Posted on by Asia Lenae

Why Barbie is a Bad Movie

barbie

The internet erupted when director Greta Gerwig and leading lady Margot Robbie didn’t receive Oscar nominations for their respective roles in the summer smash hit Barbie. 

How— devoted fans wondered— could the highest grossing film in Warner Brothers 100 year history and the top grossing film of 2023— be snubbed so brutally?   

“To many, the snubbing of the pair further validated the film’s message about how difficult it can be for women to succeed in —and be recognized for — their contributions in a society saturated by sexism,” CNN explained.  

“Did too many people (particularly women) enjoy Barbie for it to be considered “important” enough?” asked Los Angeles Times film critic Mary McNamara.  Was it, to borrow the words of another unapologetically girly film Legally Blonde, just too blonde— or too pink?  

I want to advance another reason for the Barbie “snub”: Barbie was a bad movie.

Was it a fun, frivolous romp?  Yes.  Did it make obscene amounts of money?  Sure, but infectious dance numbers and historic profits do not an Oscar movie make.

Barbie grossed a record-shattering 1.4 billion dollars at the box office.  Certainly that, defenders of the doll argue, should count for something.

To that I say, commercial success doesn’t always equate to artistic success (just look at most superhero movies).

I vividly remember the day Barbie was released.  It was the end of July and it was surprisingly sunny in San Francisco that day.  My boyfriend and I were sharing a plate of spam musubi and kalbi short ribs at a local Hawaiian place.  The restaurant was so loud we had to yell to hear each other speak and there were at least a dozen drunken groups wearing metallic eyeshadow and pink wigs.

Then I realized: all these people were going next door to see Barbie.  

This was my first (but definitely not last) encounter with the mania surrounding the movie.  All summer long I couldn’t scroll TikTok for more than a minute without hearing Billie Eilish’s searching “What Was I Made For?” accompanied by a list of “Books You Have to Read if You Loved the Barbie Movie.”  My social media feed was flooded with pictures of fans dressed in hot pink heels and sparkly rhinestones looking like millions of Malibu barbies.

Gerwig’s summer sensation was celebrated by critics and audiences alike.  Roger Ebert called the film a “gleeful escape” while the Daily Beast hailed it as a “mainstream masterpiece.”  Rolling Stone went so far as to dub Barbie the “most subversive blockbuster of the 21st century.”  The love for Barbie was as pervasive as Barbieland’s signature color pink.

As an obnoxious contrarian, I’m always deeply suspicious of anything when it’s raved about/hyped/otherwise mainstream (believe me, I hate that I’m this way).  If I see a book on #BookTok one too many times, I’m no longer interested in reading.  The same goes with movies.  The moment everyone’s saying “you have to see this movie,” the further you’ll find me from a plush red seat at AMC.

But as a fervent feminist, I was intrigued by the idea that Gerwig had refashioned this sometimes-loved, sometimes-loathed piece of American iconography.  Barbie is an interesting choice for a feminist icon, considering feminists have decried the doll for promoting impossible beauty standards for decades (in one study, researchers estimated if Barbie were a real woman, she’d have a 39 inch bust, a 33 inch hip, an 18 inch waist).  For more than half a century, Barbie has sent one toxic message: beauty is blonde, blue-eyed, thin and leggy.

Could Gerwig really transform Barbie, a symbol of outmoded, oppressive beauty ideals, into a feminist figure and empowering critique of the patriarchy?

barbieland

Barbie’s concept was interesting enough.  The film opens with the bold assertion that Barbie “changed everything.”  Barbie wasn’t just a busty blonde in a bathing suit— she had her own money, her own house, her own car, her own career.  Far from reinforcing the conventional idea that women should be restrained to the roles of wife and mother, Barbie told girls they could be anything from lawyers and doctors, to Supreme Court justices and Nobel Prize-winning authors. 

In the plastic paradise of Barbieland, the problems of feminism are no longer.  Women are presidents and CEOs and every day is the best day ever.  Barbie (Margot Robbie) is perpetually happy.  Every morning she wakes up from her pink seashell bed, dresses in a darling outfit (immaculately styled by two-time Oscar winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran), and cheerfully greets the other barbies in Barbieland.  Every night is a sequins-speckled dance number and a sleepover with all her girlfriends. 

