Caodhan the Celt

No shirt, no bra, completely bare torso, just like cis men are allowed to

It's about desexualizing breasts and "female presenting nipples" and not being criminalized for our bodies if we want to go topless because it's a million damn degrees out. This was a popular growing movement that was still widely known a decade ago!

Her first 28 years are fairly tame, until we reach 1987's Canadian Mountie Barbie. Reasonable odds for a cop, even if they're not a USAmerican cop.

in 1991, we get US Air Force Pilot Barbie, US Marine Corps Sergeant Barbie, US Navy Petty Officer Barbie. There's also 1992's US Army Barbie, if those guys were feeling left out. I'm also ignoring the 1989 US Army Barbie because that one is 100% a stolen valour runway look, not a uniform.

Going to run my autism over those four.

US Navy Petty Officer Barbie is wearing quartermaster's rating insignia, so no combat for her.

US Army Barbie is wearing an airborne maroon beret with no rank insignia that I could see, but she's loaded down with medical supplies, so I'm gonna say combat medic, but only as many kills as her other medical endeavours.

US Air Force Pilot Barbie is wearing a jacket that looks like a Top Gun tie-in. The unit patch is just the USAF coat of arms, and the name patch says she's a Captain. VERY confusingly, the plane on the box art is an F-5, which had just recently been retired. But its USAF usage was almost all in the OPFOR Aggressor squadrons, which is... "come play enemy planes for our training exercises".

US Marine Corps Sergeant Barbie is wearing E-5 Sergeant's insignia, and three medals (she's in dress uniform). To my eye, and allowing for badly printed colours, looks like Navy and Marine Achievement Medal, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, and the South West Asia Service Medal. The first two are fairly obvious "Barbie Is Well Behaved" stuff, but uh. That last one though?

USMC Barbie was in Desert Storm.

If I tell you this is a horror dance number it still won't prepare you. That last move was so terrifying even the judge was like "Let go! Let go!" If you told me they're actually possessed I'd believe you.

The music is a remix of the song Mere Dholna from the Bollywood movie Bhool Bhulaiyya, a remake of the classic Malayalam horror-comedy Manichitrathazhu. It's about a young bride that seemingly becomes possessed of Manjulika, a dancer of the ancient royal court whose tragic death has turned her into a vengeful spirit, one who evokes the wrath of the goddess Durga Kali. In the iconic scene that is repeated across remakes, the groom and his family discover his bride dancing in the dead of night in a manic, disassociative fugue, wearing a moth-eaten dancer's costume and a face smeared in kohl, ash and vermilion. She's hallucinating that she's Manjulika dancing carefree for the court with her lover. The upbeat music is deliberately incongruous with the pathos and creepiness of the scene in reality, especially as it crescendos in the bride's head to the moment when the king decapitates Manjulika's beloved in a fit of jealous rage.

This specific number is by the all-male troupe B Unique, performed for the Indian reality talent contest Hunabaarz. It's a modern fusion based on Bharatnatyam that turns up the creep factor by 200% and is basically a showcase of contortionism and synchronicity. One of the most perfectly choreographed and executed dances I have ever seen. Truly incredible!

Instead of a cutesie reference to film censorship it was an explicit statement of defiance of Maryland's criminalization gay sex, which was not repealed until 2002. This wasn't a guy saying "Oh they can't put what I do in the movies according to a completely voluntary industry code" he was saying "The State of Maryland wants to put me in jail for being gay and having gay sex."

ALYSON HANNIGAN as Willow Rosenberg

@pscentral event 44: cultural representation