Welcome to #TransTuesday! Tillyvision continues with THE INTENTIONAL (!) TRANS ALLEGORY OF BARBIE (the movie), PART 3! We’re gonna engage with the subconscious, and take our first steps into the real world as ourselves. Things are gonna get weird!
Of course, be sure you begin with PART 1 and all the context you need.
And PART 2, covering the first act of the movie!
19:23 – Look at the very weird path to Weird Barbie’s weird house, and how uncomfortable Barbie is (now in EVEN MORE ROYAL BLUE AS SHE CONNECTS WITH HER SUBCONSCIOUS).
This is another (looser) visual reference to THE MATRIX, when Neo was on the path to talk with HIS subconscious, Morpheus. Then, as here in BARBIE, the path is winding and confusing when you’re digging through your own subconscious to find the truth.
Not only are both paths scary and winding, both of them RISE. Both Barbie and Neo have to climb the foreboding, twisting path to honestly connect with their subconscious. You have to root through all your thoughts and feelings if you want to be ready for what awaits.
19:30 – As Barbie approaches weird Barbie’s house: “I would never wear heels if my feet were shaped this way.” I WOULD NEVER WEAR THIS CLOTHING THAT DOES NOT FIT THE WAY MY BODY IS, IT MAKES ME FEEL BAD. It’s transness up and down all day long.
As we get Weird Barbie’s intro, I remind you again that she’s Barbie’s subconscious. She’s in pink because Barbie doesn’t yet know if what her subconscious is going to tell her is the truth (Morpheus at times appeared in colors relating to doubt for Neo, too).
But what her subconscious is telling her, on its face, is that she’s trans. Pink and blue together, remember? What’s on Weird Barbie’s forehead? HER SUBCONSCIOUS IS TELLING BARBIE, ON ITS FACE, THAT SHE’S TRANS!
20:17 – Weird Barbie, re: Barbie’s feet: “Flat. Never seen that before.” Barbie “Can you fix them?” My body feels better this way but everyone says it should be another way, can I go back? But if you’re trans, you know what the subconscious is going to tell you.
20:33 – Weird Barbie, re: Ken: “I’d like to see what kind of nude blob he’s packing under those jeans.” A good joke about the dolls, BUT if Ken is Barbie’s false male persona… the subconscious is saying it knows what’s going on in the crotch isn’t what’s “expected.”
20:50 – Weird Barbie asks what preceded the flat feet. Barbie: “Thoughts of death.” Thinking about change and transition ALLOWED her to change her body in ways she liked. It obviously takes more than just thought, but this is metaphor. And transition begins in the mind.
21:10 – “There is a rip in the continuum that is the membrane between Barbie Land and the real world.” Dunno how many times I’ve said it, but when you wake up to the cis binary matrix being a lie, you start to see all the OTHER lies society also tells you. You see the truth.
21:18 – Weird Barbie “…if you want to be stereotypical Barbie perfect again, then baby girl, you gotta go fix it. Or you’re gonna keep going funny. Look at your upper thigh.” And there’s cellulite. More body changes, which freak Barbie out.
But Barbie’s transition in the surface story is from artificiality to a real woman, right? Which is allegorically a transition from a false shell of a “cis” man to a trans woman. So the cellulite represents another body-changing step along that path to the true her.
Also note that her subconscious calls her “BABY GIRL.” This is the start of Barbie’s journey to her true self. Trans people who’ve only just realized and accepted are often described as “baby trans.” It’s not derogatory, it just indicates the beginning of a new stage of life.
21:25 – Weird Barbie: “…and then you’re gonna start getting sad and mushy and complicated.” So, funny thing! For a lot of trans people, being on the right hormones allows us access to emotions we couldn’t experience before, because dysphoria kept us so closed off.
See the trans tuesday on GENDER DYSPHORIA for what that’s like.
And so yeah, if you don’t “fix” your transness (which can’t be done, but DAMN do so many of us try, over and over again), you’re going to transition and open yourself up to a whole flood of really strong, messy, complicated feelings and changes.
21:35 – Weird Barbie: “You have to go to the real world, and you have to find the girl that is playing with you.” To figure this out, Barbie needs to get in touch with her inner little girl, the one she never got to be, and find out what’s going on.
21:50 – Weird Barbie: “Her thoughts and feelings and humanness are interfering with your dollness.” Isn’t it weird that when we start becoming our true self, it interferes with us upholding the artificiality of gender assigned at birth? How ‘bout that!
22:05 – Barbie feels she can’t be responsible because all she’s ever wanted was for everything to stay exactly as it is. And again, you do NOT know how many times trans people often just keep trying to wish our transness away.
The life upheaval it causes (and it SHOULDN’T, but our transphobic society makes it so) and the way so many of us lose family, friends, homes, and jobs after coming out… we KNOW what we’re risking. We try to bury it and be the cis person we’re told to be. It doesn’t work.
22:21 – In one of the very MOST clear visual references to THE MATRIX, Weird Barbie offers Barbie the two shoes, just as Morpheus offered Neo the two pills.
And JUST LIKE in the MATRIX, this is what establishes the meanings of these two colors (or color families, in BARBIE’S case). In the MATRIX, the red was for truth and the blue for doubt.
