision trenches, so I’ve funneled my left-over writing energy into writing about three short stories and a few poems here and there. I’m proud of them, and you may see some of them soon, so stay tuned! In the meantime, here’s a teaser of their respective subjects…
YDCAA - A test of love (ft. arson)
PR - A pre-meditated murder (ft. feminine rage)
LIB - An abrupt ending to life and love
YNR - Maladaptive Day-dreaming (in the most abstract sense)
ISSTF - Black-out poetry, childhood memory
One of these may be coming to you very, very soon. <3
Conclusion
Alas, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all the time we have.
[Please imagine a brief break in time where I glance directly at a clock]
I hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which was late, prone to metaphorical perambulation and horrible at getting to the point. January didn’t conclude very neatly, and it spilled over into February like water from a burst dam. In the same vein, I’m trying hard to close this newsletter, but it keeps leaking through the cracks. I do hope you’ll forgive me, and I hope my next newsletter will be better.
TTFN*,
Anisa
*Please, someone tell me they remember when that was a legitimate acronym.