[News] Barbie's Gay Pride Shocker!

Wed Jul 2 11:45:25 EDT 2014

/After all the hoopla and foofarah of Gay Pride fades, the sun dims, and 
the earth grows cold, Barbie remains… /

*Barbie's Gay Pride Shocker! *

*"Get out! Get out of here and never come back!" shrieked an enraged 
Barbie, as she hurled a tiny bedroom slipper in my direction. The dainty 
missile careened off an itty-bitty bust of Ken, then shattered the frame 
that held a photo of Barbie's best friend, Midge. "Take your Gay Pride 
and shove it!"*

*Barbie's entire Malibu Dreamhouse shook and threatened to cave in on 
itself as the diminutive lass slammed my nose in the door. This doll was 
mad, but I couldn't help it; I was just doing my job.*

*Me? I'm a crackerjack reporter for Gay City News. My editor had just 
given me "one more chance" to turn in a story on Gay Pride that was 
"upbeat" and "gay-positive," and not "another of your infernal, 
politically correct diatribes against the U.S. corporate war machine." *

*My assignment: To come up with a breezy, vapid piece of queer-friendly 
consumerist claptrap hawking Gay Pride, in 45 minutes, or be fired. I 
had to work fast – no matter how many hearts I broke. I was in a dither.*

*Then I remembered Barbie and her Malibu Dreamhouse. I had purchased the 
set – $156.98 at Toys R Us – as a present for a campy, shopaholic gay 
male friend (if I ever found one). I took Barbie and her Dreamhouse out 
of my closet. Maybe, I thought, the pert little minx could provide an 
upbeat, gay-positive perspective.*

*Leering journalistically into her upstairs bedroom, I peeped Barbie at 
her dressing table. There she sat in a negligee, quaffing a wee can of 
Diet Coke. *

*WAIT – isn't Diet Coke a "Platinum" sponsor of New York City's Heritage 
of Pride? WOW! Whatta scoop! *

*"Hey, doll!" I called, inserting my nose-for-news through her window. 
"Since you obviously don't need to lose weight, you must be drinking 
Diet Coke to support Gay Pride, right? My, your Dreamhouse is so /pink/ 
– isn't that an upbeat, gay-positive color? Here, let me fix your strap 
for you…"*

*In a playful response to my barrage of hard-hitting questions, Barbie 
tried to stab my finger with her cuticle scissors. Then she said 
something that was shockingly non-upbeat. *

*"Don't you know the Coke Company is bankrolling Gay Pride so the LGBT 
community will forget last winter, when Coke sponsored the Olympic Games 
in Sochi?" Barbie asked, taking a large swig of the brown bubbly. "Coke 
said absolutely nothing about Russia's 'gay propaganda' law. Nothing 
about queers threatened with prison or having their children taken away –"*

*"Whoa there, honey," I countered. "This story will never 'trend' online 
if you're such a Gloomy Gus. Look on the bright side – Corporate America 
doesn't hate us anymore! Things Go Better With Queers!"*

*Barbie stifled a belch. "Fine, have your Pride," she said resignedly. 
"Just know that your so-called sexual orientation now depends for its 
validation on another planet-destroying multinational. The Coke Company 
expropriates drinking water in India and kills union leaders in 
Colombia. And don't get me started on some of those other Pride 
sponsors. Wells Fargo: Major financial supporter of U.S. immigration 
detention centers. TD Bank: More than $15 billion invested in the 
Alberta tar sands project. HSBC: Ginormous fines for laundering drug 
cartel money…"*

*This reporter was beginning to get a whole new sense of why Barbie 
might like pink so much. But I couldn't let her Marxist rhetoric poison 
my upbeat, gay-positive journalism with hideous, hideous facts.*

*"If the Coca-Cola Company and other major corporate entities want to 
recognize queer people as human," I rebutted adroitly, "then I think we 
should return the favor and regard these corporations as people – maybe 
even /queer/ people. In fact, I have every reason to believe that Wells 
Fargo is gay. I am, therefore, proud to identify with Wells Fargo, and 
not a bunch of heterosexual detainees. In fact, I suspect that any 
corporate or human entity with a net worth of at least $65 billion is 
probably gay. Bill Gates, $78 billion: gay. Vladimir Putin, $70 billion: 
gay. Betty Crocker does it with Sara Lee. Trump Tower is hot for the 
Chrysler Building."*

*I began humming and snapping my fingers. "Come on, Barbie, sing it with 
me! /I'd like to teach the world to sing/ …"*

*Barbie only stared vacantly into the bleak, aluminum opening of her 
Coke can.*

*"I'm drinking this bilge in hopes that the aspartame will kill me," she 
said hollowly. "It's useless."*

*"Oh Barbie," I started to say, "nothing's useless in an upbeat story 
about Gay Pride –" But she cut me off.*