But things go south when Barbie inexplicably begins having irrepressible thoughts of death.  Soon her shower is too cold, her milk is sour and her feet go flat.  Desperate for answers, she visits Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who explains she must go to the real world and find who’s playing with her if she wants her cellulite woes to end.

So begins Barbie and Ken’s quest to Los Angeles, another land of plastic perfection.  As she rollerblades in 1980s neon through Venice Beach, Barbie has an unsettling realization: women don’t rule the world like they do in Barbieland.  Instead, they’re disrespected, mocked, and sexually harassed.

While Barbie has an existential crisis, Ken (Ryan Gosling) basks in the newfound respect he gets for simply having a penis in his pants.  In the real world, he soon realizes, men control everything from the New York Stock Exchange to the Oval office.  Men’s faces grace the covers of dollar bills and are engraved on the sides of mountains.

Ken the incel is born.  Donning model of machismo Rocky Balboa’s fur coat, Ken brings patriarchy to Barbie’s formerly feminist utopia.  This premise is clever enough but this is where Barbie starts having some serious problems. 

First of all, how does Ken so swiftly overturn Barbieland’s matriarchal system?  When Barbie returns home with depressed mom Gloria (America Ferrera) and her barbie-bashing daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), women are no longer presidents and Pulitzer Prize winners— they’re barmaids and scantily clad cheerleaders.

But how is it that these strong, independent barbies are so easily brainwashed?  It makes sense that Ken is able to radicalize his fellow men but how does he convince the women to so willingly participate in their own subjugation?  How do a bunch of intelligent, ambitious Barbies become ditzy, beer-serving bimbos who are basically braindead?  Unfortunately, Barbie offers no satisfying explanations.

Which brings me to another failing of the film: Gloria’s speech.  While many praised the monologue for giving poignant expression to the impossible double standards women face, others claimed it was cliche.  As a woman, could I relate?  Yes; I’m sure many women nodded in teary-eyed acknowledgment at this scene.  But as a critic, I found the speech too obvious, too in your face.  Gerwig doesn’t seem to trust her audience to discover the movie’s meaning— so she spells it out for us in the least subtle way.

And honestly: why does Gloria even make this speech?

Gloria delivers her impassioned monologue when she finds a tearful Barbie in the throes of existential malaise.  “I’m not pretty,” says the once bubbly Barbie.  But why is she even experiencing this “I’m not good enough” crisis in the first place?  She’s still gorgeous (the only thing that’s changed about her appearance in the past 60 minutes is her flat feet).  If I was her, I’d be crying about the fact that my kind of boyfriend stole my dream house and transformed Barbieland into a hotbed of toxic masculinity.  It seems like Gerwig just wanted to discuss the difficulty of being a woman, even if it didn’t make much sense at this point in the movie. 

This sloppy storytelling was my biggest problem with Barbie.  There were so many scenes and storylines that were completely illogical or totally unnecessary.  What was the purpose of having the surprisingly unfunny Mattel CEO (Will Ferrell) and his suited executives chase Barbie?  If they caught her and put her in the box, they would just return her to Barbieland which she was going to do anyway.  The whole Mattel subplot could have been scraped and the overall story would have remained the same. 

None of Barbie’s slapdash storylines are brought to a satisfying ending.  Take the Gloria and Sasha arc.  Though they’re at the central conflict of the movie (after all, it’s because Gloria and her angsty teen have drifted apart that Gloria begins playing with Barbie and projecting her bleak thoughts in the first place), we have no idea where their relationship stands at the end of the movie.  Do they mend things?  Does Sasha gain any compassion or insight into the challenges of being a woman/mother after Gloria’s speech?  

And what about the core conflict between the Kens and the Barbies?  In the end, the Barbies successfully stop the Kens, recapture Barbieland, and reluctantly grant their male counterparts some power (“Can I be a Supreme Court justice?” one Ken eagerly asks.  “Oh, no I can’t do that,” Madame President Barbie laughs, “But maybe a lower circuit court judgeship.”) 

Though I don’t think Barbie is a man-bashing, feminazi film (like some not-so-bright conservative commentators), there’s something inherently problematic about the idea of Barbieland.  Barbieland portrays itself as a feminist utopia but feminism is about equal rights between the sexes— not about one gender dominating the other.

