标题
Barbie doesn’t belong in a box

芭比娃娃不属于一个盒子

正文
The release of the
hotly-anticipated
“Barbie” movie is almost upon us, and the
cultural buzz
has never been louder. The film, starring Margot Robbie in the
lead role
and directed by Greta Gerwig,
debuts
on July 21. I haven’t seen Gerwig’s movie yet, but I do know that, along with almost every woman I know, I have had a lot of feelings about the
resurgence
of Barbie in public consciousness over the past six months.  

备受期待的《芭比娃娃》电影即将上映，文化热议从未如此响亮。这部电影由玛格特·罗比主演，格蕾塔·葛韦格执导，于 7 月 21 日首映（其发行商和 CNN 共享母公司华纳兄弟发现）。我还没有看过葛韦格的电影，但我知道，和我认识的几乎所有女人一样，在过去的六个月里，我对芭比娃娃在公众意识中的复兴有很多感觉。
And all those feelings are … complicated. In the pantheon of iconic children’s toys, this buxom doll looms especially large as a Rorschach test of gendered playtime. Is Barbie a trailblazing feminist? A representative of the worst sort of body-image policing
? Is she a liberator of girlhood dreams, or an outdated tool of the
patriarchy
? The answer seems to be: All of the above.  

所有这些感觉都是...复杂。在标志性儿童玩具的万神殿中，这个身姿丰盈的娃娃作为性别游戏时间的罗夏测试显得特别大。芭比娃娃是开拓性的女权主义者吗？最糟糕的身体形象警务的代表？她是少女梦想的解放者，还是父权制的过时工具？答案似乎是：以上所有。
Born into a girls’-toys landscape that was populated almost exclusively with baby dolls, Barbie was inspired by a raunchy German gag gift
spotted in a shop window by the co-founder of Mattel, Ruth Handler, and her teenage daughter in 1956. Handler was
captivated
by the small doll’s blond ponytail, lined eyes and
pouty
lips. A few years later, Barbie was born.  

芭比娃娃出生在一个几乎完全由婴儿娃娃组成的女孩玩具领域，她的灵感来自美泰联合创始人露丝·汉德勒（Ruth Handler）和她十几岁的女儿于1956年在商店橱窗里发现的淫秽的德国恶作剧礼物。汉德勒被小娃娃的金色马尾辫、线条清晰的眼睛和噘嘴的嘴唇迷住了。几年后，芭比娃娃出生了。
Barbie quickly became a unique icon of womanhood — so it’s hardly surprising that she means so many different things to different people. She was a bold new innovation in American toys, an avatar of adulthood who would expand into over 250 professions and, more recently, a wide range of ethnicities and body types. Today, there’s even an “Inspiring Women” line
of Barbies based on real people, including Rosa Parks and Jane Goodall.  

芭比娃娃很快成为女性的独特偶像——所以她对不同的人意味着这么多不同的东西也就不足为奇了。她是美国玩具界的大胆创新，是成年的化身，将扩展到250多个职业，最近，她扩展到各种种族和体型。今天，甚至还有基于真人的“鼓舞人心的女性”芭比娃娃系列，包括罗莎·帕克斯和简·古道尔。
President 2000 Barbie was aimed at inspiring young people to become educated about their right to vote and emphasizing the importance of women in politics.

