Spoilers Ahead
Like so many millions of other people, I finally saw Barbie, the movie of the summer. There is a lot going on in that movie and I’m still sitting with it, but my overall impression is overwhelmingly positive. It is imaginative, thoughtful, and very funny. The set design, much of which was released before the movie as part of its extensive promotion, is impeccable. The costumes are too.
I’ve read a few reviews and I find it fascinating how many interpretations have emerged, from religious themes and the meaning of the colour pink to seeing abortion as subtext. It’s a testament to the movie’s quality–and also a very cool moment in popular culture–that a movie about a doll, which sounds so simple on the surface, means so many different things to so many people. I’ll offer an interpretation of my own below but, first, a brief summary of the main plotlines.
(For those who have seen it, read on. For those who haven’t, stop here because, as noted above, there are many spoilers here.)
The gist of the story is this: the Barbies live in a utopia called Barbieland, where all the jobs and positions of power are held by women. The Barbies know about the real world and believe that their influence as toys has carried over to that place and solved all of women’s problems. There are many Kens in Barbieland but they don’t have much to do other than hang out at the beach, waiting for the various Barbies to pay them some attention. It is fun times all the time for the Barbies until Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) notices changes like a flattening of her feet and thoughts of death intruding on her happiness.
To remedy the situation, she must travel to the real world, find the girl who is playing with her and affecting her life, and make things better. Ken (Ryan Gosling) stows away in her car and accompanies her to the real world where he is introduced to patriarchy. He sneaks back to Barbieland ahead of Barbie and transforms the place to Kendom, where the Kens rule and the Barbies have become subservient. When Barbie returns with the human who was playing with her and instilling those negative thoughts–America Ferrara’s Gloria–she, Gloria, Gloria’s daughter who was also long for the ride, and the non-brainwashed Barbies plot to take their land back. In the end, they realize that they need a land that works for everyone, not just the Barbies. For his part, Ken realizes he didn’t really like patriarchy and is really just lost and unsure of who he is without Barbie. She assures him he is fine just as he is (“kenough”) and doesn’t need her to be complete.
There are other themes and the dialogue and situations are much more clever and well-rendered than my little synopsis would indicate. But I would like to focus on one theme that was handled with a particularly deft touch: patriarchy.
Superficially, the message is clear and far from subtle: patriarchy is bad. But there is more depth to the message than might initially be apparent. There are the obvious indicators: the way Barbie is ogled in the real world, the entire Mattel board of directors being male, or the chilling image of all those men wanting to put Barbie back in a box, shackled and under control. But the film goes further, moving beyond the impact of patriarchy on women to deliver some pretty sharp commentary on how it affects men.
Indeed, Ken’s whole journey reflects what many feminists have been saying for a long time: patriarchy hurts men as much as women. It’s a realization that the primary Ken (Gosling) has near the end of the film when he states that he lost interest in patriarchy as soon as he found out it wasn’t about horses. It’s a joke, but it also reflects his overall discomfort with the trappings of patriarchy and recognition that it cannot provide the identity and fulfillment he seeks.
The same feeling extends to the other Kens who put on patriarchy as a costume–literally–that is clearly not a good fit. They perform stereotypical “manliness” but never seem convincing in that role.
That Ken takes books from the library to learn about patriarchy also underscores that it is not the natural order of things nor innate to men; it is something that is learned and, by extension, can be unlearned. Allan is further proof of that point, as he wants nothing to do with the new world order instituted by the Kens. He has not drunk the patriarchy Kool-Aid and works to help the Barbies create a new and more equitable Barbieland.
And then there is the fight scene. Having been deprogrammed of their submissiveness, the Barbies want to turn the tide in an election that would change the constitution and create a permanent Kendom. They manipulate the Kens into turning against each other, knowing they will succumb to their baser instincts and get into a brawl and forget about voting. The resulting fight–although funny and clearly inspired by classic films like West Side Story–is as silly as the cowboy outfits the Kens wear to show their manhood, with rubber-tipped arrows, hobby horses, and slap fights.
The movie’s version of patriarchy is taken to this extreme and ridiculous level to denote how ridiculous and outmoded patriarchal views are: real men drink “brewksi beers”, love horses and “manly” dudes like Sylvester Stallone, drive big trucks, and mansplain things to the brainwashed Barbies. The Kens’ clumsy adoption of this learned behaviour works as an effective skewering of patriarchy’s impact on men, something I did not expect to see going into this movie.
