Put Nipples Back On Barbies (feat. Trixie Mattel)

Madonna. I know you listen to every episode of this podcast and you heard it from Trix and Mattel. She wants like a virgin Barbie.

No, you know, if she does it, she's gonna push through like a ray of light Barbie, and we're gonna get blue jeans and like like a Hotten shirt. Kabala Barbie.

I want that.

She's sheen am me, no me, not my name? Yo yo yo? What is your childhood trauma? I have coo. You know what's going down the floor like.

Round Welcome to Like a Virgin, the show where we give yesterday's pop culture today's takes. I am Ra's Damu and I am fran to Rota Virgins. You know you will have heard our patch from Fire Island in our episode last week. Also, if you're a patron patroon dot com slash like a Virgin, you will have heard our annual Fire Island episode. But our vacation is over. It's back to real life. I had a great time. I think you did as well. Fran Oh for sure.

I mean I still feel like my body is like catching up with all the things that I put it through.

During that week.

Like honestly, vacation can be like I'm not going to say exhausting, but like it's definitely like your body is operating at a different level, taking in a different number of drugs.

Yeah, I and in the sun all day.

Yeah, that was really the thing that got me the day. The day we got back, I needed just a reset day and I did like an intense body cleanse, skincare, routine, hair washing, and like afterwards, laying on my couch, I just felt fried, like both both physically because I got a lot of sun and mentally like even though literally all we were doing was laying around and relaxing, I needed a day to sort of get back to I needed to bring me to life, as Amy Lee said

Yes, and you celebrated by going to the place that Carrie Bradshaw went to on her exact thirty fifth birthday, which was a very mediocre Italian restaurant.

It was really it was actually bad, Like my entree was bad. My entree was bad because I didn't realize I thought that I was ordering a pasta that had spinach in it, and instead what I ordered was a pasta that substituted spinach for noodles. No, it was fine. It was not about the food. It was about the vibes, and it was not about the food. No. But it

We love that your outfit was incredible. Yeah, it was cordial and it was simple, and that's exactly what you need out of a birthday gathering. I feel like, you know, yeah, the food, the food you we said, was like kind of it was olive garden territory SERTs I thought were phenomenal.

The desserts were great. I love a tartufo. I hadn't had forever. It was so good, and I think everyone else I think I don't think anyone else had had tartufo at that table, so it did gag them a bit. For anyone who wants to know, we went to Il Cantonore, which is if you remember the season four episode of Sex and the City, The Agony and the Ecstasy. It's the restaurant where Carry goes for her birthday dinner and none of her friends show up and she has to

Was it with Recurring the World?

If that's all we're going to say, that's all we're going to say. The rest is for the Patreon divas. No, the rest is for not people who listen to this podcast. Sorry, but you know what we will talk about is the fact that no is the fact that Taylor Swift released Speak Now Taylor's version I am a little over the Taylor's versions, I have to say, and I really felt the fatigue with this one because I think I mean a I didn't listen to it for basically a whole

Vibe we tried and then switched to just contemporary tailor and Taylor's.

It just I think we've lost the plot in a way, which is that the actual point of these albums is to literally re record the existing music in such a way that it replaces the old Scooter's versions. And yes, we get the new tracks and everything, and you know, some of the ones on this album are good, but it just sounds so much like the original that I'm like, what is the point?

And the bonus tracks, which like Hayley Williams and fallow Way are amazing features to have on the bonus tracks, Sorry, didn't really do it for me. I think the only song that I will return to is I See You, which was on the original or no, is that a bonus track?

But that's the bonus track? Yeah? I thought that she made the music video the stupidest music video ever for.

I loved that bonus track. I thought it was.

It's a good song, yeah, but no, I don't know. I godspeed to everyone going to the Eras tour. Peyton just went like seems like she actually I feel like everyone we know was like at the Denver show for Eras, Rose is still looking for tickets though, no, I'm You're like, I'm not anymore.

I'm not. I'm seeing Beyonce next week. I'm good, love, enjoy. I only have one big summer concert in me, and that is the one I have been listening to speak now Taylor's version, but I could just as easily listen to Scooter's version and like be fine.

I mean, yeah, I have I feel like I'm all listened out, like I have so much music.

It's just this shtick is getting old.

Yeah, and I don't want to listen to Reputation Taylor's version, like that's gonna be bizarre? No, no, no, no. What if she did all acoustic, Like how is she going to do?