In the final poorly executed storyline, Barbie reunites with her creator Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman).  Having seen the beauty and terror of the real world, Barbie no longer feels content with her shallow, synthetic life.  Like Pinocchio and the Velveteen Rabbit before her, she yearns to “become real.”  “Take my hand, close your eyes, now feel,” Handler tells her.  Suddenly, Barbie is overwhelmed by a blur of blissful home movies: a mother twirling her daughter around, another mother feeding her baby.  There’s women laughing and women crying, young girls skipping through meadows and riding their bikes.  The nostalgic montage pulls at our heart strings but fails to cohere.  Is Handler showing Barbie the fragility and beauty of being a human in the real world?  Are these images her memories or Barbie’s future?  It’s unclear.

Ultimately, Gerwig had too many ideas and, rather than leave some on the cutting room floor, she tried to stuff them all into one movie.  At the end of the 1 hour and 54 minutes, you’re left wondering what the film was even about.

Was it about the plight of women under the oppressive fist of patriarchy? 

Was it about the often fraught relationship between mothers and daughters?

Was is about the nostalgic yearning for girlhood?

Or was it about one pretty, perfectly-proportioned doll’s decision to join the glorious messiness of humanity?

Barbie explores all these themes but never quite finds its footing.

In the end, we’re only left with one of the dumbest lines in cinematic history (“I’m here to see my gynecologist!) and one maddening question: what did it all mean?

Posted on by Asia Lenae

Emily Ratajkowski’s “My Body”: Is Sexualizing Our Bodies Exploitation or Empowerment?

What are TikTok’s most viral videos?  Women shaking their asses.  These videos spark two opposite reactions: passionate support or violent condemnation.  Some men point out the hypocrisy of so-called “empowered” independent women so sexually displaying their bodies for the admiration of men (“We’re not objects!” several men say sarcastically in one such comment section) while others lavish the viral video stars with excessive compliments (“Damn” is probably the most common).  Women’s reactions are equally ambivalent.  While some demonstrate a “go girl” feminism (“Yes, get it queen!” some enthusiastically applaud in the comments), others criticize these women for reinforcing the idea that we’re just pretty faces and fat asses to be objectified and ogled at.

No matter how you feel about women posting sexually suggestive content, the reality is when beautiful women show their bodies, they get millions of views and comments.

In feminism, sex is a historically contentious topic.  Indeed, probably no other issue is more divisive.  Sex-positive feminists challenge traditional, religious notions about sex.  They believe the idea that women have to be virginal to be “good” and “pure” is outmoded.  Instead, women should be free to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh without being slut-shamed or punished.  No longer is sex restricted to heterosexual couples within the confines of marriage— women can explore their sexuality before tying the knot and in all kinds of relationships.

According to sexologist Carol Queen, sex positivity is the “cultural philosophy that understands sexuality as a potentially positive force in one’s life.”  Rather than view sex as something shameful, sex-positive feminists encourage women to prioritize their own sexual pleasure and resist sexual repression.  To them, anti-porn feminists are puritanical and priggish.  Expressing sexuality is not exploitation but empowerment.

Sex-negative feminists, on the other hand, question this notion.  They’re not against sex per se— they’re merely critical of sex that’s grounded in unequal power dynamics and tailored mostly for male pleasure and the male gaze.  Unlike sex-positive feminists, they find strip clubs, burlesque, BDSM, prostitution, and pornography degrading.  In a patriarchal society, they contend sex for women is most often disempowering. 

In her at turns heart-breaking and beautifully-written essay collection, My Body, supermodel and Instagram influencer Emily Ratajkowski asks a pressing question: is sexuality a kind of exploitation or empowerment?

As a feminist, I’ve never been entirely sure where I stood on this question.

One one hand, I completely support women’s sexual freedom: I think women have the right to exhibit their bodies as they choose and would never slut-shame a woman for dressing provocatively or posting a thirst trap.  On the other hand, I’m not so sure I buy into the sex-positive sham that sexualizing ourselves is a kind of empowerment.

For Ratajkowski, a tantalizing beauty with an otherworldly physique and dark, striking features, her sexuality has been a source of power.  Her good looks have made her one of the most recognizable supermodels on the planet, earned her millions of dollars, landed her coveted movie roles, and attracted 28.9 million Instagram followers.  By commodifying her body— posing in racy photos for Sports Illustrated, posting pictures of her impossibly perky breasts in bikinis— Ratajkowski has achieved worldwide celebrity.

