Sunday, July 1, 2018

Not-stalgia

My work life has gotten interesting lately, so I've taken to looking up the videos of 80s and 90s songs on YouTube as a sort of comfort. I looked up Phil Collins's "You Can't Hurry Love" one evening and saw the video below. I was immediately transported back to 1990--my friend Goldie had stayed over for a night at my house. We were supposed to be studying for the Biology Achievement test, but instead we spent the whole night dancing to Phil Collins Greatest Hits. 



It was a happy memory (if a bit embarrassing to admit) but here's the thing. Watching old videos by Phil Collins or Billy Joel or Bananara or Michael Jackson does not make me wish it was 199X again--not one little bit--not even 1998 (the year I lived in Paris after college.)

Why? Because I was miserable for most of that time. I went to a specialized high school and a good college, so I was probably less miserable than I could have been, but I spent an awful lot of my young-adulthood being miserable. Some of this was due to depression,  some of it I suspect is that it sucks being an adolescent.  It also--in my experience--sucks being a recent college grad. Of course, that's my experience only. Judging by the younger folks where I work, it doesn't suck so much if you majored in Business.

Do other people forget the misery of adolescence on purpose? Does high school appeal as a better simpler world, because the pains of having that guy/girl not like you, or passing Math pale compared to the drudgery of work/chores/bill-paying?

I don't know. All I can think is that when anyone near me says "Man I wish I was 21 again." I think of crying about my eviction notice written in Latin.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying--perhaps it high school and college look especially bad because I've viewing them through the lens of my miserable 20s. I spent some time thinking about this today ( I wrote a sloppy draft of this last night.)

On one hand, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure I had my first bout of adult depression the summer before my senior year of high school That blew normal adolescent anxieties (Math, Drafting, will I ever be asked out by someone I like? Why did I decide to cut my own bangs? etc.) out of the water. That doesn't mean they were all fun.



Sunday, March 11, 2018

Frida Kahlo Barbie

Frida Kahlo Barbie

There’s a Frida Kahlo Barbie out now—also an Amelia Earhart Barbie and a Katherine Johnson[1] Barbie. The Frida Kahlo Barbie has two eyebrows, which some people are objecting to[2]. I can see their point. I can also see the point of the people who decided that it would be a good thing for girls to have dolls of daring, famous women.

Speaking as the former owner of a set of Famous Women paper dolls[3], this whole campaign seems well intentioned, but pointless to me. Why? Because it didn’t matter what the short bio said the paper doll was, I used them all for whatever parts the play they fit in the play my brain came up with.  

Maybe I played with toys differently than other kids, but the whole point of a doll (or a set of Legos) was that it was a toy you could make into whatever you decided it should be. To my mind, that’s part of the point of play. If you give a kid a toy and tell them “This is Frida Kahlo” then you are telling them what to do with the toy—are they playing with it wrong if Frida is cast in the part of Morgan Le Fay for the afternoon[4]?

Similarly, (to my mind) if you give a kid a Lego kit and tell them that the kit only makes one thing, then the toy is done (and no longer fun) once they have made the X-Wing Fighter, or the Moon Landing Unit.[5]

I admit I am biased, but if you want girls to know and be inspired by women like Frida Kahlo, buy them books—not just the boring, wholesome/virtuous, scholastic library books (although you may have to start there), but books of her art. Tell them why you think she’s important (don’t wait until your daughter has to do a report for women’s history month—that defeats the purpose.)  If you do this, girls will not need a Frida Kahlo doll—if they want a doll to be Frida, they will make her so.


 


[1] Mathematician and Physicist. She’s in Hidden Figures, and yes I had to look this up.
[2] Yes, I get why Frida Kahlo Barbie should violate the rules of the Universe—making a Communist into a Barbie is probably a sign of the appocolypse.
[3] They probably came from the Smithsonian. They were to be colored in. Each doll came with one other “outfit” (Amelia’s Earhart’s outfit was her plane.) Each doll had a bio, explaining why this woman was cool.a
[4] I’m sorry to say that My Amelia Earhart paper doll often had to play a dude, because she had short hair and wore pants and a baggy coat and some of my plotlines as a kid called for dudes, but there were (obviously) no male paper dolls in my set of Famous Women paper dolls.
[5] When I first saw these kits, I was horrified. I see them differently now—more like puzzles or model-building kits, but they still don’t encourage creativity the way a giant box of random Legos does.