That would be fab That would fab if like ras like, yeah, an acoustic version of a reputation would be fabulous because it would be different instead of just being a copy paste of the music.

I have a question y as a as someone who's a little more of a tailor scholar than I am. I feel like she said maybe in her documentary that reputation was kind of like an era that she regrets a little bit. Is that she said something like that before. I feel like she's talked about how it was like a really dark time and how she felt like reputation was in reaction to or retaliation against something instead of like actual art.

I mean it was a reaction to the way she was talked about post you know, like being quote unquote exposed by Kim Kardashian and like the Kanye West of it all. I don't know if she's ever said anything about regretting it. I certainly don't regret it. Reputation is one of my favorite Taylor albums.

Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's at the bottom of my list. So but I, you know, whatever Taylor's version is gonna look like, I'm here for it.

Speaking of Taylor and tunes, a lot of Taylor's music was featured in the trailer for the second season of The Summer I turned pretty Actually, Ryan when the trailer dropped thought it was a short film that she had made because he had no context for the show. The first three episodes dropped on Amazon on Friday, and I watched them all this weekend. And you know, I famously don't love YA because I don't believe teenagers are real people.

I'm not going to watch it, but it does sound is it kind of?

I was talking to the Virgins, I know, I.

Was just saying, for the record, is it like a kind of to all the boys I've loved before?

Coded? It's yeah, Well it's written. The book that it's based onst written by Jenny Hahn, who wrote to All the Boys. It's love Triangle, a girlye who is in uh like, caught between two brothers. Brother. Yes, there's also they're dealing with grief because the brother's mom died. It's yeah, it's it's very good. Okay, Okay.

You know what I finished this weekend, which I don't think you finished, was the other two?

Did you did you finish that? No? I watched two and a half seasons of it in the span of a week, and then got that midway through season three and was like, no, I don't want to watch this anymore. It's bad.

The I will agree that a lot of the latter half of season three is as you put it, ass and I felt it, and I felt like the finale, especially was a whole lot of assery, Like, I, so how does it end? I'm not I skim skipped through

That's such a That's not the ending I would expect have expected the show to have. I actually feel like it would be much truer to the show and the characters to not redeem them and to instead maybe give them some kind of come upance. Yeah for being horrible people.

Yeah yeah, I mean they definitely got punished for their actions, which is nice. But no, I don't know. The show is so like if Virgins ever wanted to watch it. The first two seasons are amazing, some of the second season is not great, and there are some episodes of the third season that are so genius, so laugh out loud funny, so much insider baseball like stuff that is like relevant to like queer people, especially like gay people that exist in media and consume gay media. Oh so fucking funny.

And well you loved you loved that Aid's Play episode. Which I did not. I did not think was that.

There was a spoof of The Inheritance that was fucking hilarious. I thought, featuring Lucas Gage. I also thought the muliu A bit was so funny.

Well, I did like that Simulio talked about eating Molly shan It's pussy a lot. But other than that, I'm never going to watch the rest of the other two because I'm too busy reading gay monster porn.

Okay say more please.

So I have been book Corner. This is Roses Book Corner, which actually if you want to hear if you want to hear me talk at length about books, you can go on Patreon, Patreon dot com, slash like a Virgin and that is the official home of Roses Book Corner. But I have been reading a lot recently. I read four books while we were on vacation. I'm on fire right now and I've been reading a lot of lit thick,

Not eggsac.

I have yet to encounter of sexy eggsac in these books,

I support you. I support this.

I started reading this the first book last yesterday evening around like five pm, and finished it this morning, and then immediately started the second one. And there's I believe seven in the series. So this is my new journey, is reading a month porn. It is soul eater, soul sucker, so there is definitely a lot of sucking going.

On into it. Slash you should write one of those, slash you should adapt.

I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking I need to maybe start writing some porn. I actually am feeling very creatively repped up right now from everything I've been reading, I read. As I said, I read a bunch of books on vacation, and maybe, like I'll go more in depth into them on the Patreon at some point, but just to like

We know what the cover looks like. And it's about a sex.

Worker who is dating this man and staying with him in his beach house and like probably the hamp Dens, and he kicks her out, and so she has to spend a couple of days just sort of going around trying to like glom onto any man she can find. And it's it's a really great character study. She makes like bad decision after bad decision, and it's like you're

Okay, SAG hello is striking.

This is huge.