But does objectifying our bodies give we women any real power?

Ratajkowski suggests the answer is no.  Her stunning exterior may grant her access to glitzy Hollywood parties and some of the most glamorous places in the world (at one point, she’s treated to 5 days at a luxury Maldives resort for posting an occasional Instagram photo and paid $25,000 to accompany a Malaysian billionaire to the Super Bowl) but it also makes her a target for harassment and assault.

In one of the collection’s strongest essays, “Blurred Lines,” Ratajkowski expertly explores the blurred line between sex as powerlessness and sex as power.  In 2013, the then 21-year-old was catapulted to superstardom after she starred in the now infamous music video for Robin Thicke’s song of the same name.  In the uncensored version, Ratajkowski and two other models prance around in flesh-colored thongs as Thicke, Pharrell and T.I. gawk at their bare-assed beauty.

Ratajkowski describes the women on set as friendly and accommodating.  “Are you comfortable?” the hip, cool costume designer asks as she gets ready.  “She was was the kind of girl I’d want be friends with,” Ratajkowski writes, she “wore Doc Martens” and had “bleached hair cut into a pixie.”

Interestingly, the video’s director, Diane Martel, viewed “Blurred Lines” as a feminist project.  Though detractors denounced the video as mind-bogglingly misogynistic, she claimed it supported women’s empowerment.  In her words, the women in the video embodied “the best kind of girl” who was “100% confident.”  In her eyes, their nudity wasn’t demeaning— it was a testament to their “unbelievable sensual visual power.”

And Ratajkowski certainly has visual power.  She commands the video like a star: her banging body, messy bedroom hair and sticky red lip gloss virtually render the male singers unnecessary props.

However, her beauty doesn’t give her any real power: at the end of the essay, Ratajkowski reveals Thicke groped her.  Though the incident constitutes assault, no one— not Ratajkowski, not even Diane Martel, the so-called “feminist” director— even acknowledges Thicke’s completely inappropriate behavior.  “No touching” is the only thing Ms. Martel says after the incident, addressing no one in particular.

“Robin Thicke reminded everyone on set that we women weren’t actually in charge.  I didn’t have any real power as the naked girl dancing around in his music video.  I was nothing more than the hired mannequin,” Ratajkowski writes with equal parts dejection and disillusionment.  Despite her status as one of the most famous models of the 21st century, Ratajkowski is still at the mercy of men who control the industry.  Throughout My Body, we witness how Ratajkowski is powerless in the face of the artists, photographers, and fashion designers who profit off her image.  Much like the women who came forward during the Harvey Weinstein scandal and helped launch the #MeToo movement, Ratajkowski didn’t speak about her experience for fear of ruining her career and burning bridges.  After all, what if Thicke retaliated?  At the time, he was a star on the rise; she was nobody.  Challenging Thicke would have been career suicide. 

Is it problematic that Ratajkowski criticizes an industry that she willingly participates in?  

that she— too— profits from exploiting her body and tailoring her image for the pleasure of men?  

that her seductive photos encourage men to continue to see us as objects— not to mention contribute to wildly unrealistic beauty standards for women?

Of course, but these issues don’t undermine the brilliance of her essay collection.  Though some might dismiss it as just another celebrity memoir, My Body is timely and thought-provoking.  Turns out Ratajkowski is more than just a body— she’s a literary talent with something to say.

Posted on by Asia Lenae · 3 Comments

Sylvia Plath’s “The Rival”

sylvia & ted
Sylvia Plath & her husband, Ted Hughes

 

THE RIVAL

By Sylvia Plath

If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.

You leave the same impression

Of something beautiful, but annihilating.

Both of you are great light borrowers.

Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected,

And your first gift is making stone out of everything.

I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,

Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,

Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,

And dying to say something unanswerable.

The moon, too, abuses her subjects,

But in the daytime she is ridiculous.

Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,

Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity,

White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.

No day is safe from news of you,

Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.

In her near flawless poem “The Rival,” Sylvia Plath maps the geography of her own resentment toward her husband’s mistress, Assia Weevil. The poem’s title suggests one who is engaged in competition against another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field. Though many have attributed the status of the rival in this poem to Plath’s mother, Aurelia Plath, and even her husband, Ted Hughes, the poem’s title clearly refers to Assia Weevil. Considering the denotations of the word “rival,” it’s logical to say these women were competitors vying for the same thing: the handsome, charming Ted Hughes.

