As a Breast Cancer Survivor, I Can Finally Relate to Barbie
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Barbie took the world by storm last summer, making more than $1 billion in global box office sales and racking up film awards and nominations.
I went to see the movie with a group of beloved girlfriends in August. We enjoyed it. We literally laughed and cried, and afterward, we eagerly discussed the film.
But unlike many women, I felt no real nostalgia while watching the movie. It was only as an adult that I found her relatable, and even then, not until after I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
I can explain.
I had little use for Barbie as a child. She was glamorous, poised, and in the know, and I was just a kid. I was fine to let her live her best life while I tried to live mine.
Later, when I was in my 20s and even into my 30s, I ended up with the dubious gift of a somewhat Barbie-like body.
“Somewhat” because, in human scale, Barbie would have impossible measurements: Her feet, size 3, would be too small to keep her body upright. She’d be 5’9″ and 110 pounds, and she’d be a C cup.
I had a more human facsimile — largish breasts, a small waist, a flat stomach, and slim arms and legs.
Unlike Barbie, I didn’t find it that much fun. Sure, I liked having all kinds of clothes flatter me, but I didn’t enjoy the unwanted physical and sexual attention I got from men, which I wasn’t adept at handling.
My treatment included having a lumpectomy — surgery to remove the tumor but preserve the breast — plus chemo and radiation.
Obviously (and gratefully) I survived. But one thing my doctors never told me was that when one of your breasts is radiated, it will no longer grow or change with the rest of your body, due to the damaging effects of radiation on the tissue. If you gain weight later (and cancer treatments can lead to weight gain, as can ordinary aging), your non-radiated breast will grow while your other will not.
As a consequence, my once-symmetrical breasts are now somewhat different sizes, which can make me self-conscious.
So why do I like Barbie more these days, when I resemble her less? Like me, she has evolved. Over the years, Barbie has become a doctor, a teacher, an astronaut. She’s a working woman. I can relate to that.
Granted, Barbie has more careers than I do, and she does her work with a constant smile and a perpetually confident flair, while I do not. But we’re no longer separated by what had felt like a child/grown-up divide. I smile when I see her branching out — in lines of work, in style, and in ethnicity.
And then there’s that Barbie-esque zeal.
Before cancer, I tried, like most folks to embrace life’s joys and to foster a healthy community. But life since my diagnosis has changed all that.
Anyone who’s been to a cancer survivor conference can vouch for the joy and gratitude in the air. “Carpe diem” is a perpetual theme. Looking through my photos taken in the years since my diagnosis, I reflect on the fact that quite a few of the beautiful friends in them, young women with breast cancer, have since died of the disease. Others have seen the cancer progress to stage 4. That’s why we make sure to dance and party together — when we can, because we can, while we can.
Living with or through cancer can heighten one’s sense of appreciation for pleasures great and small, for goals achieved, for coming together with loved ones, and just for getting to see what’s next.
Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler, named the doll after her daughter — a poignant expression of the hopes she had both for her child and for the doll. Actress Rhea Perlman beautifully portrays Handler’s dreams, struggles, and depth in the film.
The movie also alludes to something many don’t know about Handler: In 1970, she, too, was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she had a mastectomy as part of her treatment.
Handler believed strongly in women feeling good about their bodies (although some have argued — and still do — that Barbie’s unrealistic build has the opposite effect).
Throughout her career, she strove to uplift women’s confidence in both their abilities and their appearance. Even after she left the Mattel company, she worked with a prosthetics designer to address post-mastectomy issues.
In 1976, Handler and the designer brought Nearly Me liquid silicone prosthetics to the market — including a wide variety of size options, plus custom designs.
Women who’d been stuffing socks into their bras after breast surgery were given, through Handler’s vision, a helpful option.
I may no longer have the Barbie-esque body. And I might not rock every outfit like Barbie can, but my experience with cancer has helped to seal my fondness for her.
I feel like Barbie can be my buddy now. I’m happy to mark her 65th birthday this month. And I hope we continue to take on the world together.
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