All of the videos we're seeing a fran dresser are amazing, even though she's kind of an anti vaxxer, but she's amazing. And this is not promotion for the movie Barbie. This is a historicization of Barbie as an idyl and icon.

Ok Yes. And we will probably behind the scenes be figuring out how we are going to approach talking about new media in the wake of SAG and the W A G A both being on strike. So this is evolving. We're still figuring it out. But no scabs on this podcast. No scabs, no thank you.

This is a tricksy is a long time coming as a guest, iconic iconic, So let's let's do it.

This episode is about and for the dolls.

That's right, pre Barbie movie, pre social media, pre like I don't know, Jeremy Scott's boardby collection, pre all that stuff. I just I wanted to I wanted my zippers to be this big compared to my body, you know what I mean, even proportionally. I wanted to be a tiny plastic thing. And I think it was like a maybe mentally, it was like an escape route from the human experience. It's like what if I also just had no thoughts, you know, like what if I also had.

What if my head was squishy too?

Yeah, I was squish my head. What if my knees you know, snapped? And then when I started like I guess I got the cart before the horse, and like in my later twenties, I started being like, well, I take all this inspiration from America's favorite fashion doll, but what do I really know about it? And then for like a good year, I pretty much read every nonfiction book about Mattel and Barbie that is in existence, everything from the biography and autobiography of Ruth Handler to studies

Now we're going to test your knowledge. No, we're not here to getcha, but I am really interested to get maybe like, why do you think Barbie was so groundbreaking as a toy and why has she endured the way she has.

Well, there's a few reasons. Right, number one first of its kind. Right until Barbie came along in nineteen fifty nine, little girls were encouraged to pretend to be moms. That's it. All dolls were babies. So that's like the number one. This is the first toy that had women imagining they could be nurses or flight attendants or doctors or like anything. Not to mention you have to imagine in nineteen fifty nine a toy to have breasts and no husband and have her own apartment and be a mo which means

So that coverage girl has eleven dolls? How many dolls do you have?

That's what I was gonna have. I'm about probably like six hundred little girls. Now more than that, like probably six thousand little girls, which means not if but when I.

You're every woman, Wait, is it six hundred or is it six thousand a half?

No?

I probably have. I mean, if we're being honest, I probably have. We're talking the body, like how many plastic dolls do I have? Because then there's clothes, which is a whole other thing. Yeah, it's not even quantifiable. Oh wow, So they're not They're not like in short or anything or like, is it like like a filing system. Are they all in a safe yeah? Are they invent?

Are there?

Is there an archive in our inventory? Or they're kind of spread out? Like at the motel and the reception, we have maybe three two or three dozen of my my real vintage collection. So if you go in there, some of those dolls are like they amn near on a thousand dollars, don't steal them. And then at my condo where I keep at my like uh drag studio, that's where I have like most of my vintage ones.

It's like her Flop in the nineties.

No Barbie in the nineties, I believe is honestly the Golden era, because we're talking like tan, orange skin, blue eyeshadow, this big white hair, and every look is like ice skates, roller skates, ice cream glitter. It's nuts because for a good like mid two thousands to twenty fifteen, it was, in my opinion, the least interesting time Barbie was in jeans and T shirts, you know, like.

Ooh, normcore Barbie.

Kind of like, I mean, there's important things they do now, like career of the Year Barbie. It will be this year she's a robot technician. This year she's running for president, and like.

That year podcaster.

Maybe she's a podcaster. One year she was like a music producer, so she had like a little keyboard in a computer and headphones. But I of course like the heightened versions. So like when Barbie a few years ago started doing the extra dolls, It's like, that's fierce when they're in like fur coats and pumps, and because Barbie used to be so aspirational and theatrical, and I feel that for a while it was getting really joggers and T shirt as a collector. It wasn't only the collector

Yeah, but a little like Mary Sue shopping a target in you know, like Kansas City.

Yeah, like it's have you ever been in like a CBS and they have like an eight dollar doll where she's just in this from suit. They still have to have an impulse purchase level doll. Yeah. For the kid who's like nagging at the store, is like can I just have one?

Well, the ones that I got to get, Like when I was a kid and like wasn't allowed to have dolls. It was like when I had a couple dollars and I was like didn't have supervision. That's when I was able to like buy the you know, Walgreens Aisle Barbie and then hiding that I kept in my closet that my parents didn't know about and would play with them in secret.

Right, Oh wow, that was that's your doll origin story?

