Sometimes I sit around and I think of topics for my blog, and I write them in my little Notes app, then when I come back to them later they don’t make a lot of sense. For instance, once upon a time I wrote the words “Ghostbusters and Barbie.” Nothing else, just the name of a movie from the early 80s that I loved as a child and a doll i played with. I couldn’t remember why I wrote that down, until Kevin and I were talking last night.
First, in the evening, Mark and I were watching a YouTube video of discontinued toys from the 90s, and the first toy mentioned was the Creepy Crawly Maker, a favorite amongst boys my age at the time. I asked for it, but did not get it. When I expressed this frustration to Mark, he replied that at least I got to get an Easy Bake Oven. Later that night, I was on the phone with Kevin and I brought up the video that we had watched and the Creepy Crawly Maker that I remember him having as a kid. His response was exactly the same as Mark, that it was perfectly fine for me to get an Easy Bake Oven. In fact, he remembered having one of his own, a second hand piece that his aunt picked up for him to put in his clubhouse just for fun. Not that he really could have asked for that as a gift, at least not without ridicule from his peers. Me, I wanted Ghostbuster toys desperately. Kevin had all of them, including all the villains with little switches on their backs that made their heads spin around or their eyes bug out. He had the entire firehouse, he had the old ambulance-style car, and he even had Proton Packs, the lucky bastard! I…had some Barbies.
Now, do not get me wrong, if you know me you know I love Barbie. I have written before about how much it hurt to lose my Barbies as a child, and I have reviewed the Barbie movie, and I have mentioned my love of Barbie many times randomly in my blog. However, I was more interested in Kevin’s action figures at the time then I was in my Barbies. But Barbies were the socially acceptable toy for me, since I was a girl. Either way, we were both playing with dolls, but if I said that to one of the boys at school, I probably would have gotten mud thrown at me.
Kevin commented that he never minded playing House back in the day, and I pointed out that the way we played House was never quite the same as other kids. Usually, the baby doll stayed in the crib the whole time while I made food in the play kitchen and pretended to host parties. He would arrange the stuffed animals as guests and then pretend to eat my fake food.
Kevin also had a really good point regarding the toys they made for boys during that time. There was only so many times you could play Ghostbusters- they were only so many ghosts you could bust. They were only so many superheroes that could save the city from the villains so many times. Eventually, things got stale. At least with my Barbies I could buy clothes and accessories, and shake it up a little bit. So when I suggested that we played dolls, he didn’t say no because at least it was something new to do. He was interested in trying anything that was a break from the monotony of his action figures. (This could be why we ended up in so many capers at his house.)
I have said before the baby dolls were never for me, and that is very true. And yes, I did love Barbie, but for the most part I preferred non-gendered toys. My favorite toys as a child were my keyboard, my Fisher Price play kitchen, my Sesame Street tape recorder, and my record player. None of them were pink or purple, all of them were all-child friendly. I don’t tend to buy super girly or boy-ish stuff for kids, unless maybe it is a superhero or Disney princess that I know they are obsessed with. That’s fine, I was obsessed with my own Disney princess at one point, but most toys do not need to be gendered. Like, why are they making children’s picnic tables that are pink and purple and then others that are red and blue? I remember my own little picnic table that sat beside my Fisher Price kitchen and it was yellow and orange- so was everyone else’s. Color bias really annoys me. I mean it is fine if you are female and you like pink and purple. Purple is probably one of my favorite colors, but one of my other favorite colors is red, and if I had to choose I would have chosen the red and blue- that’s all I’m saying.
Anyway, me and Kevin kept up damning the patriarchy for an hour, and then I called it a night. When I woke up this morning, and realized I hadn’t blogged in 5 days, I went searching for a topic only to find “Ghostbusters and Barbie.” I wrote that some time ago in my Notes app but it managed to surface today. Weird. (You know what’s funny? One of my other notes just says “claircognizance.”) Happy Tuesday!
Ham 'N Eggs- by Brigid Hannon 