Why is “Barbie” bombing in Japan?
Barbenheimer memes almost ruined a date with my daughter
I loved playing with Barbie dolls. As a little girl in Michigan, I spent hours putting my dolls through dramas, creating stories alone in my room, or in tandem with my best friend who lived next door. My first Barbie was conventional, blonde, with hard plastic legs. Later, I acquired Malibu Barbie and Ken, a Black nurse Barbie, modelled after the TV character Julia played by Diahann Carol, and a Miss America Barbie.
Although I have no memory of wanting to look like a Barbie doll — or like any other of my dolls which had thicker waists and flatter feet — I gradually absorbed the culturally prevalent idea that little girls should have dolls that looked like them. With this in mind, I grew up and came to Japan to teach English. One day, at a kindergarten, I was surprised to see that there were no dolls with Japanese features.
Aside from the exquisite dolls-in-kimono displayed in glass cases only at the end of winter, none of the dolls in Japan looked Asian. Barbie wasn’t popular. She was probably too sexy for Japan. However, there were two fashion dolls — Jenny, who came with a kimono, and Licca-chan. According to her back story, blonde-haired Licca-chan, is biracial, with a French musician father and Japanese designer mother. She is eleven years old — too young to be a doctor or the president or to have a boyfriend.
After I married a Japanese man and had a daughter of my own, I bought dolls for her. She began receiving them from others, as well, as gifts on Christmas, birthdays, and Children’s Day. Although Barbie dolls were not sold in the local toy stores, she amassed a collection of them during trips to see my family in South Carolina — doctor Barbie, fairy Barbie, ballerina Barbie, and more.
Because my daughter is deaf, I made sure she got a Sign Language Barbie. Because she has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, I ordered a Barbie with a wheelchair online for her. I also made sure she had dolls with Asian features.
Now, my daughter is grown and living apart from her father and me. She came home for the summer Obon holidays. I suggested that we go “Barbie,” which debuted in Japan on August 11.
I had kept up with the hype online, and I was looking forward to a girlie, nostalgic experience, which I wanted to share with her. I also wanted her to imbibe the movie’s message of female empowerment.
In spite of Japan’s wealth, health, and the opportunities available, Japanese women consistently rank low in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap annual Report, which tracks gender parity in education, health, politics, and economic participation.
In 2023, Japanese women were ranked 125th out of 146, slightly worse than Myanmar, at 123rd, and lagging far behind other Asian countries such as the Philippines, which came in at 16, Singapore, 49th, and Thailand in 74th place. The US, for the record, ranked 43.
In spite of various government programs and incentives, Japanese women seem hesitant to pursue high level careers in business and politics. Many of the young Japanese women that I teach at a small university in Tokushima believe that there is no gender disparity in Japan. The “Barbie” movie could start a conversation in this country, I thought. Or it might at least inspire my daughter.
When I mentioned the film, she made a face. She had seen a “Barbenheimer” graphic online — an image of Barbie and Ken backed by a mushroom cloud in the distance. Just five days before, Japan had observed the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which led to the deaths of at least 140,000.
Another atomic bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, resulting in an additional 73,884 deaths, according to Nagasaki Peace Japan. The joint promotion of the “Barbie” movie and “Oppenheimer,” which has not been released in Japan, was regarded in poor taste and did not go over well here.
Nevertheless, I convinced her to go to the movie, explaining that it had nothing to do with the creator of the atomic bomb. Dressed in pink, we made our way to Fuji Grand mall which houses Cinema Sunshine. Out of curiosity, I popped into Toys ‘R Us (which hadn’t been around when my daughter was small) to see which Barbies, if any, were for sale.
I came across a display tied-in to the movie, featuring only conventional blonde dolls. A “pink bedroom” set was on sale, but there were no career Barbies, no Barbies of color, no Barbies with disabilities.
In the theater, there wasn’t a single Barbie poster on display in the lobby. A dubbed version was scheduled for three showings a day, the first at the unlikely and inconvenient hour of eight a.m. When we entered the theater at six p.m. on a Friday, opening day, for the English-language version, only about ten other people were in the screening room –one of them a Japanese child.
Due to a lack of publicity, I suspect many Japanese viewers will bring their kids, thinking that the movie is something like “Toy Story,” and will go away disappointed.
Ultimately, the opening of the “Barbie” movie was a non-event in Japan. There was no pink box for photos, no other viewers dressed in pink. Nevertheless, I was happy to share this bit of my culture and this throwback to my childhood with my daughter. She perked up whenever a Barbie in a wheelchair appeared onscreen.
Later, she posted on Instagram that the film had brought back memories of playing with her dolls. But for the most part, it looks as if the “Barbie” movie’s celebration of diversity and the message of female empowerment will be overpowered by its association with the atomic bomb, and that the movie won’t have a positive, lasting impact in Japan. What a shame.
For more on the intersection of Japanese and American cultures, I invite you to read my latest novel The Baseball Widow.
