The Barbie Movie Is Both Fun & Chaotic. (Let's Talk About It)
The box office has spoken, and Barbie is a certified stunner. The movie has received (mostly) glowing reviews and positive feedback from critics and moviegoers alike. It smashed box office predictions and has made over $160 million domestically and over $400 million globally. I can attest to witnessing and seeing Barbie-mania up close and personal. I went to see the movie on a Friday afternoon and was surprised to see a packed and full theater. Everyone was dressed up in some combination of pink, white, or stripes. I decided to wear yellow, being a little off-brand—or maybe I can say I was channeling ‘Sunshine Barbie.’ I was prepared for teens and tweens to see it, but it really was a family affair. I saw both young and old, and everyone in between at the movie theater. I also saw couples dressed in pink and white. I saw generations of women wearing the same outfits, taking pictures in front of the photo booth. I saw people getting glittery, pink popcorn and drinks. The sight alone was a cultural moment.
Barbie, in many ways, was our collective Superbowl. The movie was truly a moment for women and everyone who loves, respects, and admire women. Truthfully, we have not had a cultural moment in a long time where so many people wanted to partake in, dress up for, talk about, make merchandise for, and watch over and over again. Barbie has made it cool again to wear pink, be girly, have fun with friends and family, and fully embrace yourself and everything in between.
It has also now become part of a cannon. Barbie is not the first movie to deal with being a girl dressed up in pink, while also embracing your smart side. In 1995, we had Clueless, which is a classic teen comedy where the main character is both self-aware and self-obsessed at the same time. In 2001, we had Legally Blonde, which is a classic comedy where young Elle Woods discovers that she can not only get into law school, but also make changes to a larger community outside of her boyfriend Warner.
Both movies showcased that smart girls can like pink. They showcased that smart girls can be girly, and still be at the top of their class, and work towards bettering themselves and those around them. These movies effectively inspired a generation. Legally Blonde helped plenty of young girls realize that they too wanted to go to law school, and become corporate lawyers. Clueless inspired conversations about materialism, and reliving the high school pecking order. I suspect that Barbie will also inspire a lot of tweens and teens who are going through their own awakening about their future lives, and what their place will be in the world.
Now, I will be honest: after the glitz and glamour of the movie, I did feel like there was a bit too much going on at all times. I found myself liking the first half of the movie very much and then feeling a bit muddled in the second half, nodding along a bit in the third half, and finally laughing to myself at that particular ending. I do feel like there were times I felt like the movie was a bit heavy-handed and ‘in your face.’ I did feel like there was a lot of stream of consciousness and loose thoughts haphazardly put together- which took me out a bit. But I did like that they talked about various topics such as feminism, the role of a woman in today’s world, loving yourself, loving others, and more. I do think the movie was trying to be too much (and do too much within a short time frame) and I think it would have been a bit more cohesive if it followed one or two strains of thought instead of trying to do it all.
I do think that there has been a resoundingly good response to the movie, especially regarding thoughts on feminism and its meaning in today’s world. The movie addresses a lot of themes that have impacted women in some shape or form in the past few years. For one, the theme of perfection is central to the movie. Always having to be perfect is something that many women have struggled with and faced. In the movie, Barbie lived in a perfect dream house and had her friends surrounding her at all times. It may appear that all is well. But there is an undercurrent of always having to adhere to the ideal of a doll. Barbie, because she represents an ideal, has to always be a certain size, weight, and ideal to maintain the status quo.
You could see the shift in her persona as well as how everyone else treats her when she starts to have doubts and expresses them. The other Barbies do not know what to do with her. They stare at her, hoping that she will stop talking about her new ailments. Then they treat her as a person who needs to be fixed quickly. When that does not work, they send her away and tell her that she needs to figure things out herself. Though they did not directly shun her, she wasn’t really going to be welcomed where she was experiencing things so different from the perfect norm already set upon the world. The other Barbies, although nice, did not know how to relate to her anymore, and I suspect they did not want to relate to her, once they realized she did not fit anymore.
Barbie was also unique in the fact that it was filled with plenty of hidden gems and references to other movies. There were callbacks to the Wizard of Oz (the fact that she had to leave her home for a new one), the Matrix (choosing the high heel or the traveler’s shoe), and Pinocchio (being a doll but also wanting to be human). For one, the central journey is the hero's journey and the central choice is between staying in the world you know (and love), or forging it on your own in a world you do not.
A question to think about for Barbie: do I want to embrace reality and deal with everything that comes with it, or do I want to stay where it is safe and stay with what I know?
But I would say that Barbie would have never gone to the real world if things had not started changing for her and her alone. She went to the real world seeking answers because she wanted to go back to what she knew and what she remembered. She didn’t have a choice, though, in the matter. And sometimes that’s the way life works. Sometimes life forces us to change and gain a new perspective. Sometimes life calls us to wake up and really look at the world at large instead of staying in the bubble we made for ourselves. And sometimes that comes with more choices, more thoughts, and more opinions that we aren’t ready to handle but have to get ready to handle.
