Vignette 3

Alexandra Hendricks

Vignette 3

11/20/15

Prompt 1:Write a vignette that centers on an object but reveals information about you within the vignette. (Consider the baseball mitt.) Think about the qualities you would like the vignette to express about you prior to writing.  Remember, this quality or qualities should not be stated directly, but the audience should be able to infer this.

Nothing is more terrifying to a seven year old girl than a bunch of drunken parents hanging around their house setting off fireworks.  I was terrified, and so was my friend Jessy.  It was the 4th of July, and my parents were hosting the party.  All of my friends were there, most of them watching my dad and another one of my friends dad set off fireworks illegally.  Boom!  My dog Maggie cowered as My dad set off a firework.

“Mom! Dad’s going to burn down the house!” I yelled, angry at my dad for being so careless.

“He is not. Now the two of you pick out a movie.  Hopefully it will drown out the noise.”

Boom!  That was my friend’s dad setting off the firework.  He was holding a beer in his hand and watching the firework as it exploded right next to my house.  A little too close for comfort.

I had two shelf cabinets full of movies.  The smaller cabinet was my parents movies.  The larger cabinet was my movies-- most of them I have never watched.  Jesse and I went through the movies in my cabinet, and embarrassingly, we chose to watch Barbie Fairytopia.  I am embarrassed to say that I watched Barbie movies when I was younger, and I am even more embarrassed to say that I liked them.

I remember when watching that movie, I wondered why Barbie didn’t fight back when captured.  Actually, I always wondered why many lead female in animated movies wouldn’t take out bad guys, even when they would have been easy to take out.  Why be at the mercy of your enemies when you could choose to fight back.  The situations Barbie is in when she is captured could be easily fixed if she fought back in the simplest manners, such as stomping on the insteps of her enemies feet, kicking them in the shins, or twisted her arms in a certain way to break their grip.  Like in Fairytopia when the fungus grabbed Barbie by the arm and dragged her away.  What the Heck!  She put up little to no resistance and was less threatening than a mouse. At least a mouse can bite you and give you rabies!  She fought back peacefully by twisting her arms towards a certain direction, but she just chose to be drug away.

I told Jesse this, and she nodded in mild agreement, trying to do anything to ignore the explosions next to the house and the cheering of our fathers and more daring friends.

Later, when I was twelve, I chose to revisit the Barbie Movies.  At that time, I haven’t watched those movies for years.  Even though Barbie is the weakest most vulnerable person in the whole universe, she can be pretty cunning.  She tricked a giant into tying himself to a wall so she could escape his stew pot and not get eaten.  That is pretty cool, and a good quality for little girls to copy.  The Barbie movies teach more of a mental way of fighting than a physical.  And, even though intelligence over brawn is an important message,  it gets too pacifistic.  If someone tries to kidnap you, it would be more than stupid to let them drag you away, and in the Barbie movies, all the fighting is left to the supporting characters.  In some ways, Barbie send mixed messages of empowerment.  Fight with your mind and fight smart, but don’t fight back physically, let others fight for you.  This not the best message to be sent to innocent, vulnerable children.  They need to know that they should fight back when violated.  They need to know that they won’t have a friend to fight for them.  If they are ever in danger, it is up to them to fight back, and them only.  It is great to be peaceful and fight passively. But realistically, children need to know when to fight back using violence, and Barbie is teaching the exact opposite.