Was that is my doll origin story. It's like covered in shame because of like you know, like the you know whatever it was saying about like my gender, like my queerness or whatever. You know, it was very, very shameful. I knew that I was not allowed to have them because I already did too many girly things, and you know, like I think my mom kind of looked the other way, but I knew that it was wrong. And now I look back on it and like, of course I wanted

But it really was, honestly, Well, it's not a two way street either, Like if your daughter wants to talk a truck, no one cares, But if your someone wants a barbie, it's an issue.

Yes, say that.

I'm so glad earlier that you brought up the kind of like the boy girl toys and McDonald's, because that was such like a moment in the culture, like like and and the kind of fascism required for me to get a NASCAR toy as a child, like.

I don't want that fucking Nascar toy, Like, how dare that was so rude?

I was like that it was it was violence, honestly almost.

There was something almost more aspirational for me too about like the McDonald's Happy Meal Barbies, because a lot of times the hair was plastic and sculpted, so it was like, she's almost like a religious totem. She's like a little statue of the perfect woman. And I mean, as a kid, I really was just worshiping the dolls. I mean before I understood, before I understood that she was sort of at that point in the nineties, Barbie was almost doing drag.

I'm sure you look like someone's mother or sister.

And I will I will say, like when I got out of Texas, They're like, your hair reminds me my mom. I'm like, can I see it? And I have to say so, I actually watched her unboxing of your number one, of your number one Barbie, the original was it nineteen sixty five Barbie just off the Fountain nineteen fifty nine?

Thank you.

I have to say that the original Barbie, her mug was pretty cunty, like she had like like thin brows and a side eye, and she had like, you know, like thick eyeliner leg She.

Looked kind of her face is giving a little like she's.

Like you sure, and I'll say she's she's a little severe looking for a child's toy, I will say. And that's part of why, you know, in nineteen fifty eight, when the handlers were showing Barbie toys used to be purchased this way. There would be a toy convention at let's say the Radison San Diego, and all the toy store owners in the country would fly to town and they would go hotel room to hotel room, and they would get pitched new toys by little toy developers. And that's

Oh, I imagine they were hard nipples and not sort of like a rubbery song like deep.

Brown and like this big around. Yeah, dinner plates.

Put nipples back on barbies. I'll say.

If you watch the documentary Tiny Shoulders on Hulu, it opens with like a reenactment of that. I think it was Ryan who owns the patent on Barbie, who he did own the patent on Barbie. He basically picked up the doll, took a nail file and shaved off the nipples and was like, no, it's perfect, and that's kind of like the lore of how they did it.

No, which they still are.

People are still hung up on nipples.

So oh yeah, I mean you get my nipples sanded off. This weekend, I did not have a good time.

I know, now are all the girls just standing off their nipples? It's the culture there are.

I want to know, what which of the barbies do you know within your knowledge that were like controversial or like recalled or like created hubbub I know, like one of the things that I was thinking of was like kind of I want to say, like in the aughts, there was a pregnant barbie that was recalled because she didn't have a wedding ring. That was like a huge thing and it was like I can't get pregnant out of wedlock or whatever, and they were all recalled.

Are there any other like controversial barbie stories like that? There's a lot, And I want to say, I don't work for Mattel, but I will descend them until the day I die. This is a doll that's been out for seventy years. So if you're going to judge the dolls of sixty years ago by the standards of today,

They were like, oh my god, thanks for reminding me not to eat well.

I wear a lot of vintage clothes, and I mean when I shot vintage, I'm like, we're women seventy pounds and I'm like, I think they were like, clothes are this big, nonstretched, fabrics waste.

It's like when you go to like a medieval museum and all the doors are like this tall, and you're like, totally people were extremely short.

They were, and then you know, there's there's so many I mean, there was a doll called teen Talk Barbie where if you pushed a button on her back, she said phrases. It was in the eighties or the early nineties. One of the phrases she said was math is hard, and that was controversial for a female toy to be said, like women can't do math, but yes, math is math

He would so I own an earring Magic Ken and he was I actually have it on my desk.

I was he looks. I mean, I don't think he's gay. I think he's a response to Vanilla Ice, who was so big at the time. Well it looks like Ice, so well I okay, So the story that I read online and I don't know if this is like I only read like, you know, one article about it.