Barbie, once in the real world, was confused by how it operated, but she also gained a unique perspective. There is a beautiful scene where Barbie is talking to an older woman on a bench, and she offers up a compliment to the older woman, stating a simple fact: ‘You’re beautiful.’ To which the older woman simply responded, ‘I know.’ Barbie was amazed and astounded by the confidence and audacity the woman had. And it probably started churning up her worldview. In Barbie-land, everything is perfect, and everyone is perfect. But that also means no one is old or young in Barbie-land. There are no kids, elderly people, or that many people with disabilities. Most people in Barbie-land are young and smart. They have chiseled abs for the Kens and perky, perfect figures for the girls. Everything is in proportion, and everything makes sense. It is their bubble, but it is an incomplete world. And we know that from the outside looking in. It is a plastic world—a plastic bubble they are living in after all. But they don’t really know that.
Another thing that is brought up in the movie Barbie is that she isn’t exactly the feminist icon that we have historically held her out to be. The daughter in the movie, Sasha, rightfully dresses Barbie down about her role in today’s society. Though the creator of Mattel and the Barbie doll originally set her out to be a doll that could inspire young girls to do something other than become mothers, Barbie has always come with baggage— even if it is not visible to the naked eye. For one, Barbie is a highly contextualized doll. Many have said that Barbie caused them to have issues with body image and self-confidence. Barbie also has unrealistic body proportions. So much so that scientists have done experiments and discovered that if Barbie were to exist, she would not have body proportions that would make any sense in the real world. The movie does not really grapple with that and skirts over it as a pressing issue.
There is also the fact that Barbie is stereotypical—yes, it is in the name, pun intended. There has been more diversity and racial diversity with Barbie, but the standard Barbie, the one represented by Margot Robbie’s character, has always been thin, tiny, and had blonde hair. And while the movie sees this as more of an offhand joke, in the real world there are differing opinions. There is no denying that young girls and women gravitate toward and want to see things that look like and represent them. When young women do not have that, they feel ostracized or under pressure to fit into the dominant culture, but they inherently can’t fit in, which may cause issues with their mental health and their views of beauty. Barbie somewhat addresses this issue with the young middle schooler, Sasha. But it is somewhat glossed over as the movie changes focal points to help rescue the other Barbies back in Barbie-land from the Ken invasion that has taken over the pink city.
The other standout moment from the movie was the monologue given by America Ferrera. The monologue featured important talking points about how women are socialized to be everything to everybody while getting barely anything in return. It talked about the pressure of having to fit into a box, which is also shown quite literally and metaphorically in a callback scene when Barbie almost got into a box where she would have been taken back to Mattel and never to be seen again. The monologue was a bit preachy at times (and maybe just a slight tad long), but it got to the heart of what it means to be a woman in today’s world, where the expectations seem never-ending but if you dare ask for more, you are seen as spoiled and entitled, which is the double standard that many, if not all, women have to contend with.
Additionally, another standout scene in the movie was when Barbie realized that she was not really meant to be with Ken. She realizes that he is more of someone who should be a friend. Yes, Ken is hurt, and that leads to him diving into destructive ways and trying to take over Barbie-land. (A move that I really did not know made sense in the larger context of the movie, and I wish the movie was solely focused on Barbie, but I digress). But after winning Barbie-land back to the Barbies, the movie gives Barbie a space to kindly reject Ken and assert herself by saying that he is not the one. Barbie realizes that she wants to be on her own and stand on her own, and that Ken needs to do so too. She didn’t want to be Barbie and Ken any more than he wanted to be Barbie and Ken. They were better off being Just Barbie. Just Ken.
Towards the end of the movie, we see Barbie meet her literal creator, or at least the ghost of someone who is supposed to be Ruth Handler. We get some insights on Barbie, the fact that she was named after Ruth’s only daughter, and the fact that Ruth started the company from scratch. Barbie tells Ruth that she really wants to become human after experiencing her time in the real world—a very ‘Pinocchio’ moment—and Ruth tells Barbie that she was born out of an idea and has taken shape of her own. But Barbie is adamant about being human, warts and all. Barbie wants to be the person behind the ideas. She wants to be the one coming up with them and bringing them to life. And that is poignant in itself. She recognizes that the real world—Earth—is not perfect, but it is very special. She realizes that Earth has its own magic, something that has been missing in the world that she has been living in. She wants to be human regardless of all the things that came with it and realizes that being plastic was not what it was cracked up to be. Barbie is granted her wish and does with it what she does—hilarity ensues. And the audience is left thinking about the movie from start to finish.
Barbie is by no means a perfect movie. But maybe that’s the point. Women are pressured to be perfect from the very start. Our art has to be perfect. Our thoughts have to be cohesive. Our books have to be poignant. But sometimes we just need to be, create, laugh, and talk. And there is something impactful in just being. Still, I did think that the movie was a bit muddled in the middle. I am not sure all the stories were necessary, especially those regarding Ken-land and that whole thing. I would have much rather had Ken stay a background character who talked minimally except to say ‘Hi Barbie.’ But I liked reading commentary about how Ken and Barbie modeled how rejection can be in the real world especially for teens.
Ultimately, I don’t think Barbie needs to be a perfect movie or an Oscar movie to make a cultural impact or shift our thoughts, minds, and behaviors. I think it is good where it is, and it shines as a conversation starter. It is a useful movie and a place for women and men alike to gather to talk about cultural and meaningful topics (and argue of course). The real gem of seeing the movie is that it got us all talking and thinking about feminism, the meaning of life, perfection, and how our ideas can take on a life of their own. And that alone will make this movie a hit classic for decades to come.