Eyes Wide Open

Coming to the Big Screen: A Real Barbie

Ms. Amy SchumerThe Hollywood body positivity story for today has it that Amy Schumer may be coming to the big screen as a real life Barbie. It’s a perfect intersection of a minor hero for body positivity with a historical villain. Under a Washington Post headline declaring that “Schumer will be the most perfect (imperfect) Barbie ever,”  Ellen McCarthy raves about this possibility:

Schumer walks on two feet and proudly holds her own head up. Unlike the original Barbie, who was so stretched and disfigured that, had she been a real woman, she would have had to walk on all fours, Schumer is openly adoring of her fabulous curves. This is huge.

Variety reports that Schumer is in talks to play the lead role in a live action Barbie movie. The plot has her being kicked out of Barbieland for not being perfect enough.

The marketing geniuses in charge of the $3 billion dollar Barbie brand must have figured out that they have to deal with this body positivity thing. They’ve introduced 33 flavors of body positive Barbies this year. And more recently, they came out with a plus-sized Ashley Graham edition of their iconic doll.

The ugly side of this news is that body shaming internet trolls pounced on this news with nasty tweets.

Thank goodness First Lady Melania Trump will make internet bullying her signature issue. Maybe she can put a dent in trolls sending out vicious tweets at all hours.

Click here to read more from the Washington Post.

Eyes Wide Open, photograph © lil’_wiz / flickr

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December 4, 2016