What’s Up with Barbie’s Feet?

There are many, many SPOILERS!!! in here about every movie mentioned. You have been warned.

I never intended this to be an attack or slur on Margot Robbie. She appears quite personable in the only interview I've seen her in..

Quentin Tarantino: he may deserve a few lumps, but I'm sure he doesn't care what I think or write about him.

Disclaimer: everything in here was reported in mainstream media outlets. The Story Feedback section has a few key links, but posting all of the possible end notes for a Literotica essay seems like overkill. I'll send them to anybody who wishes to see them.

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This July 21st will be the premier of the movie Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig. The first topic I'll deal with is the star of the film, Margot Robbie. Then I'll get to the movie itself, and finally to an interesting fetish mania that has resulted merely from the trailers.

I admit, I've never seen any movie Robbie's been in; I couldn't even name most of them. But I've been to college, so I know how to write about topics with only an indirect knowledge of them. Do you think all of those people who pontificate about de Tocqueville's Democracy in America have actually read it?

Robbie first came to my attention when she played Harley Quinn in 2016's Suicide Squad. I'm not sure I can keep all of this straight, but apparently Quinn first appeared in a 1992 episode of Batman: The Animated Series.

Originally intended as a one-shot deal, she was just too good of a character to not appear in further episodes and then migrate to other parts of the Batman comic universe. (I don't know the difference between canon and non-canon, but please don't tell me because I don't care.)

I must have been oblivious to whatever was going on in 2016, and thus I had to look up what the movie is about. "A secret government agency recruits some of the most dangerous incarcerated super-villains to form a defensive task force. Their first mission: save the world from the apocalypse."

Pass the popcorn, except I'm sneaking in my own bag because the stuff they sell in theaters is too expensive.

One of these heroic villains is "Harley Quinn, a former psychiatrist-turned-girlfriend of Gotham crime lord Joker." It had already been established in the DC Comics universe that he was a former patient who has fallen in love with her. And I had thought that the Hannibal Lector-Buffalo Bill connection was improbable.

Robbie was twenty-four at the time of filming, but her character had to be older than that if she went to medical school. Also, Quinn seems to need some psychiatric intervention herself. I do like, among other things, that shirt she wears, "Daddy's Little Monster." Joker must have had quite a bad influence on her.

Another article, dated 2019, says that Robbie was "confused by Suicide Squad's storyline," specifically the romance between Quinn and Joker. But she found the break-up of the two in Birds of Prey more "relatable."

"And I actually understand the break-up. That's something I feel like everyone can kind of understand and relate to in some ways. Though she deals with... like she blows things up, I don't do that."

I should hope not, because that would be terrorism and could result in a long prison sentence.

The next time she came to my consciousness was in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019) in which she played Manson Family victim Sharon Tate. (As I implied, I have only read reviews of that as well.)

Some reviewers complained that Robbie had very little dialogue. One may think that, being a victim, there is no point in having her say much.

But Tarantino is rarely happy simply depicting real events. He makes up two neighbors on Cielo Drive (played by Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio), who confront the the Manson murderers and then kill three of them..

DiCaprio finishes off one of them (apparently Susan Atkins) with a flamethrower, which he had been using as a prop in a movie. (Are actors allowed to take flamethrowers home with them?) Atkins actually died in prison about fourteen years ago.

So all is well in Hollywood, with Tate, Sebring, and the rest of them surviving and thus not becoming victims after all. One wonders what Tate, who would be eighty this year, would have done with the rest of her career.

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Robbie disappeared from my mind until this year's Barbie, based on the toy introduced in 1959 by Mattel, Inc. One plot summary says, "After being expelled from Barbieland for being a less than perfect-looking doll, Barbie sets off for the human world to find true happiness."

It's a live-action film with actors playing full-sized characters. I guess it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, all in fun. But I'll reserve judgment. As per photos and videos I've seen, almost everything in Barbieland is pink with some white highlights.

That includes Barbie's car, a Corvette (1954, I think) which, like all vehicles of that era, doesn't have seatbelts. But then, there are no auto accidents in Barbieland. If Alex Cox or God help us, David Cronenberg was directing, there would be a head-on collision of her car with a Barbieland Freight Lines Mack tractor-trailer. That truck would also be pink and white.

