Let’s talk about the Barbie movie 🎀💞
The Barbie movie. One of the biggest movie releases of this year, and I got to see it in theaters with friends last Sunday. I laughed, I think I cried, and there were some times where I was genuinely scared for my life. Let’s talk about the Barbie movie!
The plot of this movie was fairly fast paced, and I can confidently say that I was never bored. The movie starts with the details of Barbie's inception with baby dolls being the prominent girls toy untill Barbie was created. The movie then transfers to Barbieland, where all the Barbies and Kens live in ignorance believing that Barbie dolls have solved issues of gender inequity (oh, are they in for a surprise. . .).
The movie then follows Stereotypical Barbie (what you can picture whenever a person says Barbie), portrayed by Margot Robbie, on another perfect day. Every day is the best day ever in Barbieland with plastic beaches, big blowout parties and the ability to float down to your car from the top level of your dreamhouse. The way that the dolls presented as real life dolls was reminicsent of how I play with my own dolls, and I loved the representation of how every Barbie in Barbieland IS Barbie (with the exception of Midge, Skipper and some others). I wanted to live in Barbieland.
Long story short, Barbie starts to notice imperfections with her and starts to ponder death. After a visit from Weird Barbie, she is challenged to visit the human world and find the person who is playing with her and influencing her. Ken, who feels quite ignored by Barbie, joins her on this journey. Barbie realizes during her experience in the human world that this society is much different from the matriarchal society of Barbieland as she experiences objectification and misogyny. She also discovers that Barbie dolls aren't the positive role model or the safe haven that everyone believes they are. At Mattel, she meets Gloria (who is the person who was playing with her) and her daughter, Sasha (who was the girl that Barbie initially thought she had to change) and takes them back to Barbieland to elude Mattel executives who have caught wind of Barbie being loose in the real world. However, Barbieland is now a patriarchy when she gets back. That is right! Ken made Barbieland into a patriarchy and manipulated all the Barbies into being their servants. I think it's particularly interesting how the Barbie's matriarchal society was not dependent on the oppression of the Kens, just the sheer opulence of the Barbies. However, the Ken's patriarchal society was reliant on the Barbie's subservience.
Barbie goes through an existential crisis, which I will discuss more later, but the Barbies are encouraged by Gloria, who gives a great monologue about the struggles of being a woman. Gloria tells this monologue to every single Barbie, snapping them out of their submissive daze and they team up to restore Barbieland to its former glory. This leads both Ken and Barbie to go on a path of self discovery with Ken seeking a life and character outside of Barbie and Barbie becoming a human as she wants to do the imagining rather than be the vessel of imagination.
The movie's ending bugged me a lot, mostly because I saw it coming but I hoped it wasn't. Barbie experienced nothing but sexism, car chases and unfair arrests in the real world, and that made me confused as to why she would want to become a human. If they had shown more of Barbie's good experiences in the human world, audiences would've been able to understand why she wanted to become a human. The themes of feminism in this movie are important, and for a Barbie movie, they explored the meaning of being a women pretty well but they very much could've gone farther with it. The movie's message on feminism and what it means to be a woman is very much unclear and lackluster at some points. More nuanced points of view on feminism from Gloria, Sasha and Barbie were needed.
The stakes in this movie weren’t as high as I’d hoped they’d be. Of course I was scared of Barbieland becoming an oppressive patriarchy but before that, I wasn’t genuinely worried about Barbie becoming less perfect than she already was. She was scared of becoming fat, which shouldn’t have necessarily been the biggest push for her since there is a fat Barbie. Although, being overweight isn’t something that is traditionally associated with Barbie (stereotypical Barbie, that is) so it can be understandable why this would be scary for her. The Mattel CEOs, who I will speak more about later, didn’t offer anything extra to raise the stakes as they should.
Some highlights from the movie were the controversial Barbie references in Weird Barbie's home (+Midge and Allan, the forgotten dolls) like Growing Up Skipper, Barbie Video Girl etc. I was disappointed by the absence of Teen Talks Barbie just saying "Math Class is Tough" but Mattel probably didn't want to revisit that uproar. The dance scene scored by Dua Lipa's Dance the Night Away was fun (President Barbie ate the house DOWN), the morning routine with Barbie, the conversation with Ruth Handler in the middle and in the end as well as the scene with Barbie and Ken at the beginning where he wants to sleep over.
Barbie, Stereotypical Barbie, is also a highlight of this film. Margot Robbie did a beautiful job of portraying this character. From the start, Barbie is expected to be everything you expect Barbie to be: glamorous, effortlessly beautiful and perfect. After her experiences in the real world and going back to Barbieland to find this patriarchy, she questions the world around her and has a growing existential crisis about her own worth. Without her label as Stereotypical Barbie, she feels useless and even questions her beauty. She claims to be not like other Barbies, who have value while her job is to meet everyone else’s expectations. Barbie’s character development feels a little incomplete, especially since there was a heavier focus on Ken, and this also ties into how Barbie could’ve explored themes of feminism more. Her choice to become a human at the end made little sense considering her experience in the real world. I would’ve wanted to stay in Barbieland, and continue floating off roofs and playing on fake sandy beaches.
Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, is also super funny and a highlight of this film. Ken feels ignored by the people around him and only ever has a good day if Barbie looks at him. Ken was invented to be Barbie’s boyfriend, but in turn, became her accessory. Barbie is an object of desire for him, as she is his whole identity. None of the Kens possess any character outside of their Barbies. When Ken enters the real world and discovers patriarchy, he finally feels seen and when put in a position of power (just because he is a man), he cannot get enough. His character development as portrayed by Ryan Gosling is good, and the conversation with Barbie that he has at the end, is an interesting, emotional point of this film.
Gloria was another character that I felt needed a little bit more development. Her character and her experiences could be used to further Barbie’s message about the female experience and feminism. If we saw more of her experience, instead of hearing her talk about it, audiences could sympathize with her more. Especially considering she has the nuanced experience of being a woman of color. Her monologue, while relatable, falls flat because of these reasons and her conflict with her daughter, Sasha, is resolved way too easily. Her idea of Ordinary Barbie also angered a lot of Barbie fans. People were upset because Gloria seemed to represent the moms during the 2010s that wanted Barbie to be more relatable and lose her stereotypical glamour, and everyone hated that!
Another character was Sasha. She represented the normal cynical teen who hated Barbie and criticized her for her “vapidity and how she made girls feel about themselves”. This could be in part due to her strained relationship with her mom. However, her character fell super flat and didn’t have the development she deserved much like her mother.
The Mattel CEO and his crew were a comedic highlight of the movie. They had absolutely no impact on the movie whatsoever and were supposed to play a “antagonistic role”, but they absolutely had no relevance and it was so funny how stupid they were.
Other characters like the rest of the Kens and Barbies were enjoyable and added to the movie well. My favorites were Writer Barbie and President Barbie. Martial Arts Ken was also a fun time!
Overall, this movie was a fun time! Not everything was perfect, but it was a campy movie that talked about some deep issues. As a Barbie enthusiast, this movie was fun to watch and definitely worth the hype. I recommend it to anyone who likes Barbie or just likes a fun time at the movie theater!
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