2000年总统芭比娃娃旨在鼓励年轻人接受有关其投票权的教育，并强调妇女在政治中的重要性。
But it hasn’t all been empowering. Gloria Steinemhas said that Barbie “was pretty much everything the feminist movement was trying to escape from.” A 2016 study found that ultra-thin Barbie dolls have had negative effects on very young girls’ body image, and a Huffington Post story from 2011 explored the horrifying reality of building a life-size Barbie: “At 5’9” tall and weighing 110 lbs, the traditional Barbie would have a BMI of 16.24 and fit the weight criteria for anorexia. She likely would not menstruate,” the article said, adding that “If Barbie was a real woman, she’d have to walk on all fours due to her proportions.” (She does now come in various body types.)  
但这并不都是赋权的。格洛丽亚·斯泰纳姆（Gloria Steinem）曾说过，芭比娃娃“几乎是女权主义运动试图逃避的一切”。2016年的一项研究发现，超薄芭比娃娃对年轻女孩的身体形象产生了负面影响，赫芬顿邮报2011年的一篇报道探讨了建造真人大小的芭比娃娃的可怕现实：“身高5英尺9英寸，体重110磅，传统的芭比娃娃的BMI为16.24，符合厌食症的体重标准。她可能不会来月经，“文章说，并补充说”如果芭比娃娃是一个真正的女人，由于她的比例，她必须四肢着地走路。（她现在确实有各种体型。)
Plus, there’s another aspect to Barbie that gets overlooked in the feminist-versus-oppressor debate about her impact on the little kids (and not-so-little kids) who play with her. For some of us, Barbie was our first glorious introduction to camp. As Susan Sontagwrote, “Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style — but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated, the ‘off,’ of things-being-what-they-are-not.” In a world of dolls designed to look like realistic babies, Barbie is nothing if not exaggerated. With her big hair, big boobs and molded-high-heel feet, she’s essentially doing female drag: an over-the-top riff on the notion of womanhood. And despite the shameful slurs coming from the right, kids love a drag queen, as shown in the quotes from one story-hour anecdote
: “I love your dress!” “It’s so big and
fluffy
!” “I love
glitter
!”  

此外，芭比娃娃的另一个方面在女权主义者与压迫者的辩论中被忽视了，那就是她对和她一起玩的小孩（和不那么小的孩子）的影响。对于我们中的一些人来说，芭比娃娃是我们第一次光荣地进入营地。正如苏珊·桑塔格（Susan Sontag）所写，“营地是风格上对世界的看法——但是一种特殊的风格。这是对夸张的、'关闭'的事物的爱，对事物的爱。在一个设计成看起来像逼真的婴儿的娃娃世界中，芭比娃娃如果不夸张的话什么都不是。她的大头发、大胸部和模压高跟鞋，本质上是在做女性变装：对女性概念的过度即兴演奏。尽管来自右翼的可耻诽谤，孩子们还是喜欢变装皇后，正如一个故事小时轶事中的引述所示：“我喜欢你的裙子！“好大好蓬松！”“我喜欢闪光！”
A Barbie from 1959 shown with swimsuit, stand and trademark box.

1959年的芭比娃娃，带有泳装，支架和商标盒。
Importantly, despite being a representation of hyperfeminized adulthood, Barbie has, throughout her endless reinventions, never had kids — a remarkable achievement for a 64-year-old toy for girls. If you were a kid who, like me, was deeply bored by the idea of playing mommy, Barbie represented liberation from that game. It’s a feeling Gerwig channeled masterfully in the first teaser for the film, which riffed on Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968).  
重要的是，尽管芭比娃娃代表了超女性化的成年，但在她无休止的重塑过程中，芭比娃娃从未有过孩子——对于一个 64 岁的女孩玩具来说，这是一个了不起的成就。如果你是一个像我一样对扮演妈妈的想法感到厌烦的孩子，芭比娃娃代表了从游戏中解放出来。这是葛韦格在电影的第一个预告片中巧妙地引导的一种感觉，该预告片借鉴了斯坦利·库布里克的《2001：太空漫游》。
Was the childfree Barbie still a wildly gendered toy? Obviously — but she was also the star of the most grandiose and glamorous stories you could make up for a single, impossibly proportioned gal on the go. For many kids, the appeal didn’t lie in how much you wanted to literally look like her — it was in the freewheeling lifestyle she represented. Imagine how meaningful this would have been in Barbie’s early years especially — an era in which little girls were being actively groomed for motherhood as life’s most important calling. (That’s not to say it’s not still happening
, either. As one expert suggests, “consider doing something gender-nonconforming with your children’s existing dolls, such as having Barbie win a wrestling championship or giving Ken a
tutu
. And encourage the boys in your life to play with them too.”)  