Ryan Gosling plays Barbie's "loser boyfriend" Ken. So what's exactly wrong with him? Is it a lack of money or ambition, or something else? Just saying, the Barbie and Ken dolls I remember from the 1960's (I guess one of my sisters had them) lacked genitals.

Robbie and Gosling obviously do have them, so it would have been interesting if Gerwig had to negotiate with the MPA about the boundary between a hard "R" and an NC-17. Of course, eventually, there would be an uncensored "director's cut" released for those interested in such films. But that is purely my fantasy.

Gosling has finally shaved off his trademark goatee. I think that was a bad choice, but it's hard to imagine Ken with facial hair. I could imagine Barbie with pubic hair, however.

Robbie does look good in the car while wearing blue, including a headband with white polka dots. However, I think it was a mistake to have the Beach Boy's "Daddy Took the T-Bird Away," on the soundtrack. The color may be wrong, but I'd prefer Prince's "Little Red Corvette," which is certainly not about automobiles.

At thirty-two is Robbie too old to play Barbie? How old is Barbie supposed to be anyway? Ageless? She must have a driver's license, but maybe Barbieland doesn't have encumbrances such as licenses and Departments of Motor Vehicles.

Perhaps if Gerwig had more imagination (she needs more?) there would be a pink DMV in which the employees are just as grumpy as the ones in the Real World.

Yet this movie is where Robbie's career gets interesting. As one headline put it, "Robbie's 'Barbie' Feet Spark Fetish Frenzy." It's based on the "teaser trail" which is all of a minute and forty-five seconds long.

It's really the first twelve seconds or so that matter. That is a close-up of Robbie/Barbie's feet as she walks along a pink floor. Her foot gear consists of high-heeled sandals with little fuzzy whatevers on the toes.

In the last two seconds, she steps out of the sandals, and walks, or stands actually, on the balls of her feet. That is a reference to the fact that Mattel failed to give the dolls movable ankle joints.

That's it. My reaction to this would normally be, so what? But, no, it's gone viral (like COVID?), a term that does annoy me. One stat: that trailer had been "peeped" 7.8 million times as of the day the article was published. I, of course, have added a couple more.

Some of the Twitter comments are worth quoting. "Margot Robbie's feet really make me want to buy a ticket to Barbie," says one person.

"CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW PRETTY MARGOT ROBBIE'S FEET ARE?" gushed a second one (yes, all caps). Another states that they have "never seen anything more perfect than Margot's feet."

Not to be upstaged, yet another fan has compiled images from her films to create "The Margot Robbie feet extended universe."

Now I've always claimed that we have to respect each other's sexual interests just as much as we respect our own. If one has interests that go beyond mere squick into the non-consensual or the downright criminal or dangerous, then one should keep them to oneself. If they have to be written down, keep that private too.

But I can't even define exactly what a fetish is. Everybody is interested in something; sex might be rather dull if limited only to straight, missionary-style sex. And don't tell me that it's "a matter of degree." Who is going to judge that?

That said, I'd like to see Dominatrix Barbie, not with pink leather but perhaps a pink business suit, pink high-heels, and a pink garter with straps. Subtle yet provocative. Ken might like it more than he first anticipated.

There is one more complication here. Apparently "famed" director Quentin Tarantino "has long been rumored to have a foot fetish." Some of the evidence for this is based on close-ups of Sharon Tate's dirty bare feet. Those are prominently displayed as she rests them on the seatbacks in a movie theater. I have never seen anyone, male or female, do that, but I could have missed something.

Lyndon Johnson is alleged to have said about his tactics with a political opponent: "It doesn't matter how ridiculous the charges are. Make the son-of-a-bitch deny them."

Instead, Quentin seems to have honestly acknowledged his interests. In a 2021 interview, he said that directors like Luis Buñuel and Alfred Hitchcock, arguably more talented than he is, also used close-ups of feet.

"There's a lot of feet in a lot of good directors' movies," he explained.

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There is a link in one article to "a site dedicated to those with "podophilia, a sexual attraction to feet."

