“Barbie” star Margot Robbie at the June 30 pink carpet premiere of the film in Sydney, Australia. Photograph by Eva Rinaldi.
“Barbie” — the billion-dollar blockbuster that has fashion and interior designers thinking pink and movie theaters seeing green (as in dollars) — is a rather deceptive movie. It starts out as a kind of beach blanket battle-of-the-sexes rom-com that quickly builds into a poignant dramedy of what it means not to be a woman or a man but human.
Read MoreAs a woman of a certain, ahem, vintage, I owned the original Barbie doll.
She was a brunette with a ponytail and bangs that looked like an awning and improbable blue eye shadow, given that she was wearing a zebra-striped strapless bathing suit that showed off big boobs, a wasp waist and deer legs that seemed permanently molded for high heels.
I hated her on sight.
The years haven’t improved that perception. The unending wardrobe, the pink dream house and convertible, the bland boyfriend Ken – Barbie was designed to invite envy even as she had nothing really to offer. The funniest thing was her array of occupations, including astronaut and, in the Clinton years, presidential candidate. It was much like the Bond girls always being astrophysicists. ...
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