Shari Caudon's "Befriending Barbie" from all the story we have read, I have to say that this has to be my favorite story. This story really surprised the hell out of me. At first I thought the story was going to be boring and just talk about the Barbie Convention and how it works, but was I wrong! I totally fell in love with story because of the characters. The Barbie people were beautiful people. We need more Barbie people in the world. I loved the way that Caudon made her meaning making. She was missing something and in the most unexpected place she came to realize that Barbie is not only a toy or doll to these people. Barbie creates a community and helps people in their everyday life to cope with issues. I loved Judy Stegner her story made me cry and that is what I think made this story work because it touched the reader on an emotional level. It was not only a description of what was happening at the convention but we actually got to be there with these people and experience their joy with them.
"I put down the bottle of water I've been holding. 'What do you mean,' I ask, "that you couldn't have made it without them?"
Judy exhales. "Well," she says, "maybe you heard about this. In September 1999, there was a shooting at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth in which several kids were killed."
I tell her vaguely recall the story about the man who entered the church during a youth rally and randomly started shooting.
"That's the one," she says. "He murdered seven people that day, including my son Justin. " Judy's brown eyes grow pink with tears. "He was my only child." (Pg.67)
The story had a depth and truth to it that Caudron captured beautifully. Just like Barbie each Barbie collector and fanatic was unique in their own way, but held one thing in common their love for Barbie. Barbie gave them something they were missing in their lives. I also loved the Black Barbie collector Brenda Blanchard because of her creativity she like so many made Barbie an art form. Barbie is forever a memory that is embedded in our minds for those who have and still have Barbies it is a phase in ones life that one can look back and those moments can be relived. Overall, I love the whole story.
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2 comments:
I'm glad you liked this, Raquel--a lot of people (okay, two) didn't seem to. (I wonder if it's the masculine prohibition against liking Barbie . . .)
For me, as you say, this turns out being about real people with real lives who use Barbie as a way of dealing with the problems of those lives. And that emotional moment at the center of the piece (if I can be a writerly bastard for a moment and ignore the actual emotion) I think shows how important things like character, setting, dialog, and description are--those boring craft things are what manage to carry the emotional weight of that moment, partly because Caudron helps us see Judy, but also because she uses the first section of the piece to put us in the same (somewhat mocking, outside but beginning to understand) emotional position she's in.
Yeah, I really enjoyed the story too. That part about the lady's son (Judy) who's son got killed, that part of the story stood out to me too. It was so sad because her son Justin was the one to show her the wonderful world wide web. And she got to meet other Barbie lovers and fans. And then to have her son killed it was those same people (the barbie lovers) to help her go through her loss. It just seem like it was in god's hands or something.
Like it was meant to be for her to meet and find those barbie friends through the internet because God knew what was going to happen to her son Justin and God knew Judy needed friends and special people to help her.
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