But like that they they were trying to like, you know, rebrand Ken. They didn't know if they should sell Ken dolls anymore, if they should find a new doll that wasn't named Ken or whatever. And they surveyed teen girls about what they wanted in a Ken doll, and then and teen girls and like you know, young girls were like, this is what I want, and they like you know, gave a bunch of recommendations. Yes, they gave a bunch

We got a notch? Is that a notch? And as I wrote, now ear rings. But also like also, this is exactly how Vanila I is dressed exactly top.

And motemnr on his inner lip that says come pig. He's holding a bottle of rush.

This is but this is like a blue pleathar vest, a lavender messher and a literal cock ring around his neck, Like what is going on like this? I'm not surprised girls voted for this because like I mean tricksy and I'm sure you know this better than anyone that like, the main market for drag and like lots of queer culture is teenage girls.

Oh, gay men don't even like me. I'm the audience is thirteen year old sister girls cis gender women periods. That's what's interesting with all this like discourse about drag being appropriate for kids. I'm somebody who accidentally has the maybe the youngest audience. But I have never said I liked kids or pulled punches when it comes to saying disgusting and horrible things.

So I'm just talk about you how you don't like children one hundred percent.

And I mean when I get on stage, I talk about like rimming my dad. So I've never I've It's not a bait and switch where I've pretended to be kid friendly. Now I've always said I'm not kid friendly. But then they come to the show. So what am I supposed to do? You know, I'm not going to kick them out because when I was thirteen, I felt like an adult and I wanted to watch adult shit. So whatever.

There's also and they have disposable money for merch exactly.

Hello, you know, hard just to eat gay guys to do anything. Well, what if something better comes along? Like okay, fine, don't come you know, But I mean, ask any working drive queen if they make more money at a brunch with a bunch of gay guys or a bunch of bachelorettes, ask them who they make more money with, and they'll

I've never been as long as there's a rhythm for them to you know.

Oh, and I was playing all my nasty music that really wouldn't fly at like a dance club. But I was playing like you know, gross, like spoken wordy, nasty, nasty.

Wait.

I have never been to a Steamworks branch. Did they regularly? I didn't know they have DJ sets at Steamworks that's a thing. I've never been to one either until this one. And it was it was like it's like a it's a steam it's a sauna. What is a Steamworks for the virgins? It's just like it's I mean, I'm not the expert. This was my first time at one. It

All right, like yeah, we're getting scrills in next week, I know.

But it was just it's it's if you ever like are out and you think it's me behind, if you see like a ball guy DJing, it probably is me. And I just didn't advertise it because I just wanted to just be invisible. But I love that. I mean, you you a legend.

Kind of like doing a incognito set at steam Marks is kind of reminding me of like when Bette Midler used to do when she was like the kind of singer for bat gay bath houses in New York and stuff like that.

Oh yeah, and I was like the only one there with clothes on. Yeah, it was like I had a T shirt on, and I was like vastly overdressed. Like also's naked people were on the dance floor naked, just naked dancing, and I was like, all right, work, that's so fun.

I also was like I can't swing you.

I can't take pictures with any of you because right now in the States they literally google drag queens and pull a picture and it's usually mine and they put on the news and call me a pedophile. So like, I can't take any pictures here. Like then again, at a at a bar place like that, pictures are prohibited anyway, so, right, Rose, have you ever been to a steamworks?

Not a steam works, but I've been to many bath houses many, she's.

Any bath house, water in the kitchen and get naked. I'm just I'm just imagine.

I'm just imagining just like on a dance floor naked that I feel like logistically that could be dangerous.

Well, I mean to be fair, when I've been at a bath house, I certainly haven't been on the dance floor. I've been doing the other things that you do at a bath house, right.

Other things that you do at a bath house. Like I like the idea that somebody has like a steamworks membership and uses it, like it's the fucking why they go there to actually use a treadmill and shower and leave mm hmm.

And they're just sort of like they're like they're like on the elliptical and there's like someone getting railed in the background, and they're just like listening to like our podcast while they work out.

Yeah, they're listening to like NPR, Yeah fresh Air.

Yeah, that is kind of my my gym in Brooklyn and on a gym that I will not name, like I joined when it like in an in an earlier stage when it's it's not as crowded as it it wasn't as crowded as it is now. And like I signed up and I was like, oh, this is a family gym for like local Brooklyn people and like you know, their dads or whatever, and and you know, I've been there. I've been there for a while now.