*"You see, I'm in love. Deeply in love with Chelsea Manning."*

*This reporter tried to wrap this reporter's mind around Barbie's 
shocking confession. Chelsea Manning – really?*

*Chelsea Manning who, as 23-year-old Army private Bradley Manning, gave 
classified data to the whistleblower website Wikileaks, stunning the 
world with over 700,000 instances of heretofore unknown U.S. diplomatic 
malfeasance and war crimes? Chelsea Manning who, facing a 35-year 
sentence in the brutal hopelessness of prison, /dares/ to transition 
from male to female? What did Chelsea Manning have to do with Gay Pride? *

*Obviously, nothing. So I asked the only question that I, as an upbeat, 
gay-positive reporter, could think of.*

*"Gee, Barbie – does this mean you're a lesbian?"*

*That's when the commie dyke kicked me out. *

*Fair enough, I thought: Plastic is as plastic does. Besides, I had only 
three minutes until my deadline, and no time to care. So I kicked 
Barbie's Malibu Dreamhouse back into my closet, slammed the door, and 
ended this piece.*

*
*

© Susie Day, 2014

References:

Barbie/Malibu Dreamhouse:

http://www.toysrus.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=3628113 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213937-www.toysrus.com/family/index.jsp?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11587154&cp=2255956.3053760.10882029.33886106.3628113&parentPage=family 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213941-www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

NYC Gay Pride Sponsors:

http://www.nycpride.org/sponsors 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213945-www.nycpride.org/sponsors?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

Coke:

Coke and Sochi Olympics sponsorship:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/olympic-sponsors-were-war_b_4679919.html 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213949-www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/olympic-sponsors-were-war_b_4679919.html?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

Drinking water, India:

http://www.hummingbirdproject.org/regions/india/water-for-people-or-profit-coca-cola-sucks-india-dry/ 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213953-www.hummingbirdproject.org/regions/india/water-for-people-or-profit-coca-cola-sucks-india-dry/?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

Union leaders, Colombia:

http://www.alternet.org/story/146579/coca_cola's_role_in_the_assassinations_of_union_leaders_explored_in_powerful_new_documentary 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213957-www.alternet.org/story/146579/coca_cola-s_role_in_the_assassinations_of_union_leaders_explored_in_powerful_new_documentary?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

http://colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213961-colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

More on Coke:

http://killercoke.org/index.php 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213965-killercoke.org/index.php?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

Wells Fargo:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/immigrants-wells-fargo_n_1016339.html 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213969-www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/immigrants-wells-fargo_n_1016339.html?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

TD Bank:

http://vtdigger.org/2013/03/20/tar-sands-opponents-target-td-bank/ 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213973-vtdigger.org/2013/03/20/tar-sands-opponents-target-td-bank/?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

http://tcprogressivealliance.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-is-keystone-xl-pipeline-and-tar.html 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213977-tcprogressivealliance.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-is-keystone-xl-pipeline-and-tar.html?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

HSBC:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/17/us-hsbc-moneylaundering-exclusive-idUSBREA0G1KQ20140117 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213981-www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/17/us-hsbc-moneylaundering-exclusive-idusbrea0g1kq20140117?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

Bill Gates: Net worth $78.8 billion:

http://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/ 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213985-www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

Vladimir Putin: Net worth $70 billion:

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/presidents/vladimir-putin-net-worth/ 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213989-www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/presidents/vladimir-putin-net-worth/?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

Bradley/Chelsea Manning:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/manning-sentenced-for-leaking-government-secrets.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213993-www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/manning-sentenced-for-leaking-government-secrets.html?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/8/21/bradley_manning_sentenced_to_35_years 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1213997-www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/8/21/bradley_manning_sentenced_to_35_years?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/as-a-transgender-woman-in-prison-chelsea-manning-is-commencing-the-greatest-struggle-of-her-life-8789886.html 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1214001-www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/as-a-transgender-woman-in-prison-chelsea-manning-is-commencing-the-greatest-struggle-of-her-life-8789886.html?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

Manning transition statement:

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/8/22/i_want_everyone_to_know_the_real_me_i_am_chelsea_manning_i_am_a_female 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1214005-www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/8/22/i_want_everyone_to_know_the_real_me_i_am_chelsea_manning_i_am_a_female?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb>

NY Times editorial by Manning, 6/15/14:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/opinion/sunday/chelsea-manning-the-us-militarys-campaign-against-media-freedom.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As&_r=0 
<http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/snidelines/barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker/1214009-www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/opinion/sunday/chelsea-manning-the-us-militarys-campaign-against-media-freedom.html?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb> 

Snidelines <http://tinyletter.com/snidelines> by susie day
Cabrini Blvd. New York, NY 10040 USA
<http://tinyletter.com/snidelines/unsub?c=6d81fb7a-3227-4ee1-9d3d-c0e8d025b1fb&m=barbie-s-gay-pride-shocker> 

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