Barbies that are “so me”

Renée Millette
4 min readAug 4, 2023

Sorry but Depression Barbie doesn’t make the cut.

How I feel any time I’m asked to do anything.

As it was one of the few things I had planned to look forward to this summer, I got to see the Barbie movie opening weekend and it was pretty much everything I could ask for. This is not a review of the Barbie movie, or a discussion about any of the plot points. No, this is a piece reflecting on a comment a coworker made to me after she was able to see an early screening of the film a week before everyone else. She said, “It’s not a spoiler, but at one point in the movie there is a Depression Barbie and she is so you.”

I know I don’t have an incredibly sunny disposition and generally a very negative outlook on life, but this is still a weird thing to say to someone you work with! But I wasn’t about to be mad just yet — I have integrity and I have to see this scene before I can be the judge. Now I have seen the movie and I’m going to judge: the Depression Barbie, while very “hashtag relatable” is not me at all! I would never binge the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. It is far too long! (My comfort movie is Bridget Jones’s Diary, which admittedly is also a Colin Firth vehicle. So I think depressed people really just like Colin Firth and that stink face he makes when he’s supposed to be in love). I also never wear sweatpants, but I do dress like I’ve crawled out of a cave, so I’m not going to…

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