Barbie Snaps (And This Time, It’s Not A Body Part)

“I have been doing press for six months,” she says. “And if one more person asks me how Ken and I do it when he hasn’t got a thing, I will barf."

Barbie stopped by my place this week to promote her movie. I wasn’t entirely surprised. There have been 15 stories in the New York Times in the last month and the director, Greta Gerwig, and the stars have been doing interviews non-stop. Even The Mormon missionaries, who knocked on the door of the country house I’m renting, had run into them.

 “I don’t want to sound critical,” one told me, “But my feeling is, give it a rest. Other things are going on in the world; Trump planning to increase the power of the President, extreme weather, Biden sending cluster munitions to Ukraine. Have you heard the good news about Jesus?”

This is when Barbie, in her pink Corvette, roars into the driveway.

 “Take a hike, Bible thumpers!” she hollers to the Salt Lake team.

 And to me, “Got anything to drink in this house? I have been doing press for six months and if I get one more, ‘How do you and Ken do it if he doesn’t have a thing?’ I am going to barf.”

 “Can you really do that?” I say.

 “Want me to show you?” Barbie says.

 “I’ve got white wine, iced tea, and the landlady left me a bottle of Bacardi with ready-made mixes,” I say.

 “The hell with the mixes,” Barbie says, walking in. “Just bring the bottle.”

We head out to the deck, where Barbie kicks off her shoes, downs a glass of rum like it’s water, and stretches out on a lounge. She is 64 now, her waist is thicker than it once was and she has obviously had some work, but she still looks great.

 “Barbie,” I say. “I am honored that you dropped in to promote this movie. But like everyone else in America, I have been Barbie Blitzed for the last two months and there is nothing about the Barbie universe you can tell me that I don’t already know. I know you were created in 1959 and you’re exactly 11.5 inches tall. I know Ken was created two years later and there are now Kens with man-buns and earrings and Barbies in thirty-five skin colors and nine body types.  I know there’s a Wheelchair Barbie, a Bald Barbie, an Elizabeth Taylor Barbie, Three Astronaut Barbies, and a Veterinarian Barbie. There was a flaming pink sunset the other day, and all I could think was, ‘Impressive -- they got to God.’ ”  

Barbie sits up and thrusts out an arm. Only now in the bright sun do I see the pale pink scars on her wrist.

 “You know everything, huh?” she says. “How about Women Who Love Too Much Barbie? Know about her?”

 “No!” I say. “You tried to kill yourself over a man?”

 Barbie nods grimly.

 “Doctor Barbie said it was only my inability to bend my wrists that enabled me to survive.”

 “Oh, Barbie,” I say. “I’m sorry. Ken seemed so nice.”

Barbie laughs so bitterly I wonder if she is actually Bette Davis Barbie.

“Original Ken?” she said. “That lightweight? I mean he’s a nice guy, but Proud Boy Ken is better informed. It was Robert Oppenheimer, back in ‘64. What an idiot I was.”

A million questions are going through my head, many of them relating to the question Barbie is sick of answering. But those of you who have studied my journalistic tome, Establishing Trust, know that one must create a bond with the subject before tackling subjects of an intimate nature. Unless the subjects are out of their minds plastered, which, given the way Barbie is hitting the Bacardi, is coming up fast.

“So, it’s the summer of ’64 – the year, you’ll remember, that Susan Sontag publishes her landmark essay, ‘Notes On Camp’,  in The Paris Review,” Barbie begins. “I had been taken in by a 10-year-old brat in Princeton, who was driving me nuts styling my hair all day and babbling, ‘Do you like it in a ponytail or do you like it loose?’ . ‘What I’d like is for you to have one serious book in this house; Gide, de Beauvoir, Malraux, something,’ I want to say, only I’m very serious back then about being a good little doll and not talking. But that house is such an intellectual wasteland that one day I just pack my teeny suitcase and take off, with no idea of where I'm going. I end up on a bench, in my Suburban Shopper outfit, you know the blue and white striped sundress and straw hat. Oppie spots me sitting there and it’s love at first sight.”

I am trying to work out the numbers in my head.

“But he would have been like…58.5 inches taller than you,” I say.

Barbie looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“You know nothing about magic realism,” Barbie says. “The moment I start challenging the doll ethos and break away, I become human size. I mean, I am still incredibly stacked, but what guy is going to complain about that? Not J. Robert Oppenheimer. He takes me to lunch and listens to my story and next thing you know, we’re in the Stickett Inn, a tawdry, cheap motel, though you wouldn’t know that by the name. The sex was a revelation. Remember, I hadn’t even been given genitals…”

We’ve established trust a lot faster than I’d expected.

“Exactly!,” I say, “So how was that even —”

“What a fool I was, what a fool!” Barbie says. “He told me his marriage was a sham and he hadn’t touched his wife in years. From the way he tore off my clothes, I didn’t doubt it.  He destroyed my Roman Holiday outfit, which I loved. It wasn’t all sex, we often talked quantum mechanics deep into the night and I was thrilled that this brilliant man valued what I had to say on molecular wave functions and nuclear fusion.  After a lifetime of being treated like an airhead, he made me feel important. It reached a point where I would do anything for him. Too much. For instance, that three-way with Einstein. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea, but who was I, a little plastic-head, to say no? Two geniuses at the same time --”

I jump in.

“And since you bring it up --” I begin.

“You have to remember, this was long ago, there was no Me Too Barbie,” Barbie says. “Oppie was the Great Man, I was honored just to be in his presence. It never occurred to me that there was anyone else. Then one afternoon, I spot him with Debbie Drake, that multi-jointed tramp – her knees bend, need I say more?  I went straight back to The Bimbo Arms, this very tasteful apartment complex Oppie had set me up in, and slashed my wrists. From there, it was one tawdry affair after another. And that awful porn movie, “Barbie Bangs Baltimore”. Four men, simultaneously -- ”

“That is so fascinating,” I say. “Because what many people can’t help wondering -- ”

“Oh, goodness, look at the time!” Barbie says. “I still have two hundred thousand more interviews to do. Get the word out, will you Joyce? J. Robert Oppenheimer was no friend to living dolls. Boycott his movie. Mine opens nationwide, tomorrow.”

And with that, Barbie leaps into her hot pink Corvette and takes off, leaving a cloud of pink dust that covers my car. It’s probably pointless, this week, to try to get it off.