Barbie Has Some (Smart) Things To Say About Black Lives Matter

Here's a weird dating app opener: What do you think Barbie's politics are? I'd presume that, since she looks like the platonic ideal of a female Fox News employee, Barbie would fall firmly in the "thoughts and prayers" camp -- if Mattel would allow her to have a political opinion at all. But since she started her latest career, vlogging, Barbie is speaking out against injustice, and she's doing a great job at it. 

A bit of a step down from being everything from an astronaut to a zebra-tamer, the team behind Barbie has made the now top bun toting teen Barbie a YouTube sensation. And like any teen blogger, that's because she seems to be speaking her mind. In one of 'her' latest vlogs, Barbie invited her Black friend, Nikki, to talk directly about racial discrimination, Nikki telling an all too familiar tale of minorities getting passed over for no obvious reason than the color of their plastic. 

But Barbie also has her finger on the pulse of modern American society, which means taking a very serious stance on Black Lives Matter. "There is a huge movement going on," the online CGI doll proclaims. "Millions of people across the world are standing up to fight against racism, and they're doing this because too often and for such a long time, people have been treated unfairly, and in some cases even hurt by others, because of the color of their skin."

This is by no means the first time Barbie has, to put it in belabored terms, gone woke. Among endless make-up and clothing tutorials, YouTube Barbie peppers in plenty of solid life advice for young women. In her previous videos, she has talked about the female pitfalls of saying sorry too much, hiding your negative emotions, and broader, more adult themes like being gaslighted.

That's maybe not what you'd expect from a doll that looks like an (even more) CGI Tomi Lahren, one that historically was more likely to say that she hated math and seemed content to keep her mouth shut and fold Ken's Thin Blue Line Punisher T-shirts. And sure, this is obviously an attempt by the marketing mavens at Mattel to mold their model to the modern method of brands trying to be your best poly-sci pal through performative wokeness. But it's hard to scoff at a company that uses its vast influence on young girls to raise awareness about the dangers of prejudice and the patriarchy, and to tell millions of tweens to be themselves and not take any shit when some douche in a dream car tells them to smile more. 

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Top Image: Mattel via YouTube