Come on Barbie, let's go party!
My thoughts on Greta Gerwig's movie of the summer
Last night, I went to see Barbie with my good friend Missy. I’ve wanted to see this movie since before it came out, and now that I have seen it, I have thoughts. So buckle up, and prepare yourself for spoilers!
We’ll start out with characters and plotlines that I liked. First up is the woman, the myth, the legend herself:
Barbie
I think that Margot Robbie was made to fill this role, and she portrayed Barbie’s character arc perfectly. Through Stereotypical Barbie (yes, that is what she is called), we are introduced to Barbieland, a place where Barbies are astronauts, presidents, Supreme Court justices, and Nobel Prize winners. Oh, and they look flawless and get to party on the beach and in their dream houses, both with and without the Kens, at all times.
The story begins to move forward when Barbie becomes plagued with thoughts of mortality and death–thoughts that are very human. Barbie begins to look more human at this time as well. Her feet lose their perfect arch and become flat. Much to her horror, she develops cellulite on her thighs. At this time, Stereotypical Barbie is sent to see Weird Barbie, who can supposedly help her.
Weird Barbie
If I had to pick a favorite part of this movie–and there are so many good parts to choose from!--it would be Kate McKinnon’s portrayal of Weird Barbie. Kate McKinnon is probably my favorite Saturday Night Live alum–another impressive feat–and she brought all of her weird and wacky energy to this movie as well, taking the form of a Barbie doll who had her face colored on with a marker and her hair cut by a kid in the Real World. She is also perpetually doing a split.
I think that there is something to be said about how Weird Barbie, once stereotypically beautiful, lives on a mountain off by herself now that she has become “weird,” but more on that later! At this point in the story, Weird Barbie is the sage carrier of wisdom who tells Barbie that she has been having these distressing thoughts and becoming more human because the boundary between Stereotypical Barbie in Barbieland and the human who is playing with her in the Real World has become thin. Weird Barbie tells Stereotypical Barbie that she needs to travel to the Real World to see what is going on with her human in order to become “normal” again.
Gloria and Sasha
Gloria and Sasha (played by America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt) are the mother-daughter duo that Barbie goes to find in the Real World. After seeing flashes of memories of being played with by Gloria and Sasha, Barbie seeks out Sasha, the daughter, only to find that Sasha wants nothing to do with her. Sasha is a jaded teenager who tells Barbie in no uncertain terms that she “set back the feminist movement” by introducing unrealistic beauty standards. Barbie exclaims something along the lines of, “What? That’s impossible! I was created to empower women!” Both because of Sasha’s words and because Barbie has been introduced to a world in which she is catcalled and sexually harassed in the street, a world where (to Barbie’s surprise) not only is a woman not the president but a woman has never been the president, Barbie has a full existential meltdown.
Barbie travels to the Mattel headquarters to meet the creators of Barbie and figure out what is going on in the Real World. In another tongue-in-cheek criticism of our world, Barbie finds that the CEO, CFO, COO, and entire Board of Directors of the company are all men. They want to put her in a box to send her back to Barbieland (that is not how she got there, by the way–she got to the Real World in a goofy travel montage that included a car ride, camping, a snowmobile, biking, and rollerblading), but Barbie panics and runs away. While still at the Mattel headquarters, Barbie meets Gloria, Sasha’s mother, who works as a secretary. As it turns out, Gloria is the woman who Barbie was sent to find. She misses playing Barbies with her daughter, who is now a teenager who resents her, and she has been doodling new ideas for Barbies while at work–including “Cellulite Barbie'' and “Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie.” After a fun car chase scene, Barbie takes both Gloria and Sasha back to Barbieland to escape the Mattel executives who are on their tail.
Ken
Much like the actresses mentioned previously, Ryan Gosling knocked it out of the park with his portrayal of Ken. At the beginning of the movie, it is stated that, while Barbie has a good day every day, Ken only has a good day when Barbie is paying attention to him. Ken’s fatal flaw is that he will do anything for Barbie’s approval and affection, and he is her sole companion when she travels to the Real World.
