Barbie Movie Review
Barbie has Escaped the Shelf and Nestled Herself into the Hearts of Women Across The Globe
Women hate women and men hate women- it’s the only thing we can agree on. This isn’t a passing comment made by one of my gender studies university lecturers, this is in fact a quote featured in the latest ‘Barbie’ movie uttered by sixteen-year-old Sasha in a profound moment of teen reflection. Who would have thought that an hour and fifty-four-minute movie that revolves around the plastic Mattel ‘Barbie’ doll would provide its audiences with hit after hit of quotes that perfectly capsulate the lived female experience, and could easily be found in any historical feminist literature that picks apart the realities of living in a world dominated by men? Director Gerwig has had a busy summer connecting women all over the globe with their ‘inner child’, a phrase which refers to the part of us which still remembers the joy, playfulness and freedom of childhood. The Barbie movie does this in all its pink glory, combining the joys of dressing Barbie up to play with her friends, whilst using the playful plastic beauty standard to create a philosophical commentary on the purpose of womanhood, and how it is more often than not dictated by men. Gerwig’s Barbie is a film that just like its namesake, will be passed down for years to come and be regarded as a comedic, insightful, playful and genius critique of a child’s toy which comes with more complexities than people realise.
The first I heard about the Barbie movie was when stumbling across an article about Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling (the leading characters in Barbie) when they were papped rollerblading in the park filming in preparation for one of the scenes, neon lycra and all. I immediately though Barbie Movie? Margot Robbie? Love interest Ryan Gosling? What a predictable tale fed to us by the same hand that fed us Mean Girls and Confessions of a Shopaholic . Essentially, I thought this would be a familiar tale of Barbie doing what she does best when she was gripped between my young sweaty palm, dating the cutest guy around (just ken really) and looking perfect whilst shopping for the latest hot pink clothing to fill up her dream closet. I know this was unimaginative, slightly sexist, and stereotypical of me, but hey, Gerwig has now restored my faith in predictable movie plots.
Walking into the cinema that day, leaving a trail of pink glitter in my wake, I did get Barbie’s dream closet and I did get Ken, or just Ken as he is now universally recognised. But what Greta Gerwig also gifted to me was a plotline infused with commentary, confusion, controversy and cinematic chaos. The Barbie movie for me, took all the expectations of what a Barbie movie could entail and said we hear you but we are going to make these ten times more fun and entirely switch up Barbie’s narrative. I loved how the whole Barbie Can Do Anything tagline which has been peddled with the toy for years was turned on its head and used to sew a storyline of Barbie being human, and just like all humans, not knowing who she actually is and what she wants her purpose to be.
Of course, it is a defining factor of the Barbie brand that she has always known who she is, whether that’s being a rocket science, a brain surgeon or perhaps even a journalist, but it is a narrative that has been forced onto her by men who fail to put Barbie in a role played by billions of women all over in reality: as fretful mothers burnt out and worried about their children who they feel slipping out of their grasp as they get older. Passionate Gloria desperately pleads to Will Ferrell in the film who represents Mattel, the company responsible for creating and distributing the Barbie figure, why can’t Barbie just be normal and essentially: a mother.
The film’s tongue-in-cheek attitude to the sexist grips that have twisted around Barbie’s wrists and ankles in her patriarchal box are it’s greatest strength. Whether it was the randomness of Barbie running into Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie in a scene which almost made it feel like Barbie had entered heaven but was in fact the top floor of the Mattell offices and she is simply a ghost who haunts the floor. Creator of Barbie? Tucked away under an establishment run entirely by men? A genius way of portraying how women’s talents go underrepresented and ignored in male-dominating sectors. There were some more obvious quips about the state of womanhood today, most notably when Barbie enters the real world and is confused about the way she is being looked at by men with ‘undertones of violence’. Or perhaps it was Barbie’s attitude to cellulite which triggered her to enter the ‘real world’ in the first place because god forbid she let that ruin her perfect life. If none of those made it clear to you I’m sure America Ferrera’s monologue which may as well have been blasted from a speaker up in space would help you get the message across if you hadn’t got it already. Watching Ferrera passionately and ferociously address the double standards women counter on a regular basis was a revolutionary spectacle. I have never seen a film lay bare with such clarity everything a woman has to uphold in order to be deemed doing her job well as a ‘good woman’.
One of the most beautiful twists of the film is when ‘stereotypical Barbie’ played by Robbie (of course) realises that instead of belonging to harrumphing teen Sasha in fact, belongs to Sasha’s mother Gloria who turned to Barbie for comfort in the face of middle-aged angst and comfort. This is one of the many extensions of Gerwig’s genius as not only does my mother frequently joke she would entertain herself with the plastic doll even now in all her older glory, but it also breaks down the age binary of the film and extends it as a love letter to all women, no matter what age. As I heard the first piano notes of Billie Eilish’s ‘What Was I Made For?’ I sat there spellbound, mesmerised by the fact that it had taken a film centring around a beloved child’s toy to address all the fractured and fragmented pieces of glass that make up the stained-glass window of womanhood.
The Barbie Movie used the universal understanding of the Barbie image to put out a crucial message that is embedded in womanhood and female togetherness. Barbie fans attached and expecting a light-hearted storyline have criticised the film for veering away from a tale that depicted their experiences of growing up with Barbie without the ‘feminist part’, but the magic of this storyline is that it does just this but instead of delving deep into Barbie’s experiences it uses the shop bought toy to shine light on the experiences of women who grew up with Barbie and the expectations and challenges that have fallen upon their shoulders as they grow older and move throughout society.