Tattooed Barbie In Her Own Words

AS TOLD TO DESIREE DEMOLINA

I believe we have fallen into a conflict of interest and common sense. But where do I begin? With my story, or the obvious truth? For fifty-two years I have kept my mouth shut. For fifty-two years, I have been treated like chopped liver, shifting mentality and style without any sort of word edge-wise. From Jackie O to Grace Kelly, teacher to doctor, my collection of multiple personalities and freakish anatomical variations have been pretty extensive, but usually sophisticated. Unlike you, when I find myself in the wrong outfit, I lack the alternative to go home and change.  But the natives are restless. Consistently blamed for being too blonde, too thin, too perfect, I have always followed trends, but not particularly generated them.  This is why you could imagine my discomfort when I woke up after a, for lack of better words, untamed night sporting a pink bob, leopard leggings, and tattoos that strained across my chest and arms. Parents, up in arms, fault me for promoting negative images about outer appearance. I, in defense, assert that it’s about time that children learn they’ll one day be judged by their looks.

Besides, shouldn’t my new reflection simply demonstrate the infamous examples of consumerist trash we’ve been pulled into? My distant and disheveled cousins, the Bratz family, have made my Mattel parents billons. It’s a doll-eat-doll world out there, and parents control which toys are delivered to their little angels.  However, some things are unavoidable. Turn on the radio as you drive your daughter to her next Girl Scout meeting, and you’ll hear the egregious top forty songs that support “last Friday night,” having a “passion in your pants,” and living “young and wild and free.” As you can understand, these tunes remind us that young people are easily influenced to make poor decisions in life that they’ll only regret later on.

But that’s far from the point, because the real problem is my skull-and-cross bone sweater and not the fact Ke$ha is prone to “a bottle of Jack” before breakfast. I thought I was an iconic reminder of empowerment and being who you want. Should my wild self-expression, tattoos and all, not encourage different conceptions of beauty? Of course not. Every lady with tattoos parties too hard and curses too often. But without tattoos, my position in this realm is dubbed as “flawless”, which apparently is still a poor body-image promotion. I felt like I could never win. Perhaps this is why I choose to shape-shift countless times to embrace the gamut of beauty that exists.

Still, parents bad-mouth me and my crude and unrefined endorsement. But was I ever actually purchased by these haters and given to their child? No. Explain to your children you don’t think tattoos are okay. Invest money on a good book or painting supplies. Maybe one day she’ll get a tattoo anyway. Oh well.