The first line introduces a metaphor for her husband’s mistress that Plath will sustain over the course of the poem:

“If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.

You leave the same impression

Of something beautiful but annihilating

Both of you are great light borrowers.

Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected” (Plath 1-5).

By comparing Assia to the moon-a traditional symbol for cold detachment and primitive femininity-Plath depicts her antagonist as cruel and stony-hearted.  Ironically, Assia’s “beauty” is described as “annihilating,” which suggests a woman’s allure can pose danger. Like the moon which shines beautiful and white in the sky but unleashes the evil and depravity associated with night, Assia’s beauty wins her the adoration of Hughes but destroys his wife. Plath only makes one significant distinction between her enemy and the moon: while the moon “grieves at the world,” Assia appears “unaffected” (Plath 5). The fact that the moon-an inanimate object-demonstrates a warm sympathy for humanity underscores Assia’s heartlessness. In the same way that she feels indifferent toward the suffering of the world, she cares little, Plath would argue, about the devastation and heartache her affair with Ted has caused.

Assia-Wevill
Assia Wevill

Plath elaborates on this depiction in the next line when she makes an implicit comparison between Assia and Medusa:

“And your first gift is making stone out of everything” (Plath 6).

Like Assia, Medusa’s beauty wins her the affections of many but eventually leads to her downfall. Originally a fair, golden-haired maiden, as a priestess of Athena, Medusa was sworn to a life of celibacy. When she broke her oath and fell in love with Poseidon, Athena punished her by transforming her into a terrifying, snake-headed monster. From then on, anyone who had the misfortune of staring into her eyes would be reduced to stone.

The parallels between Assia and Medusa are endless: both are fair and attractive, both violate a sacred oath (for Medusa, the promise to remain celibate; for Assia, the bonds of another couple’s marriage) and both see their beauty transform them into a kind of monster. By comparing her rival to something as hideous and appalling as Medusa, Plath implies her husband’s infidelity is despicable. What’s even more heart-breaking than the discovery of his betrayal is the fact that his mistress has no remorse. Like Medusa, like the moon, she is merciless, unfeeling as stone.

Many say the most hurtful thing about infidelity is not the cheating itself, but the lies and deceit that accompany such a violation of trust. This is certainly true in the case of Hughes and Plath. In the third stanza, Plath explains how she realizes Assia and her husband are having an affair when she intercepts their letters:

“Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,

Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity,

White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide” (Plath 13-15).

Here, the phrase “loving regularity” stings with bitter irony. For Plath, their correspondence-a symbol of their budding romance -is not “loving” but rather a kind of poison, as deadly as carbon monoxide. The fact that their affair is described as “white” and “blank” suggests that-like the colorless, odorless gas-their relationship is present but difficult to spot. After all, a husband never cheats at home. He stays at work late. He checks into a hotel. Cheating involves a large dose of deception.

What’s agonizing for the betrayed is not so much the cheating itself (which, yes, is horribly, unimaginably painful) but the constant lying such cheating entails. This subtle sense that her husband is cheating torments Plath, who accurately suspects he is having an affair but has no concrete evidence save a few of their letters. A sultry woman caller who rings during dinner. A few lingering, too flirtatious looks.  An unrelenting stream of letters. This is all Plath can see of their affair. By comparing these hints of infidelity to carbon monoxide, Plath indicates her suspicions are like a gas-they diffuse and spread but are insubstantial; she can’t see them or smell them but they consume her.

 

 

Posted on by Asia Lenae · 7 Comments

Sylvia Plath’s “The Applicant”

Sylvia Plath Typewriter

THE APPLICANT

By Sylvia Plath

First, are you our sort of a person?

Do you wear

A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,

A brace or a hook,

Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then

How can we give you a thing?

Stop crying.

Open your hand.

Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing

To bring teacups and roll away headaches

And do whatever you tell it.

Will you marry it?

It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end

And dissolve of sorrow.

We make new stock from the salt.

I notice you are stark naked.

How about this suit——

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.

Will you marry it?

It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof

Against fire and bombs through the roof.

Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.

I have the ticket for that.

Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.

Well, what do you think of that?

Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,

In fifty, gold.

A living doll, everywhere you look.

It can sew, it can cook,

It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.

