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Barbie, 2023
Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in Barbieland, a pink plastic femme-topia where all the Barbies are gorgeous, empowered, and indulge in nightly dance parties. Barbie is longed-for by Ken (Ryan Gosling), whose every day is measured in the kind words or glances he gets from Barbie. When Barbie suffers a sudden-onset existential crisis, Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) advises her that she must journey to the Real World and find out what’s happening with the young person playing with her. When Ken tags along for the ride, they both discover that the Real World is far different than they imagined, and a very far cry from the female-centric society of Barbieland.
Despite a bloated run-time, fantastic set design, engaging performances, and interesting questions make this a fun ride.
It’s been about two weeks since I watched the Barbie movie, and it has stayed on my mind ever since I left the theater. Before being privileged to watch the movie we actually paid for, we sat through several trailers that were so vapid and shallowly ironic that it was borderline painful. I think that one of the reasons I had such a positive response to Barbie is that so many big-budget films over the last few years have felt empty when it comes to actually exploring deep themes. Even if Barbie didn’t nail every question, I appreciated that it was asking them in the first place.
There’s been a lot of talk about Ken’s story being the superior one. It is a great plot/character arc, and I think that it connects with more viewers because it’s a bit more linear. Ken lives a life in which his happiness entirely revolves around someone else. His identity is that of an accessory (“It’s Barbie AND Ken”), and he doesn’t even have the dignity of a real job. Ken functionally has no power, and as a result of the anxiety that this produces, he is swayed by a social structure where he has power through oppressing others. But even when Ken (and the rest of the Kens) seize power, Ken’s sense of self-worth is still bound up in Barbie’s approval. So whether he’s just “beach” or king of the horses, Ken remains unhappy. Embracing the patriarchy changes Ken’s status, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s unhealthily dependent on winning Barbie.
Gosling’s performance is really pitch perfect, hilarious but also melancholy. We might laugh at Ken’s naivete, but he’s also very easy to sympathize with. The patriarchy that he enforces in Barbieland isn’t motivated by a desire to oppress women, but rather by a desire to have power and autonomy and to be the person who matters. There’s a wounded lack of malice to the character that lets you root for him even when he’s at his worst. And his unbridled (not sorry!) love of horses is incredibly endearing.
Barbie’s arc is a bit more complicated because it is more abstract. I saw Barbie’s story as being more about what it means to be an aspirational figure, and the ups and downs of such a role. In Barbieland, all of the Barbies believe the corporate line from Mattel: having Barbie be pretty and a scientist/writer/astronaut has solved all of the world’s problems and resulted in a Real World full of empowered women living their lives to the fullest in an equitable and collaborative society. Barbie is shocked when the women in the real world, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and her mother Gloria (America Ferrera), encounter daily struggles and can find themselves harmed by Barbie’s all-too-perfect life. There exists some tipping point where someone who is aspirational tumbles over into being an unattainable figure on a pedestal that intimidates rather than inspires.
Barbie is an icon, but in this film she is an icon who has attained self-awareness. Once she becomes aware of her real place in the world--both worlds--she cannot figure out how to navigate the simplicity of Barbieland or the everyday hearbreaks of the Real World.
What do we actually want from our dolls and toys? The film begins by acknowledging that a lot of play for girls is aimed at mommy-wife training. The girls at the beginning of the film happily reject their housework-lite play for the glamour and excitement that Barbie represents. But just as there’s something not quite right about teaching girls that play just means practicing for being a housewife, there’s also something a bit questionable about handing them a figure with a smoking hot body, an impeccable wardrobe, and a one-in-a-million job. I had quite a few Barbies growing up, and an unspeakable amount of my weekly allowance was saved up in order to buy them new outfits. I loved collecting them, putting different outfits on them, etc. But especially as I got to an older elementary age, I’d look at them atop my bookshelf and think, how? How could I ever be that?
I appreciate that the film wanted to grapple with these questions, even if I think it doesn’t totally stick the landing. It’s all bound up in the consumerist and nostalgic nature of it all. Gerwig is wanting to both critique and celebrate Barbie and the complicated relationship that a lot of women and girls have/had with her. It’s something of an unsolvable problem, because toys and dolls simply have inherent boundaries. Do I think that a toy can make someone feel more included or empowered? Actually, yes, I do. But do I think that empowerment is enough to have a really impactful effect on someone? Ehhhhhhh.