没有孩子的芭比娃娃还是一个性别狂野的玩具吗？很明显--但她也是最宏伟、最迷人的故事的主角，你可以为一个单身、身材不可能完美的女孩编造这样的故事。对许多孩子来说，她的吸引力并不在于你有多想把自己打扮成她的样子，而在于她所代表的自由自在的生活方式。想象一下，尤其是在芭比娃娃的早年--小女孩们正被积极培养成为母亲，将其作为人生最重要的使命--这将是多么有意义。(这并不是说现在没有这样做。正如一位专家建议的那样，"考虑用孩子们现有的玩偶做一些不符合性别的事情，比如让芭比娃娃赢得摔跤冠军或给肯穿上蓬蓬裙。并鼓励生活中的男孩也和他们一起玩。）
With her cartoonish proportions, Barbie has always invited cheeky takes. She’s been co-opted for satirical purposes countless times over the years. She starred in Todd Haynes’ “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story,” the “Carol” director’s 1987 dark stop-motion short film about the life of anorexic singer Karen Carpenter. She was painted by Andy Warhol in 1986. And in 1993, a performance artist group calling themselves the Barbie Liberation Organization swapped the voice boxes of Teen Talk Barbies and G.I. Joes, resulting in a macho soldier who said “Math class is tough!” and “Wanna go shopping?”, and a Barbie who said things like “Vengeance is mine!”  
芭比娃娃以其卡通化的比例，总是遭到人们对她进行无耻的嘲讽。多年来，她被无数次地用于讽刺目的。她曾出演托德·海因斯（Todd Haynes）的《超级巨星》（Superstar：卡伦·卡彭特的故事》，这部由《卡罗尔》导演于 1987 年拍摄的黑暗定格动画短片讲述了厌食歌手卡伦·卡彭特的一生。1986 年，安迪·沃霍尔为她作画。1993 年，一个自称为 "芭比娃娃解放组织 "的行为艺术团体将 "少年说 "芭比娃娃和 "大兵乔伊 "的语音盒进行了互换，从而产生了一个会说 "数学课真难！"和 "想去购物吗？"的大男子主义士兵，以及一个会说 "复仇是我的！"之类话语的芭比娃娃。
The fairly eye-roll-worthy Teen Talk Barbie, incidentally, also inspired the Malibu Stacy dolls of “The Simpsons,” Lisa’s willowy doll who said “Don’t ask me, I’m just a girl!” But even the face-palm missteps along the path of Barbie’s development are pretty funny; the 1965 Slumber Party Barbie
who came with a diet book whose one instruction reads “DON’T EAT!” could be interpreted as a
wink
at the ham-handedness of diet culture.  

顺便说一下，相当值得翻白眼的青少年谈话芭比娃娃也启发了“辛普森一家”的马里布·史黛西娃娃，丽莎的柳叶娃娃说：“不要问我，我只是一个女孩！但即使是芭比娃娃发展道路上的脸掌失误也相当有趣;1965年的睡眠派对芭比娃娃带着一本饮食书，其中一本写着“不要吃！”的指示可以解释为对饮食文化的笨拙眨眼。

Among former Barbie owners, a classic rite of passage is swapping stories of all the irreverent stuff you did with, or to, your dolls. Gerwig shared her own tale of misdeeds on the pink carpet at the film’s premiere: “First, you start by taking the braid out, then you brush it out, then you see if you can curl it with a curling iron − you can’t, it melts − and then you cut it all off,” she said
.  

在前芭比娃娃主人中，一个经典的成年礼是交换你对洋娃娃所做的所有不敬的事情的故事。葛韦格在电影首映式上分享了她自己在粉红色地毯上的不端行为故事：“首先，你首先把辫子拿出来，然后把它刷掉，然后你看看你是否可以用卷发棒卷曲它 - 你不能，它融化 - 然后你把它全部剪掉，”她说。
From the looks of it, Kate McKinnon will be playing this version — “Weird Barbie”
— in the movie. Impeccable casting, as usual, for Gerwig’s movies.  

从外观上看，凯特·麦金农将在电影中扮演这个版本——“奇怪的芭比”。像往常一样，为葛韦格的电影提供无可挑剔的选角。
The existence of so many opposing interpretations of her meaning is kind of the point: The beauty of Barbie is that she can be anything. (Or, as the tagline for the film puts it, she’s everything
.) Which is exactly why she still resonates with kids and why generations of adults are watching trailers for Gerwig’s movie with unadulterated delight. So let’s not put Barbie, or the generations who’ve loved her, in a box.  

对她的含义存在如此多的相反解释是重点：芭比娃娃的美妙之处在于她可以成为任何东西。（或者，正如电影的标语所说，她就是一切。这就是为什么她仍然能引起孩子们的共鸣，以及为什么几代成年人都在观看葛韦格电影的预告片。因此，我们不要把芭比娃娃，或者爱她的几代人放在一个盒子里。
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