You have a hole, it’s a poultice.

You have an eye, it’s an image.

My boy, it’s your last resort.

Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

In her remorselessly satirical poem “The Applicant,” Sylvia Plath explores the restrictive nature of 1950s gender roles.  The poem’s very title rings impersonal and business-like as it shrouds the potential candidate in anonymity. This namelessness begs the question: who is the applicant and what is he applying for?

The first stanza doesn’t answer much of our question:

“First are you our sort of a person?

Do you wear

A glass eye, false teeth, or a crutch,

A brace or a hook,

Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch” (Plath 1-5).

From the very first line, the interviewer seems antagonistic and accusatory; rather than kindly introduce himself or offer the applicant a cup of coffee as is common courtesy in an interview, he opens with a tough, hardball question, one that’s almost impossible to answer: “First, are you our sort of a person?” (Plath 1). Here, the presence of the 1st person plural “our”— as opposed to the 1st person singular “my”— suggests the interviewer is not judging the applicant by his own standards but by the standards of society.

What “sort” of person society desires is a question Plath contemplates over the course of the poem. The next several lines catalog symbols of disability: a “glass eye,” “false teeth,” a “crutch,” a “brace,” a “hook,” a “rubber breast,” and a “rubber crotch.” Though one would think such handicaps would pose an obstacle to employment, the interviewer seems angry when the applicant responds that he has no disabilities:

“No, no?  Then

How can we give you a thing?” (Plath 6-7).

The fact that the speaker wants the applicant to be impaired indicates the position requires some level of disablement and demands he adopt something artificial.

In the second stanza, we finally learn what position the applicant is interviewing for: the role of husband; however, as the poem progresses, the interaction between the speaker and applicant becomes less of an interview and more of a commercial:

“Open your hand.

Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing

To bring teacups and roll away headaches

And do whatever you tell it.

Will you marry it?” (Plath 9-14).  

Interestingly, here Plath portrays modern marriage as a commercial transaction in which women are objects to be sold. The woman’s objectification is made clear from her first introduction as a “hand.” Rather than name the potential wife or even introduce her as a complete, functioning body, Plath presents her only as a “hand,” a fragment of a complete person, thus objectifying her. The word “hand” immediately evokes marriage (as in, to take “one’s hand”). By identifying the woman only as a “hand”— a potent symbol of matrimony— Plath reveals the devastating extent to which the role of wife comprises a woman’s selfhood.

More important is what the hand does in the poem. The hand does not sit stagnant but rather “brings” teacups and “rolls” away headaches for her husband-to-be, an indisputable symbol of women’s submission to men. The unmistakably domestic character of the verbs reinforce this image of a woman’s role in the home. By employing images that connote ill health and depicting the wife as healer of such ailments, Plath again suggests society imagines the modern woman’s proper role is as a caregiver.

4186-3187

Though “The Applicant” is no doubt a condemnation of women’s traditional gender roles, that’s not to say Plath didn’t believe men were victims of gender policing as well. In the next stanza, the speaker turns his attention from the wife for sale back to our main character:

“I notice you are stark naked.

How about this suit-

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit

Will you marry it?” (Plath 19-22).  

Here, the “stiff,” “black” suit embodies masculinity in 1950s America. Just as repressive post-war America demanded women be perfect portraits of domesticity, strict, normative gender roles required men to be the heads of households and breadwinners. The fact that Plath describes the applicant’s role as something put-on like a suit reveals the artificiality of all gender roles, ultimately proving prevailing ideas of femininity and masculinity false.

For Plath, what constitutes womanhood (or manhood, for that matter) is merely a construction, not intrinsic to our actual biological gender. This reading is further supported by the fact that the applicant is “stark naked” before the speaker offers him a suit. If nudity connotes purity and innocence, the applicant’s nakedness indicates at this moment he is free of restrictive ideas about gender. It is only when he puts on the suit that he adopts his prescribed gender role and allows himself to be confined by its rigid expectations for his behavior.  

“The Applicant” finally culminates in tragedy when the poem’s signature refrain (will you marry it?) moves from question to statement a few stanzas later:

“My boy, it’s your last resort.

Will you marry it, marry it, marry it” (Plath 39-40).  

