192 Minutes With ...America Ferrera

How the actress, who taught a generation of women to reject traditional beauty standards, found her way into the Barbie universe.

- By Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz

What is a doll?" asks America Ferrera, head tilted to one side, hands kneading the air. We're awaiting her second iced coffee of the day, and she's in the throes of a mini-speech on the semiotics of the toy. "What, across centuries and across cultures, across civilizations, has a doll meant? A doll is a representation of a woman's deepest intuition." The original question-"Did you, America Ferrera, whose work represents all that is not Barbie, have qualms about being in a blockbuster about Barbie?"-has been forgotten. Dolls, she reminds me, did not begin with Barbie but have been integral to female play, ceremony, and self-actualization for centuries. Dolls and therefore Barbies and therefore the Barbie movie reveal "deeper meanings in our culture and in our psyche," she concludes. The coffee comes. Did she answer the question? she asks.