And like after like a month or two, I was like, Oh, everyone here is fucking Like everyone here is looking and fucking and this is a gay gym. And the way you're describing is kind of my gym because like the actual like cis hat like Brooklyn dads are just like like you know, in the steam room, like don't mind me, I'm just getting my steam in. I know you guys got to do your business, but like I'm just a dad or whatever. It's I love the it's really as

Way, so right exactly secret safe with me. Tricksy I do really want to know, because you know, we are, as we've said, like we're kind of in the year of Barbie right now, or like one of the year's Barbie, because Greta Garway's Barbie film is coming out this summer. What are you, like, are you excited? What do you want from it? Like, do you or do you have any suspicions now that we've got a couple of trailers out about what it could be about, like what's I haven't even.

Watched the trailer because it feels like I don't know. I want to go and blind. And I also, you have to understand, anytime anything Barbie adjacent ever happens, my phone blows up. And so I also am like already early, like inundated about it, Like you're hearing about this movie constantly for over a year. So it was like by the time the trailers out and everything's reacting to it. I also, this is so crazy and this is my own damage. I also feel like, great, now everyone's a bandwagoner, do you.

Know what I mean?

I like it as somebody who can name the year in the name of every outfit in that trailer, I'm sure I'm like, oh, did you like it? Did you like that movie?

You're gonna be sitting theater like you're all a bunch of fakes, Get out of here. Yeah.

But I also I love the Sims, for example, and I hate when people who love the Sims do nothing but shit on the Sims. The same way I hate when people like I love drag Race, but there's too much of it, there's too much. Like I hate people complaining about the wealth of something they like, like as if it's the Hunger Games and President Snow forces people to watch drag Race, Like when people complain about too many drag Race, I'm like, don't watch it, Mary, who fucking cares.

I'm definitely forced to watch drag Race. So it's definitely a state sanctioned like three to four hours drag race.

Yeah. And if in New York, if you don't watch drag Race, every franchise AOC gives you a parking ticket.

Yeah.

No, actually you get you get tax breaks for watching drag races. But I actually, I have a very open mind, and I'm sure I'm gonna go see it when it comes out, but I have no expectations, and I go into things wanting to like them. So I'm not a hater.

I'm sure that Barbie can't imagine.

Nobody's gonna hate this movie except the most hardcore, annoying Barbie fans where they're like nothing was ever going to be good enough for them. I no matter what, I yeah, I want.

I was going to ask you about the trailer. I would love to know your take on it. If there's something that happens. I won't spoil it. But there's something that happens in like the first five seconds of the trailer that is so gratifying, and it's like it's like it's just like an Ahama.

Where you're like, oh, this is the movie I'm gonna get.

But I will say, you know, you were talking earlier about like Barbie of the nineties, the blown out hair, like the golden era of Barbie. That definitely he does feel like the Barbie they are channeling. Obviously, they're tapping into a lot of different eras of barbiees and making specific references to barbiees throughout the years, but you can.

Tell it's like a nineties movie.

And I do feel like Ryan Gosling's Ken is very earring Magic Ken, like I think it's it feels like a reference.

Yeah, and I mean yeah, yeah, he looks gay. I think that's intentional. It's also a business and I think it says a lot about nineties Barbie that when you draw car if you drew a cartoon of Barbie quick, you would draw nineties Barbie. You wouldn't draw two thousands of Barbie without draws. Yeah, you would draw this girl. Yeah, so now he has something to do with When I dub nineties Barbie like the golden age of Barbie, I'm not being like it's my preference, and so it's true.

But are you furious that Margot Robie was cast instead of you?

I do think it's funny to it's interesting to think that wasn't an originally Amy Schumer. I think that that was. I think that that was in the works. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I.

Think it was. Originally.

When I first heard about the movie, I heard that Amy Schumer was playing Barbie like four years ago, and then I'm I love I love Morgart Robbie. I'm sorry, like Suicide Squad, she gives Okay, she's amazing Suicide Squad movies and it Tanya Girl Girl Girl Once Part a Time.

Hal.

But you know, I'm just gonna say this too. I don't like good movies. This year I watched like like Tar the Whail Triangle of Sadness, Like that is not for me, that type of movie. I watch it like stank faced, like this sucks, and then like but but I'm like, let's rewatch the original Super Marios movie, Like that's my level of movie that I love. And so I know I'm gonna like this was it.

