Yours is the only voice to make the difference

Old people shake their heads. I shake mine about this hysteria about Barbie. Maybe because she never, for me, was “representative”. And I never liked pink.

Her Ken was not my Dirkie from next door who would put my Ken doll with his widespread weak knees in his plastic Jeep and, when I complained, swore to high heavens. I got my mouth washed out with soap when this Barbie swore back.

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My Barbie had her head cut short. “A bob,” my mom dismissed this child with her own “boys’ cut” – and never bothered to make me feel better about messing up Barbie for ever. In fact, Barbie got a knitted nightcap like my singing sleeping doll.

My Barbie had such cheap see-through nipples I could dent it with my little finger and it would never pop back. My Barbie couldn’t bend her knees: she forever waited on her Ken with his also wide-open legs. My Barbie was not a voice – not mine or anyone. My Barbie was plastic. And cheap at that. And you better believe it.

So make your “representative” movies and celebrate them; blow away – or not – the new buy-in into yet another fad; give a plastic doll who makes her creator’s family millions a voice. But know that is not this girl’s voice. We need to redefine The Voice.

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Dead Beloved had a drop-dead gorgeous radio voice, unlike a certain morning host who has millions following him because of meaningless pranks.

I ungraciously border on hysteria on air, whether I voice bad buildings in the city or try to hang Dr Death in KwaZulu-Natal for euthanising two bull terriers that landed in his “care” and forced the NSPCA to remove him. But I used my voice.

Young voices tell me they want their voices heard with the election next year. Wonderful sentiment and I hope you’re heard. But here’s my nub: you know about the data telling us kids “can’t read for meaning”. You can make your voice heard. Read to them.

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I love that “celebrity voices” are highlighted but the chocolate maker Cadbury in a very clever PR ploy asks you to “generously” donate reading a bedtime story to kids. Visit their website and make your voice heard.

Yours is the only voice to make the difference.