Welcome to my blog I’m filled with sadness and I yearn to be kissed on the neck

no offence but i think a lot of us me included don’t actually want romantic love as badly as we think and really are just lonely and crave a closeness and intimacy that feels out of reach in friendships because of society’s emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family so we project that into the never ending search for a perfect love and a soulmate when really we all just want to mean something to someone

And also the way Barbie and Ken are role playing heterosexuality without any inherent sexuality of their own, without any understanding of what it means, or even any genitals at all! Just pretty-girl + handsome-guy = obviously a couple. And the way it fucks them both up! Because they’re both stereotypes, neither of them is a specialist version, no brain surgery or pilots license or Nobel prize for either of them. They’re just assigned the roles of Every Man and Every Woman. And Ken ends up doing Way Too Much because he’s hanging his entire self-worth on being important to Barbie. And Barbie just isn’t interested in him, she was assigned a boyfriend she didn’t ask for and doesn’t want and doesn’t know what to do with, just because that’s what society expects of men and women, that they will necessarily couple up and fall in love because… that’s what they do. Regardless of any personal quality of either party.

It’s about heteronormativity and amatonormativity and the unrealistic expectations society sets boys and girls up for from infancy. Barbie and Ken are every pair of toddlers sharing a sandbox while the adults around them call them each other’s little “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” even though neither party understands or is capable of understanding the implied meaning of that. Or wants to.

It’s a literal funhouse mirror of that weird pressure put on kids to perform heterosexuality from an early age. It examines how that leaves us unprepared for the complicated reality of actual relationships even if it turns out that you are heterosexual and do want sex and romance. Boys and girls aren’t really allowed to be just kids on the same team, so they grow up into men and women who generally want very different things from each other and are trained to look for it in everybody because anybody is better than nobody, and try to force it to work.

Barbie and Ken letting each other go in the end was perfect. Barbie the Every Woman realizing that she doesn’t have to be special, she just has to be, and Ken the Every Man realizing he has to seek validation elsewhere and lean on his fellow Kens for emotional support, WHICH THEY GIVE.

Truly a movie of all time.

my absolutely favorite thing about the barbie movie is that at no point whatsoever it explains how the mattel employes know about barbieland like imagine starting your new job on mattel and the first thing they tell you on orientation is

"yeah barbieland is real and we've had incidents in the past with a doll coming into the real world please see page 7 of your employee handbook for reference also if you wander into a random room on the 17th floor and meet a nice old lady don't mind her it is just the ghost of our founder"

So I published my first book and I'm still a little bit in awe that I created this

It's a small volume but it holds my entire heart and soul within it

oh…

on shame and yearning (pt.2)

Sources:

# the unholy trinity of badassery

HEARTSTOPPER S2 SPOILERS!!

why did i realize on my second watching that this piece was the inspo for elles queer and here piece

greta gerwig looked at the "what if the roles were reversed" argument and said "the roles ARE reversed, but ok, let's see it side by side then, our world vs the reversed world, look at it, how does it feel? not so nice is it?"

so we’re all familiar with the little animations that happen during important romantic scenes

but let’s talk about Issac. Issac spends most of the season confused about his sexuality and feeling that something is wrong with him.

When he discovers asexuality at the art school, he gets the leaf animation we’re used to seeing for the couples. When the art about crush culture is being explained to him, Issac can see that the artist is proud of being asexual; eager to explain his identity to a stranger viewing his piece. He is overwhelmed with the fact that he not only isn’t broken, but that his sexuality is something someone could be so proud of having.

The leaves still represent love, but instead of romantic love, it’s self love.

I love how ‘cringe and awkward’ the heartstopper kids are because I remember being 16 and being this awkward and stupid and dorky. Tripping over their words, having awkward kisses and first dates—it’s so realistic because that’s how teenagers actually are. Celebrating 2 months anniversary by getting your partner an Oreo dairy milk bar instead of going on a fancy date with a hotel room and a limousine and what not is so so relatable. I remember being 15 and getting someone a dairy milk (albeit I was getting a chocolate for the girlfriend of this guy I was into lmao) but I love the simplicity, the realness and the actual representation that teens are getting through this show. no suave teenagers having sex 24x7, going to raves and what not. nature is healing y’all.

God that scene in the last episode was just…

The way Charlie physically closes himself off and Nick sits at his level and gently pulls him back open again

The way Nick literally holds Charlie’s hand through the conversation

The way Charlie allows himself to trust Nick

The way Nick looks so heartbroken that anybody made Charlie feel bad about himself

The way Charlie makes the decision to tell Nick about his SH

The way Nick realizes there’s even more going on than just Charlie’s ED and braces himself to hear it

The way Charlie allows himself to admit his feelings and acknowledge that he doesn’t deserve to feel like that anymore

The way Nick can’t help but hug him

The way Charlie grabs him back and buries his face in Nick’s neck

The way Nick is trying not to cry/be strong for Charlie

The way Nick’s head falls in relief when Charlie said he doesn’t hurt himself anymore

The way Nick won’t allow Charlie to be sorry for this

The way Nick doesn’t put him down or tell him not to do it again, but instead makes Charlie promise to tell him if it gets that bad again

The way Charlie still thinks he’s a burden

The way Nick looks so sad that Charlie would think that of himself

The way Nick gently reassures him that he could never see Charlie as broken or a burden

The way Nick is showing how strong he thinks Charlie is

The way Nick wants to be Charlie’s rock because that’s what Charlie is to him

The way Nick is struggling not to cry

The way Charlie finally accepts that Nick really just wants to help him

The way Nick cradles Charlie’s face

The way it looks like he’s going in for a kiss but is actually going to the forehead for the most tender kiss

The way he immediately goes to rest their foreheads together, just exuding ultimate comfort

The way he goes in for a sweet kiss

The way he’s almost ready to say “I love you” but is interrupted

The way he knows it’s not the right moment

The way Charlie knows anyway

The way Charlie looks like he can’t believe any of this is happening to him, that it’s real, that someone loves him

The long, slow, sweet kiss goodbye

The way neither of them want to leave each other

The way Charlie lingers in the driveway

The way Nick takes a deep breath and lets himself really feel everything once Charlie’s gone

The way Charlie is ready to say “I love you” back

Joe and Kit acted their asses off for this and I’m so so proud of them

I love how Barbie (2023) takes pains to drive home that the Real World is in fact our world and that it contains the whole of real human suffering and joy and is full of regular-ass imperfect people

AND THEN takes the Mattel boardroom and once more heightens everything, makes it absurd and offputtingly sterile and puts a cardboard background outside the window and makes all the acting of the employees physically stiff and artificial-seeming, as a way to point out that the rich and powerful are living in a similar kind of detatched artificial fantasy world to barbieland, even if it's technically contained to our world

because all that money and power means practically speaking, capitalists aren't real people and are playing pretend their whole lives