I really loved Robbie’s performance as Barbie. She begins with all of the certainty and confidence of a corporate press release, and then her emotional pendulum swings between certainty and doubt for the entire film. It would have been easy for the film to simply position Barbie and her friends returning Barbieland to the status quo as a victory and the ultimate end-game, but Robbie’s Barbie very quickly becomes a woman who lives between two worlds and two states of awareness. It’s a film about a character’s inner peace as much as it is about the little dramas of Barbieland and the Real World, and Robbie’s performance is very touching.
I also really enjoyed the supporting performances. Ferrera is solid as Gloria, a woman who does find Barbie inspirational and values her memories of playing with Barbie with Sasha. Ferrera gets the unwelcome task of delivering the movie’s Big Speech about what life is like for women in the Real World, and she does an admirable job of keeping that part of the movie afloat. I loved McKinnon’s Weird Barbie, with her unabashedly queer vibes and perpetual splits. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Michael Cera’s Allan, the only not-Ken male doll who finds himself just as excluded from the patriarchy as he was from the Barbie-run society. As to be expected in such a big budget film, there are a ton of awesome supporting/small roles. I was particularly pleased to see Rob Brydon as Sugar Daddy Ken and Rhea Pearlman as Barbie’s original creator.
But aside from appreciating the effort at some actual deep thought in a blockbuster film, my God did I love seeing this movie on the big screen. I’ve mentioned this to many people, but the joy that it gave me just looking at it made me think of musicals from the 40s and 50s. So much color and spectacle, and a kind of unashamed artifice that has impact because it’s obvious that so many of the props are really there and not computer generated. I read an interview with Gerwig where she talked about writing this movie during lockdown and specifically wanting to create a film that was TRULY made for the big screen. Boy, did they nail that in spades! The costumes and the sets are to die for. It’s hard to think of any word other than satisfying to describe how I felt looking at almost every frame of this film. And after years and years of Marvel this and Fast Furious that, it was really cool to see a big budget devoted to musical numbers and the best beach brawl ever put on film instead of (to quote a stand-up comedian) a bunch of happy meal toys punching each other on a giant rock. Even in its more serious or melancholy moments, there is a beauty to this film. And when the movie turns its gaze to the Real World, it manages to find a different kind of beauty. Further, the Real World is in many ways just a different kind of cartoon than the Barbieland.
In terms of criticisms, I really only had two. First, I thought that the subplot with Will Farrel and the rest of the Marvel board was totally unnecessary. Yes, we get one really good laugh out of the fact that the company designing toys for women is almost entirely run by men. LOL. But outside of that original gag, it’s totally not needed. The occasional set-piece or line got a laugh---yes, I laughed at ten men on a tandem bike, I’m not made of stone!--but none of those laughs were worth the several minutes of runtime devoted to them.
Second, like I alluded to before, I’m not sure that the film finds quite the right place for Ken and the rest of the Kens at the end. I did really like the final statement--I’m KENough--because it reflects that Ken has arrived at a place where he’s no longer needing to engage in a power struggle. The problem is that Barbieland is an imperfect allegory for the real world. The Barbies and Kens are fundamentally limited by their understanding of the world. Ken has his important epiphany about his self-worth not being bound to Barbie and her attention/affection. But what does this revelation mean for the Kens and Barbies? To what extent can they break their “programming”? It’s honestly too big a question for this movie to answer, and it feels like they just sort of hand-wave the end to get everyone to a happy place. (This opens up a whole other set of questions I had, such as whether the Barbies actually DO anything. Like, is scientist Barbie actually doing science, or is she just science Barbie and she shows up every now and then to collect her Nobel Prize?). I wasn’t that annoyed here, but I think it’s a place where you see the film’s intentions run up against the limitations of its world and the nature of its characters.
I’m so glad that I made sure to see this one in the theater. Literally at the moment the film delivered its Depressed Barbie joke, I had my hand in a bag of Starburst, and my sister turned and looked at me like a laser. I felt so seen! Just all around a good time and a great big screen experience.