This syntactical change from interrogative to declarative may seem insignificant enough; however, it represents a major shift in the poem.  Though the prospect of marriage and a traditional, nuclear family once figured as a desirable option for the applicant, by the poem’s end, such a lifestyle is no longer a choice— it’s a requirement.  This shift from possibility to inevitability leads to an unsettling conclusion: no matter how much one rallies against ideas of masculinity and femininity, such limiting gender roles in Plath’s 1950s America are inescapable. 

Posted on by Asia Lenae

I Was A Sandy Girl

good sandy vs. bad sandy

I was a Sandy girl.  And not bad Sandy, the sultry sex kitten with big hair and red lips who sashays on screen at Grease’s end.  No, no I always preferred good Sandy, the prim goody too-shoes who was just a little too perfect.

Most girls idolized bad Sandy— her effortless, cool girl demeanor, the way she self-assuredly cocked her head and said, “Tell me about it, stud”— not me.  Though I loved her tight 50s style hot pants, her bad girl act held little allure.  To me, her heavy blue eye shadow was trashy, not sexy, and her red platforms shoes screamed uniform staple of a street walker.

bad sandy

For how much I loved Grease, I’ve always detested the end.  Even before Judith Butler and Women’s Studies 101, I possessed a profound sense that the moral of the story was backwards: Shouldn’t the person you love accept you unconditionally?  Isn’t love based on mutual respect?  “Change yourself” was the disturbing message that seemed to underlie Grease’s light-hearted exterior.  Rather than finally stand up to his tough guy friends and date the “good girl,” Danny only accepts Sandy when she metamorphoses into his male fantasy of her.  For me, Sandy’s transformation from demure, prudish good girl to tantalizing male play thing always represented a kind of loss: instead of affirm her own identity, Sandy— in conventional fashion—rejects her selfhood to please a man, a major defeat for feminism.  All the hallmarks of bad Sandy— the smoky, charcoal eyes, the volumized, over-the-top tousled hair— became tragic symbols of the ways in which women found themselves wanting…and worked to modify themselves.

danny & sandy

Like Sandy, I— too— had a hard time accepting my inner good girl.  I can remember when my 7th grade science teacher Mr. Thompson would display our grades on the projector.  While most kids shuddered at having their mediocre C-s projected on the screen, I dreaded the moment my A+ would be laid out for all to see.  

“100%,” I remember Kenton, the class cool boy, saying sarcastically, “sexy.”  

In that moment, I had a devastating realization: being a good girl wasn’t attractive.  Getting good grades, earning student of the month 8 years in a row: these badges of a good girl were actually telltale signs of a dork.  Once I understood scholarly excellence and rule-following as roads to mockery instead of sources of pride, I became ashamed of my As.  I was embarrassed when the teacher doted on me in class.  Slowly, surely, I became more quiet and reserved.  My being a good girl left me alarmingly insecure with myself.

Like most good girls, I eventually rejected my straight-laced nature and experimented with being a “bad girl”: I drank and smoke profusely; I snorted coke in park bathrooms; I swore; and though I didn’t own a pair of 50s style hot pants, I revolted through the skinny jeans I wore.

By 2005, I was a completely different person.

Gone were the days of pristinely copied homework and neat hand-written notes.  If I did turn in my homework (which was rare), it was crumpled and torn.  Gone were the days of naive optimism and blind obedience.  By early high school, I was already wearing the aloof cynicism of much later adolescence.  Gone were the days of conservatism and mild manners.  Sophomore year had me listening to Led Zeppelin and cheering on my guitarist boyfriend.  Good Sandy was dead.  And I loved it…or so I thought.  

Despite the exhilaration of dispensing with social norms and experimenting with alternate lifestyles, my adolescent years as bad Sandy were a time when I felt profoundly lost.  A relentlessly driven, type-A sort of personality by nature, I felt disoriented without a set of rules.   Good Sandy wanted things: to be a cheerleader, to get good grades.  Bad Sandy had nothing to strive for.

Being a bad Sandy girl, I realized, was nothing but a negation, an anti-thesis of sorts.  Her only identity was as a converse; she was good Sandy’s opposite— no identity at all.  At the end of Grease, she feels sexy, perhaps, as she flies away with the hunky man of her dreams but she never realizes any of her own ambitions.

Today, I still harbor a secret admiration for bad Sandy girls, those women who are so liberated and carefree, who quite simply don’t give a shit but, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve accepted I’m just not one of them.  I love my planners and cardigans.

grease