In BARBIE, the pink is a high heel, showing you IT is the doubt or lies. Go back to your “regular” life and forget any of this ever happened, even though it will cause you pain and discomfort and contort your body in ways you hate.
The EARTH TONED Birkenstock is to know the truth about the universe, and to find comfort and support. COULD MS. GERWIG BE ANY CLEARER?
Barbie tries to deny her truth and picks the high heel, but Weird Barbie, her subconscious, knows that’s not right. She’s not having it.
23:01 – Weird Barbie won’t let her ignore it all. “I just gave you a choice so you could feel some sense of control.” This is ANOTHER MATRIX connection, especially to RELOADED, where Neo is wondering if he ever had a choice at all and struggling with the issue of CONTROL.
23:05 – Weird Barbie: “You have to fix the rip yourself.” This is ANOTHER MATRIX connection as it’s a reframing of the message of the first movie: YOU are “The One” you’ve been waiting for to save you. You. Can. Save. Yourself. (by choosing to transition)
23:46 – Barbie: “How do I find this girl?” Weird Barbie, “You will know.” ANOTHER MATRIX connection as it’s a reframing of, Neo: “Are you telling me I can dodge bullets?” Morpheus: “I’m saying when you’re ready, you won’t have to.”
24:21 – The banner reads, “bon voyage to reality and good luck restoring the membrane that separates our world from theirs so you don’t get cellulite.” It’s PINK. aka SURE HOPE YOU CAN FIX YOUR PROBLEM AND KEEP UPHOLDING THE CIS BINARY, YOU ANOMALY.
24:56 – Barbie: “I just don’t want to leave. I’m trying to find reasons not to leave.”
25:12 – Barbie: “I’ll be back in no time with perfect feet and we’ll forget that this happened.”
Again, so many times, we try to find reasons NOT to transition. To pretend we’re not trans.
It never works.
As Barbie leaves, she’s in pink because she has doubts about what she’s going to find, and as we just saw from those lines she’s trying very hard to doubt her truth. But Ken is in pink and blue together, her transness is still there. She’s TRYING to leave it behind.
25:43 – “Closer to Fine” by The Indigo Girls plays as she drives.
And just look at the lyrics to the song, which are all about finding answers on your own, and not as outlined by the expectations of society.
I’m trying to tell you something ’bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
No everything is NOT black and white, not cis man or cis woman only. Maybe not playing by those rules will help you find what you’re looking for.
Well, darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear
And I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it
I’m crawling on your shores
Dysphoria is unending and the truth is hard to accept. We try to deny that truth and embrace what we know is wrong, and we’re left with the wreckage of our lives. I’m not going to put the rest of the lyrics in here, but it goes on just like that.
This is the most famous song from one of the most well-known queer bands, and it appearing at this moment is a CHOICE. Barbie already knowing all the words is definitely telling you something. Are you listening?
26:09 – Ken pops up in the back seat singing and she screams. She was trying to run from her transness, leave it behind, reaffirm her cisness. But before she’s even halfway there, a reminder. Hey! You’re still trans. But now Ken’s all in pink (doubt), just like her.
27:30 – Barbie and Ken rollerblading into the real world in their most ostentatious outfits. There’s a lot going on here. Barbie’s first steps into the real world, closer to her true self. Ken is there, pinks and blues (ROYAL blues) are together. It’s kinda garish and she’s gawked at.
And interestingly, there’s this thing that happens with trans folks, especially trans women, where when a lot of us first start transition we don’t at all know what we like or want to wear, or what looks good on us, and sometimes we end up wearing really weird stuff.
Trying to figure it all out is a process, which I talked about in the trans tuesday on FINDING OUR TRANS STYLE.
But she’s gawked at. Laughed at. Stared at. And I cannot tell you how often that happens to trans people, ESPECIALLY early on in our transitions. See the trans tuesday on STOP STARING AT US (trans people are human beings).
27:50 – Further, she’s sexualized by men. And as an early transition trans woman, yeah, that’s definitely something you likely never experienced when the world thought you were a cis man, and even though you know it exists it’s still a jolt to the system to experience it.
28:25 – Ken likes it. “I feel admired, but not ogled. And there’s no undertone of violence.” Barbie: “Mine very much has an undertone of violence.” While this very accurately describes the way men and women are treated in society in general…
This is ALSO a thing trans women early in transition suddenly have to deal with. The world SAW me as a cis man before, and that did not come with the sexualization OR implied violence that comes with being a woman (ESPECIALLY a trans woman).
28:53 – Barbie responds to the catcalling, “I would just like to inform you, I do not have a vagina.” Do you… do you know what trans women are not born with? I bet you do.
Barbie gestures to Ken. “And he does not have a penis.” If Ken is her false male shell, she likely never WANTED him to have one, as it’s a huge source of dysphoria for many trans women.
29:16 – Ken: “Everything’s like almost reversed here.” VERY much how it feels when you go from perceived cis man to being seen as the trans woman you are. Society turns on its head in the way it treats you.
Come back next week, when you’ll see that, after not liking the response to transness we see in society, we try to pull back… and that leads to all kinds of problems.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com