Life in plastic, it’s fantastic

I remember being in the car with the kids. Ours was a world of sippy cups and using the vacuum at the gas station to clean up Cheerios that fell in the crevices between the car seats in the back seat.

From The Other Side

Radio Disney would be playing on the radio. Barbie World, a song that could only be created by a Scandanavian Euro-dance band like the Danish-Norwegian one-hit wonder Aqua, seemed to be played every hour on the hour. It seemed when that song wasn’t playing, we were listening to Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Italian Euro-dance one-hit wonder Eiffel 65.

Now, here we are nearly 25 years later. The world is an uproar over the new Barbie movie. I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t intend to. But if you look through the news feeds and see all of the boycotts and controversy surrounding the movie, brace yourself for the absurd.

If you thought Donald Trump made the Republican Party look bad, reaction to the Barbie movie might just stick a fork in the GOP.

Thank Gawd for the wisdom of Donald Trump’s main rival for the party leadership, Senator Ted Cruz. Had it not been for his insights, we probably would not have known that this movie contained pro-Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

In one scene, an inaccurate cartoon map of the “real world” is shown as Barbie considers a trip from Barbie Land to the Real World on a journey of self-discovery. The cartoon map, as Cruz points out, includes the ninedash line, which reinforces China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

For the record, the map also shows England next to Asia, with a crown on it. And the line has only eight dashes and in no way represents the real nine dash line. But it was enough to get the movie banned in Vietnam.

A spokesperson for the Warner Brothers Film Group heated up the kettle and poured some scalding hot water to quell the controversy in a statement make to entertainment site variety.com.

for the occasion. They both got slammed on social media after Ginger tweeted that this was not the Barbie she grew up with, and that Ken had a disappointingly low testosterone level.

Some from the far right then went on a public rampage about there being no faith in the movie. Come on, it’s a Barbie doll with a camper and a dream house. There is no Barbie Dream Chapple. About 90 per cent of Hollywood movies have no faith at all, so why would this one?

Themonestary.org quoted Pastor Ivan Tuttle of Tennessee said the movie was full of demonic influences, and that parents should not be surprised if their children suddenly starts to behave differently after seeing it.

The site then says that Christian preacher Kent Christmas took it one step further.

“I curse in the name of the Lord this new Barbie movie that has been released full of transexual and transgender and homosexuality,” he said, in a fire and brimstone style sermon. He then called on God to render “holy judgment” upon the film.

One of the stars of the film is transgender actor Hari Nef. Director Greta Gerwig wanted the LGTBQ community to feel represented in the community, so obviously some are boycotting the movie, claiming it is promoting the transgender movement.

Controversy is nothing new to Barbie. In 1959, there was backlash about the doll when it was introduced. Ruth Handler, who founded Mattel with her husband Elliot in 1945, came up with the idea when her daughter, Barbara, would play grown up with teen age paper dolls, and to frequently change her outfits.

Spoiler alert. The Handlers also had a son. His name was Kenneth.

It took six years for the designers at Mattel to create Barbie, and many disapproved of the plastic, curvy doll that was not the normal baby or little girl doll.

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“The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing,” the spokesperson told Variety. “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the ‘real world.’ It was not intended to make any type of statement.”

But wait, there’s more.

Matt Gaetz, a Republican House Representative form Florida, is a proponent of the far-right who seems to leave a trail of controversy behind him everywhere he goes. The New York times reported last Tuesday that Gaetz is under investigation by the Department of Justice concerning the possibility that he had sex with a 17-year-old and paid her to travel with him. So why would he not attend the red carpet reception and movie premier of Barbie hosted by the British Embassy in Washington last week?

Gaetz and his wife Ginger dressed in pink

Despite the controversy, Barbie became one of the best-selling toys of all time. And despite the controversy, the Barbie movie may be one of the top-grossing movies of all time.

Even the song by Aqua created controversy, with Mattel and Aqua embroiled in a bitter lawsuit until a US judge told both sides to “chill.” He actually said that. Who would ever have imagined that the two sides would mutually benefit from the avalanche of money through royalties that is headed their way?

When we all go back to taking kids and grandparents back to school next month, just look for the kids with laser red Satanic eyes or anyone rolling around on the floor and speaking in tongues. Then we’ll know who saw the movie.

Cue my Spotify Eurodance playlist.