Like me, You're like me, I prefer I draw this division. I like movies not films, and I think that's a very clear difference between the two. I like the populist entertainment, and I definitely think I do think because of who's involved, Barbie is going to straddle the two like it's going to be because of the Barbie of it all, it's going to be accessible. But I also think because it's Greta Gerwig, that there's going to be something intelligent there by the.

Way, the way that I thought Greta Greta Gerwig was Greta Thumberg, and I was like, oh is it not. I just was like that climate girl. I was like, yeah, Like I'm not like a smart film person like David is like the Ring of the Letter bled. No, I just watch what I watched. I re watched The Office over and over again.

Marco Robbie is really good at being unhinged, and you can tell that this is going to be a slightly unhinged Barbie like without you know, leaning to into it. Like they're definitely making it a weird movie.

And we had a hard enough on the.

Pod and she talked a little bit about it and like, I don't think I realized, like how fucking stacked this cast is like do a lipa in this movie like so many people where I was like, oh, you're in this movie, like and so now it's like Sarah Yes, but.

It's also it's also like The Ocean's eleven Yes, where it's like it's the Knives out of it All, where you're like, we need to get seventy five as actors. Now.

Yeah, the only way you can have a hit these days.

It needs to be all unknowns or all like literally Barack Obama has to be in.

It all stars, all winners. Yes, totally, but you.

Know, honestly, and this is a little bit of a throwback. The best Barbie we've ever seen in film, hands down and TV because you know, we've seen Barbie Perry in our SNL. Although I love those Epsenel skits where they have like the Barbie Instagram account. Have you seen those? Those skits are amazing. The best Barbie we've ever seen in cinema or media or whatever is Barbie from Toy Story two when they go through the toy aisle and

That was one of them.

I would say. One of the other ones was the Jeremy Scott like think pink Barbie collection. When I saw that runway, my mind, like, I think my head exploded. I think my fontanelles gave out and my brain shot out of the back of my head because I just had never I mean, I guess I love heather At and it reminded me of Heather Ret, but I had never love love. I mean, early heather At is very very barbiecore Barbie Court.

Heatherat is a fashion brand that used to exist and I went to one of their shows like when I first moved to New York, and it was like a gag.

I yeah, I have no ing, I've never heard of them, but I'm curious just as a collector. Like something that I was really shook by when I was like, you know when I watch your unboxing video, was that you you actually unbox these Barbies? Do you like take all of your dolls like out of boxes and like unfasten them or like I thought it was like a collector's thing to like not unboxed toys. It's like a very like I don't know anything about collector world.

It's like what how do you decide like whether to unpackage or unpackage, like what to undo and not undo what you preserve? Well, nineteen fifty nine Barbie, it's not like she came shrink crapped. Yeah, like toys, toys back then, we're just you could just open the lid of it, you know, like it's in the box. It's just a box sell of my toys. Like I have a Francy.

Oh that's smart. I've been thinking about this recently because I'm sort of like in my collectible era. I'm like going back and finding toys from when I was a kid that I didn't get to have and buying them now. And I did recently buy And I know you'll appreciate this tricksy because I know that you like Buffy. I bought a Willow action figure recently and it's of her. It's Vampire Willow, and I have it in the box. I have it taken it out, and I do want to play with it, but there's a part of me

I would tape them back up into the box to like preserve that. It was like really psycho behavior. No, I think, I honestly think that the packaging, to me, is part of the collectible. It's not a shell. I think it's part of it. I think it being packaged is part of and the way it's packaged is also part of the time capsule of it. This is how things were packaged at this time, and with Barbie especially, every aspect of it is a time capsule. This is

It's a conversation piece. Yeah, when you die, do you want to be put into a sort of life size Barbie box and wrapped in plastic? We can, because it happen, but.

That's kind of giving Dori and Corey. Don't you think wrapping a body in plastic?

Yeah, you know, maybe glass?

Yeah, maybe I will. Oh my god, this is horrible, but uh.

Maybe.

I don't know how I want to die. I probably want a pink coffin though, for sure, or a pink eurn, like I want. Pink means a lot to me, and it's my you know, it's sort of my my trauma bond with that color is so extreme and like it means so much to me that you know, everything being pink makes me. I mean just the color pink makes

Is I'm going to do that to you when I kill you?

Oh yeah, oh thank you, that's so sweet.

But I'll also snort your ashes.

Oh yeah, I mean you'll get a I don't even know how that would make you feel.

Probably it will be in the hines on Fire Island and I'll be like, this one's for Fran. Actually, this one is Fran.