Barbie, 2023
Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in Barbieland, a pink plastic femme-topia where all the Barbies are gorgeous, empowered, and indulge in nightly dance parties. Barbie is longed-for by Ken (Ryan Gosling), whose every day is measured in the kind words or glances he gets from Barbie. When Barbie suffers a sudden-onset existential crisis, Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) advises her that she must journey to the Real World and find out what’s happening with the young person playing with her. When Ken tags along for the ride, they both discover that the Real World is far different than they imagined, and a very far cry from the female-centric society of Barbieland.
Despite a bloated run-time, fantastic set design, engaging performances, and interesting questions make this a fun ride.
It’s been about two weeks since I watched the Barbie movie, and it has stayed on my mind ever since I left the theater. Before being privileged to watch the movie we actually paid for, we sat through several trailers that were so vapid and shallowly ironic that it was borderline painful. I think that one of the reasons I had such a positive response to Barbie is that so many big-budget films over the last few years have felt empty when it comes to actually exploring deep themes. Even if Barbie didn’t nail every question, I appreciated that it was asking them in the first place.
There’s been a lot of talk about Ken’s story being the superior one. It is a great plot/character arc, and I think that it connects with more viewers because it’s a bit more linear. Ken lives a life in which his happiness entirely revolves around someone else. His identity is that of an accessory (“It’s Barbie AND Ken”), and he doesn’t even have the dignity of a real job. Ken functionally has no power, and as a result of the anxiety that this produces, he is swayed by a social structure where he has power through oppressing others. But even when Ken (and the rest of the Kens) seize power, Ken’s sense of self-worth is still bound up in Barbie’s approval. So whether he’s just “beach” or king of the horses, Ken remains unhappy. Embracing the patriarchy changes Ken’s status, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s unhealthily dependent on winning Barbie.
Gosling’s performance is really pitch perfect, hilarious but also melancholy. We might laugh at Ken’s naivete, but he’s also very easy to sympathize with. The patriarchy that he enforces in Barbieland isn’t motivated by a desire to oppress women, but rather by a desire to have power and autonomy and to be the person who matters. There’s a wounded lack of malice to the character that lets you root for him even when he’s at his worst. And his unbridled (not sorry!) love of horses is incredibly endearing.
Barbie’s arc is a bit more complicated because it is more abstract. I saw Barbie’s story as being more about what it means to be an aspirational figure, and the ups and downs of such a role. In Barbieland, all of the Barbies believe the corporate line from Mattel: having Barbie be pretty and a scientist/writer/astronaut has solved all of the world’s problems and resulted in a Real World full of empowered women living their lives to the fullest in an equitable and collaborative society. Barbie is shocked when the women in the real world, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and her mother Gloria (America Ferrera), encounter daily struggles and can find themselves harmed by Barbie’s all-too-perfect life. There exists some tipping point where someone who is aspirational tumbles over into being an unattainable figure on a pedestal that intimidates rather than inspires.
Barbie is an icon, but in this film she is an icon who has attained self-awareness. Once she becomes aware of her real place in the world--both worlds--she cannot figure out how to navigate the simplicity of Barbieland or the everyday hearbreaks of the Real World.
What do we actually want from our dolls and toys? The film begins by acknowledging that a lot of play for girls is aimed at mommy-wife training. The girls at the beginning of the film happily reject their housework-lite play for the glamour and excitement that Barbie represents. But just as there’s something not quite right about teaching girls that play just means practicing for being a housewife, there’s also something a bit questionable about handing them a figure with a smoking hot body, an impeccable wardrobe, and a one-in-a-million job. I had quite a few Barbies growing up, and an unspeakable amount of my weekly allowance was saved up in order to buy them new outfits. I loved collecting them, putting different outfits on them, etc. But especially as I got to an older elementary age, I’d look at them atop my bookshelf and think, how? How could I ever be that?
I appreciate that the film wanted to grapple with these questions, even if I think it doesn’t totally stick the landing. It’s all bound up in the consumerist and nostalgic nature of it all. Gerwig is wanting to both critique and celebrate Barbie and the complicated relationship that a lot of women and girls have/had with her. It’s something of an unsolvable problem, because toys and dolls simply have inherent boundaries. Do I think that a toy can make someone feel more included or empowered? Actually, yes, I do. But do I think that empowerment is enough to have a really impactful effect on someone? Ehhhhhhh.