In contrast to Barbie, who is horrified by the Real World, Ken loves the Real World. He sees that, unlike in Barbieland, men hold the vast majority of power in the Real World. While Barbie is dealing with Gloria, Sasha, and the Mattel executives, Ken hurries back to Barbieland and brings the concept of “patriarchy” with him. By the time Barbie arrives, anxious to introduce Gloria and Sasha to her feminist oasis, Barbieland has been turned into “Kendom,” Barbie’s Dreamhouse has been redecorated and renamed “Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House,” and the Barbies have been removed from power and relegated to serving beers (or “brewskies'') to the Kens. Gloria remarks, “It’s like when the colonizers brought Smallpox to America! The Barbies have never seen patriarchy and have no defenses to it, and now they are brainwashed!”
Alan
Along with Weird Barbie, Alan (played by Michael Cera) was one of my favorite characters in the movie. Alan is Ken’s foil. He hates the way things are in Kendom and wants to go back to the way things were in Barbieland. Alan is The Ally™ to the Barbies and helps them rescue one another, undo the brainwashing, and take back the power.
I think that Alan was an important addition to this movie because he shows that 1. there is no one singular way to be a man and 2. men can be allies in women’s fight for equality. It is worth noting that the Kens get a happy resolution as well in Barbie. Barbie and Ken have a long chat about how Ken is “Kenough” and he needs to discover who he is without chasing Barbie’s affection. Ken apologizes. There is a dramatic song-and-dance number with the Kens. You know, just like conflict resolution in the real world.
Ruth
In perhaps the most moving scene of the entire movie, Rhea Perlman shows up as Ruth Handler, the real life creator of Barbie, just as the Mattel executives have shown up in Barbieland to set everything back to the way it was before, in effect taking away the lessons that the Barbies and Kens have learned along the way by making everything “perfect” again.
Ruth goes on a walk alone with Barbie, and the two have a heart-to-heart filled with lessons bestowed from the older woman to the younger woman. Barbie shares that she doesn’t know who she is anymore. She isn’t a mother, she doesn’t have a big important job, and she also doesn’t feel like Stereotypical Barbie any longer. Ruth tells Barbie that the wonderful thing about being human is feeling the complexity of these emotions and getting to decide who we are. As Barbie’s creator and effective mother, Ruth says something along the lines of, “We stay where we are so that our daughters may go further.”
Truly at the heart of the Barbie movie are the relationships between women, specifically women of different generations. We see this relationship dynamic play out between Gloria and Sasha, and we see it play out again between Ruth and Barbie in the scene where Barbie shares her desire to become human and Ruth says, “Take my hands. Close your eyes. Now, feel.”
There was hardly a dry eye in the movie theater during that scene.
As I mentioned from the start, there were things that I liked and things that I disliked about Barbie. Let’s move on to some of the things that I thought could have been better. First off:
Oversimplification of the Gender Binary
In the Barbie movie, there is Barbie and there is Ken and there is pretty much nothing in between. Barbie can be anything–a scientist, a politician, a writer–but she is always feminine and beautiful. There is a lot of blue and pink imagery throughout the movie, and the feminist message gives little thought to the people that fall outside of traditional womanhood and manhood.
The one ambiguous outsider to the gender binary is Weird Barbie, who is described as “not beautiful” and who lives on a mountain away from the other Barbies and Kens. Also abiding in Weird Barbie’s mountain home are a number of other discontinued Barbies, including Magic Earring Ken. Maybe it is because Kate McKinnon is an openly queer actress, but I definitely interpreted this Island of Misfit Toys to be where the Barbies and Kens that do not necessarily fit into the Barbie and Ken dichotomy go to reside. I just wish their existence could have had a bigger role in the plot.
Intersectionality
There is no lack of diversity in Barbieland. A Black Barbie is president. A plus-sized Barbie is part of the ensemble of main characters. A Barbie in a wheelchair spins around and participates in a dance sequence. That being said, we see the world through the eyes of Stereotypical Barbie. I know why Greta Gerwig, writer and director of the movie, chose to go in this direction. As Stereotypical Barbie mentions, she is the first thing you think of when you are asked to “picture a Barbie.” Yet with Stereotypical Barbie at the movie’s center, there is no mention of the impact racism, ableism, fatphobia, homophobia, and all of the other -phobias and -isms have on women. Barbie’s experience in the Real World would have been very different if it had been one of the barbies other than Stereotypical Barbie who was sent, and as such, there is something to be desired in the simplified message of feminism that the movie portrays.
All things considered, I really did enjoy Barbie. The actors and actresses were phenomenal and the message was important while the movie remained entertaining. I will definitely be watching Barbie again when it is added to a streaming service, and in the meantime, I would love to hear any thoughts about the movie that you might have!
Until next time,
Alexa