I looked at that too, and it is truly impressive. It seems to specialize on the feet of female celebrities, but there is a section for males too. (Who looks at those? Women, gay men, straight men?)

Robbie's section is awesome, with 1,500 photos, both candid and staged shots. Her feet are rated as a five of a possible five (sounds like Amazon or Literotica) and are cited as "gorgeous."

Even Lili Taylor, a somewhat offbeat actor, has seventy-four pictures. Those include several barefoot ones of her sitting around with a supposedly drunken Matt Dillon in the depressing Factotum.

Two more items to note, podophiles: there is a feet-of-the year contest that goes all the way down to the 16th Finals. (I have never seen a contest reach that level.) And there is also a dating platform in beta development. It will eventually be named something; the webmaster/creator says, "I like solemates.com but unfortunately it's already taken."

A few days ago Robbie confirmed that Barbie can't have sexual desires because she indeed does not have genitals or reproductive organs. "Yes, she can wear a short skirt, but because it's fun and pink. Not because she wanted you to see her butt."

What a letdown. This film should, in The Real World, have Barbie and Ken turn into real people, not dolls, with all of the complexities that go with being human.

"If you love Barbie, if you hate Barbie:" July 21st, in theaters everywhere.

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Just when I thought I was done, Warner Brothers released a new, longer trailer. Two of them, actually. In these, events get somewhat darker. In The Real World, Barbie and Ken get arrested in Venice, CA, by the L.A.P.D. One trailer shows both of their mug shots.

They hold placards in front of themselves while standing in front of one of those height-measurement posters. (Barbie/Robbie is about five-six.)

"So, do you have a last name?" "Ah, The Doll?" I did make that up. I never knew this, but Mattel gave her a full name: Barbara Millicent Roberts. I'm sure few people have heard it before.

I don't know what they were arrested for, or if they had to make bail or not. The jail system in Los Angeles County is a bit complicated, but Barbie could go to the Century Regional Detention Facility. That is just over the city line from Watts in Lynwood, CA.

According to the trailers, Barbieland is relatively diverse racially and ethnically, although with a clear white majority. However, I doubt there is much talk about such things. There is even at least one woman who is not "attractive," although I doubt that is mentioned either. The airplanes are definitely pink, however.

It's also revealed that she was exiled from Barbieland because her feet went flat. Somehow a reference to The Matrix is worked into that. Yet the shame of it all -- in both Doll and Real Worlds.

I also never knew that over the years Mattel has outfitted Barbie as an astronaut, doctor, marine biologist, a rock star (that's a surprise?) "and so much more." She's always young, however. There will never be a middle-aged Barbie.

P.S.: I have seen four of Tarantino's movies, including Natural Born Killers. (He only has a partial screenplay credit for that one.)

One problem I and other people have is that his use of extreme violence for comedy usually falls flat. SPOILER ALERT!!! An example is Vincent Vega's complete ignorance of gun safety protocols. Then hilarity ensues.

Tarantino has also described his tenth, and supposedly last movie, The Move Critic. It's based on a real porn reviewer who wrote in the 1970's.

Quentin said, "His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle might be if he were a film critic."

I'd like to see a film about Bickle becoming a porn reviewer, although nowadays someone younger would have to replace De Niro in the role.

"All the animals come out at night -- whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all of this scum off the streets." Yes, he would have the knack for it.

P.P.S: "Barbie Feels More Like A Christopher Nolan Movie Than Oppenheimer."

That refers to Nolan's upcoming bio-pic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the inventors of America's first atomic bomb. It will open on the same weekend.

I'll reserve judgment on that too. The writer of that piece is using the journalistic trick of pretending to be surprised by something that is blindingly obvious. That would be that a movie about nuclear weapons, although it might do okay at the box office, is never going to be a blockbuster (no pun intended).

Oppenheimer witnessed the first atomic explosion test in New Mexico in July 1945. I believe the United States only had three bombs at the time, and we all know how the other two were used in the following month.

Just after seeing his invention work as intended, he quoted Hindu scripture: "Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

I might see the film (when it's on DVD), but it seems like rather heavy going compared to Barbie. My daughter suggested, in jest, that both movies should appear together as a double feature. Yes, but which one would be best to go first?

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