Directed by Greta Gerwig, written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach. Production Companies: Mattel, Heyday Films, Lucky Chap.
I went to see Barbie on opening night, having just realized that my mother had only days to live. I can hear a chorus of the Barbies saying, That's good you came to the movie, Nevada. You needed something to relieve your sadness. A distraction, a mild narcotic.
And what better to take my mind off my real-life troubles than a candy-colored, toy-inspired movie of the moment? Except that the theme of the new Barbie movie is death.
From an anarchic opening scene wherein Barbie (Margot Robbie) is first encountered by little girls whose experience with dolls has heretofore only been those shaped like babies, to Barbie's life-altering choice, offered by Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), in the form of a glittering high-heeled pink pump (living a fantasy) or a Birkenstock (living for real), Barbie is a rapturous celebration of femininity, a journey to a world of female empowerment, where joy and optimism reign supreme and the gritty and chaotic "real world" never intrudes. Powerful and accomplished women rule Barbie Land, and no one ever questions whether there "should" or "could" be a female president. It's a given that women can do absolutely any and everything.
But even Stereotypical Barbie gets the blues as it turns out, when Barbie's perfect world is marred by the encroachment of a real woman's blues, those of Gloria (America Ferrera), who works for Mattel, and whose recent sketches portray a Barbie that, though beautiful, has the melancholy expression of many women in the real world, facing its impossible contradictions and demands every day. This heartfelt, specifically female affliction, and the urgings of Weird Barbie (the embodiment of all Barbies upon whom modern little girls now turn their anarchic actions, using ink pen, scissors or lighters to modify her looks, and pose her doing perpetual splits) are what pull Stereotypical Barbie out of her dream house that has somehow suddenly become uncomfortable.
If Stereotypical Barbie wants to retain her perfection, she must find the girl whose blues are potent enough to poke a hole through the fabric separating Real World from Barbie Land. What Barbie doesn’t anticipate is besotted Ken (Ryan Gosling) hitching a ride in the back of her pink convertible. While Barbie won't be distracted from her mission to find the sad girl who's tearing the fabric of her rose-tinted not-quite reality, Stereotypical Ken discovers the testosterone fueled magic of toxic masculinity, and brings it back to Barbie Land where it's greeted by the other Kens like the bringing of fire.
Meanwhile, when Mattel execs (headed by Will Ferrell) get word that Barbie is out of the box and running amok, an all-out chase ensues. Mattel is portrayed in the film as pure Corporation, whose sole goal is to make a profit. An out-of-the-box Barbie running free in the Real World makes for a volatile situation, and as many executives believe, volatility in business is usually a result of bad management. Once again, the "problematic female" must be contained.
Barbie's ultimate goal of maintaining her own perfect world shifts when she meets her creator: not a male chauvinist with a burning desire to impose impossible standards of physical perfection on all womanhood, but kindly Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), who created Barbie in honor of her daughter, Barbara. During her time with Ruth, Barbie gets to see a side of the real world that, unlike the nasty, brutish, greedy side she's seen so far, is kind and caring.
Margot Robbie is superb as Barbie, whose glamor is softened by her vulnerability. When Barbie, dressed in a hot pink cowgirl outfit, confidently approaches a table full of jaded tween girls at lunch, she proudly announces herself, and, expecting excitement and adoration, instead gets cut down to size by their feminist diatribe. She flees in tears, not yet realizing the connection between one of the girls in that hostile group and her own goal.
Ken sees Barbie as an obscure object of desire, not necessarily a sexual object but something/ someone he must pursue. Ken exists only in relation to Barbie, created to be Barbie's boyfriend, 'friend' being the operative word, so while Barbie is consumed by existential angst, Ken wrestles with his own. When a Barbie Land battle of the sexes turns into a war between the Kens, Ken also finds his purpose. In a mind-blowing (for me!) dance number, Ken's journey culminates in a breakthrough that's palpable, a vibrant moment of epiphany.
There's a lot of talk about Barbie as marketing extravaganza, that it's mostly a sales vehicle for–of course--the toys themselves, and everything else onscreen. But isn't just about every superhero/ big-budget/ gadget-driven juggernaut a marketing machine, from t-shirts & tin whistles to shoes, posters, toys, and fast-food confections? Barbie has more heart & soul in its little plastic finger than the biggest CGI/SFX extravaganza has in its–whatever. Did Barbie make me consider buying a pair of pink Birkenstocks? Maybe. Might I buy a fuzzy pastel hoodie that says "I'm K-enough" for my husband, if I happen to run across one? I might. But then, I've been toying with buying a new pair of Birkenstocks for some time now, and my husband, at nearly age 70, is secure enough in his non-toxic masculinity to wear pink.
As I was walking into the theatre, I saw a small group of women taking selfies in front of the Barbie movie poster out front. I asked if they'd seen it, and they said yes. Did they like it, I asked. They said they did, one of them adding: "It was actually quite poignant."
I agree. There's one scene near the end that especially touched me, given the situation with my mother. In a film full of eye-candy colors and set-design, it's lovely in its simplicity, and stark in its meaning: the crux of Barbie's existential struggle. You'll know it when you see it. Referring back to the theme I mentioned earlier; it's not just death, but how its inevitability is what gives us our humanity.
For all the controversy surrounding Barbie dolls themselves, and now the film, its easy to forget but well worth remembering that Barbie isn't just an anti-feminist, facist tool of the male patriarchy, nor is she a seductive emissary of a 'woke' agenda that would destroy all that is good and holy in America and indeed the world.
Barbie began as one woman's tribute to a daughter she loved. Countless little girls have spent countless hours playing Barbie dolls, and so did their mothers. The references to that generation at the end, show what really gives Barbie the humanity she craved. It was there all along, in the impulse that created her,
She only had to take it by the hand.