Am I am I an upper or a downer?

What do you think? I think you start as an upper and then we go down?

Okay, love, Yeah, that's a that's a good. That's a good little arc.

I wow.

I mean maybe I'll be in my doll collecting era too. Now, Rose, now that you're doing you should, I mean, if I could. If you guys are really anybody who's listening wants to

That's like why you know, the barbiees of the of the aughts were wearing north faces and ugs as as they should be Tom's shoes.

You know, not Tom shoes.

Yeah. Next, like I bet you next year Barbie's are going to have those dumb puffy red boots that are going to be big. Now.

Yeah, I guess the thing that maybe the thing to end on is like I'm thinking about, like what's the what's the Barbie of the twenty twenties, Like, like what is cool? I know that you know, she is her own style obviously, but like hypothetically, like I don't even know what twenty twenties culture.

It's kind of like twenty twenty five Barbie. Okay, here's what here's what is it? What he's wearing. She's wearing a pair of Margiala tabbies. She's got a bottle of Estradle, and she's got she's got a microphone set to do her podcast.

Oh yeah, and but she DJs on the weekends for sure, totally and by DJing, I mean, she just has a MacBook and she literally is on Spotify. Yeah, yeah, she's on Spotify. Yeah, And I think I think they can of the twenty twenty threes. It's like, you know, Trimex, it's ozempic, it's it's injectable. Tanner, it's a unit, it's a mile unit.

Yes, he's on a.

Turkey for the hairlines. Your size too, yeah yeah yeah. But but I mean, if we're ending all jokes aside, like when you really sit and think of like the massive impact. We always talk about the impact Barbie has, but when you really think about the massive positive impact, I mean, this toy opened up a possibility for women to imagine their life to be anything at a time where they were only encouraged to imagine to be moms. I mean, it really is incredible, and I'm excited.

For the movie.

To be honest, the Doll of twenty twenty three is going to probably be whatever most popular look for the movie. That's what's because you know that Mattel is going to make outfits of all of those for sale.

Yes, damn.

Like yeah, I feel like now people for the next year and or two, Like, just as you said, barbiecore is going to be back again, and we're all going to be dressing like Barbie's and you know, Bigbocre has been back for a while. You know, I think of like faggots with white walls and gold fixtures and plants in their houses, like that is so like needs to be retired. That like geriatric millennial approach to like living

It's around, She'll really about.

Yeah, all pink is the same as all blacks. Some people were all.

Black, some people were all think that's the binary. Those are the two genders. Slide into our dms and let us know, are you a Barbie girl? Are you just ken? Did you play with dolls when you were a kid. Are you a doll?

Now?

We want to know? You can also buy our merchant Like a Virgin for twenty sixty nine dot com and become patron at Patreon dot com slash Like a Virgin four weekly bonus episodes. You can follow us at Like a Virgin for twenty sixty nine on Instagram, and you can follow me anywhere you want at ros Daumu, and you can follow me at Franz squish Goo anywhere you like. Like a Virgin is an iHeartRadio production, and our producer is Phoebe Unter, with support from Lindsay Hoffman and Nikki Etour.

These are so I just for the virgins have never read the book. I have never seen the miniseries. But The Handmaid in its adaptation, which is very different from the book, we'll get into it is extremely different. Is one of my favorite queer films ever. Like I think it's like such a good point of reference for anybody that considers themselves a sinophile in the queer space. It's like to meet required viewing if you want to brush up on like queer cinema in general, because like part

In a case do see WLW sex scenes like this in porn, which I think is part of the problem. Well, and we'll we'll get to my thoughts on the hand Made And I first would like to talk about the book to give you some context for when we get Yes, please to conversations. So Fingersmith is a two thousand and two novel written by Sarah Waters, who is a renowned British lesbian author. She primarily writes historical fiction, and most of her most celebrated work has lesbian themes lesbian characters.

Of all time, like all time meaning, like of all time meaning.

But it is among like.

A top ten books of all time. I assume it's not like the number one.

No, it is the number one. It's my favorite book. My job is I've said this on the podcast before. Okay, no, no, no, I'm not doubting you. I'm just I'm just always learning and relearning your favorites and your tops, which I love well. I mean, is that that surprising because as we've talked about on this, I love historical fiction and specifically queer history, and this is really well written queer historical fiction, which is usually not the case. Like usually it's like you know,