For all the talk of Barbie, Ken and uh, Allan, my personal Barbie movie hero is Weird Barbie.
One of the most important parts of the Barbie brand is that Barbie can be anything: she's the President and of the Supreme Court. She's a vet and also a physicist. She's a doctor and also an astronaut, and so on until you've listed every possible job in the world. But Weird Barbie is — and I mean no offence to any of the astronauts reading — the truest representation of anyone who has ever played with and loved a doll.
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In the film, Kate McKinnon's wonderful, hilarious Weird Barbie is the freaky outcast no one wants anything to do with.
She lives in a lopsided house on the outskirts of town, wears paint-spattered outfits and smells like "basement". She's the anthesis of the perfect, Chanel-wearing dolls that dance each night away in their dream houses in the right part of town.
She's also the most human. Weird Barbie is kooky and chaotic, but also smart and funny. She says the wrong thing at the wrong time and gives off energy that tells me sometimes she wakes up at 4am because she's just remembered something embarrassing she did at 17. She has critical-thinking skills, a sense of humour and a comfortable pair of shoes.
And even if she put on the Chanel and joined in the dancing, which I bet she'd have fun doing sometimes, Weird Barbie is totally unique. Just like every one of us.
Most of us who ever played with Barbies would agree that sometimes, Barbie does represent having perfectly coiffed hair, chic outfits and the job of your dreams. Sometimes, it's fun to have your sh*t together.