I really loved Robbie’s performance as Barbie. She begins with all of the certainty and confidence of a corporate press release, and then her emotional pendulum swings between certainty and doubt for the entire film. It would have been easy for the film to simply position Barbie and her friends returning Barbieland to the status quo as a victory and the ultimate end-game, but Robbie’s Barbie very quickly becomes a woman who lives between two worlds and two states of awareness. It’s a film about a character’s inner peace as much as it is about the little dramas of Barbieland and the Real World, and Robbie’s performance is very touching.
I also really enjoyed the supporting performances. Ferrera is solid as Gloria, a woman who does find Barbie inspirational and values her memories of playing with Barbie with Sasha. Ferrera gets the unwelcome task of delivering the movie’s Big Speech about what life is like for women in the Real World, and she does an admirable job of keeping that part of the movie afloat. I loved McKinnon’s Weird Barbie, with her unabashedly queer vibes and perpetual splits. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Michael Cera’s Allan, the only not-Ken male doll who finds himself just as excluded from the patriarchy as he was from the Barbie-run society. As to be expected in such a big budget film, there are a ton of awesome supporting/small roles. I was particularly pleased to see Rob Brydon as Sugar Daddy Ken and Rhea Pearlman as Barbie’s original creator.
But aside from appreciating the effort at some actual deep thought in a blockbuster film, my God did I love seeing this movie on the big screen. I’ve mentioned this to many people, but the joy that it gave me just looking at it made me think of musicals from the 40s and 50s. So much color and spectacle, and a kind of unashamed artifice that has impact because it’s obvious that so many of the props are really there and not computer generated. I read an interview with Gerwig where she talked about writing this movie during lockdown and specifically wanting to create a film that was TRULY made for the big screen. Boy, did they nail that in spades! The costumes and the sets are to die for. It’s hard to think of any word other than satisfying to describe how I felt looking at almost every frame of this film. And after years and years of Marvel this and Fast Furious that, it was really cool to see a big budget devoted to musical numbers and the best beach brawl ever put on film instead of (to quote a stand-up comedian) a bunch of happy meal toys punching each other on a giant rock. Even in its more serious or melancholy moments, there is a beauty to this film. And when the movie turns its gaze to the Real World, it manages to find a different kind of beauty. Further, the Real World is in many ways just a different kind of cartoon than the Barbieland.
In terms of criticisms, I really only had two. First, I thought that the subplot with Will Farrel and the rest of the Marvel board was totally unnecessary. Yes, we get one really good laugh out of the fact that the company designing toys for women is almost entirely run by men. LOL. But outside of that original gag, it’s totally not needed. The occasional set-piece or line got a laugh---yes, I laughed at ten men on a tandem bike, I’m not made of stone!--but none of those laughs were worth the several minutes of runtime devoted to them.
Second, like I alluded to before, I’m not sure that the film finds quite the right place for Ken and the rest of the Kens at the end. I did really like the final statement--I’m KENough--because it reflects that Ken has arrived at a place where he’s no longer needing to engage in a power struggle. The problem is that Barbieland is an imperfect allegory for the real world. The Barbies and Kens are fundamentally limited by their understanding of the world. Ken has his important epiphany about his self-worth not being bound to Barbie and her attention/affection. But what does this revelation mean for the Kens and Barbies? To what extent can they break their “programming”? It’s honestly too big a question for this movie to answer, and it feels like they just sort of hand-wave the end to get everyone to a happy place. (This opens up a whole other set of questions I had, such as whether the Barbies actually DO anything. Like, is scientist Barbie actually doing science, or is she just science Barbie and she shows up every now and then to collect her Nobel Prize?). I wasn’t that annoyed here, but I think it’s a place where you see the film’s intentions run up against the limitations of its world and the nature of its characters.
I’m so glad that I made sure to see this one in the theater. Literally at the moment the film delivered its Depressed Barbie joke, I had my hand in a bag of Starburst, and my sister turned and looked at me like a laser. I felt so seen! Just all around a good time and a great big screen experience.