So that’s my spin on one of the main themes of Barbie. Readers may agree with my interpretation or not, and that’s okay. As I noted above, one of the joys of this movie lies in the many meanings it contains. On that point, here are some of the reviews and other commentary that I enjoyed reading. (Some are also in the links above.)
Reviews
Barbie review – a gorgeously weird blockbuster event
“To be human is to accept (and perhaps, at times, actively fight against) this irony: the more memories we accrue, the less we remember of them. The older we get, perhaps the more we realise we don’t know. Barbie is, against the odds, a film about what a joy it is to create those memories to begin with. To spend time with loved ones, to play with toys and lose ourselves to imagination; to find friends, to have parties, to exist on our own terms. To remember all the love, and the loss, and the strange, agonisingly short experience of being alive.
It’s not perfect, but as Ferrera’s character remarks, ‘If you can’t make it perfect, you can at least make it better.’” (Little White Lies)
In the beginning, there was Barbie
“Barbie is not the kind of IP that naturally lends itself to cinematic and philosophical musings. But in Gerwig’s hands, along with her co-writer Noah Baumbach, it’s sly and just about as subversive as a movie can be while still being produced by one of its targets (toy manufacturer Mattel, which the movie relentlessly tweaks over discontinued Barbies and Kens) and distributed by another (Warner Bros. Discovery, which gets one expertly barbed zinger). Loaded with movie references from the ’60s beach party genre to the trippy dream ballets of midcentury musicals — and, uh, Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey — it is cinephile wish-fulfillment rolled in nerdiness and covered in pink sprinkles.” (Vox)
Barbie is a delight of improbable proportions
“The film’s deepest conflict involves neither enraged toy executives nor pouting doll-boys but Stereotypical Barbie’s internal struggle: Like countless fictional toys before her, she yearns to be real, a longing that brings her into conversation with the ghost of Barbie’s original inventor, Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), in a scene that recalls such classic Hollywood excursions into the realm of metaphysics as Heaven Can Wait. Though I had experienced Barbie up to that point as a mostly charming, occasionally exhausting riff on the fraught delights of consumerist feminism, something about Robbie’s passionate “yes” as she accepts the complications of being a mortal female human—paired with the strains of the gorgeous ballad Billie Eilish composed for the film, played over a montage of home movies made by families of the film’s cast and crew—had tears starting to my eyes.” (Slate)
The Visuals
BARBIE and the cinematic history of weaponized pink
“Gerwig and the film’s brilliant costume designer Jacqueline Durran took all of those decades of cinematic subtext and made the militant, order-threatening connotations of pink the entire point of Barbie. The Barbies (and beta male Allan) all switch into these uniform jumpsuits in order to literally bring down the patriarchy that has infected Barbie Land. Pink reaches its cinematic apotheosis as an anti-patriarchal hue. It’s now the color of guerilla fighters and revolutionaries.” (Tom and Lorenzo)
“I think we sampled 100 pinks”: production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer on Barbie
“[Barbie] gives you license to the things you want to like, and I think that’s amazing. And don’t be embarrassed, it’s absolutely the same for us. I honestly can say that I don’t think there’s any pink in any film we’ve ever done before, until Barbie. Now, [Katie is] wearing a pink shirt, and I’ve painted my bedroom pink. So, embrace your pink.” (Filmmaker)
Every reference and Easter egg in the ‘Barbie’ movie, explained
“Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s megahit film, is packed full of pop culture references. In addition to pulling from the history of the iconic doll, the Little Women and Lady Bird director looked to countless classic and modern films in constructing the film’s world, especially Barbieland.” (Marie Claire)
A Contrary View
We shouldn’t have to grade Barbie on a curve
“To be a film fan these days is to be aware that franchises and cinematic universes and remakes and other adaptations of old IP have become black holes that swallow artists, leaving you to desperately hope they might emerge with the rare project that, even though it comes from constrictive confines, still feels like it was made by a person. Barbie definitely was. But the trouble with trying to sneak subversive ideas into a project so inherently compromised is that, rather than get away with something, you might just create a new way for a brand to sell itself.” (Vulture)
Image of stylized Barbie logo by Crystal Smith using Barbie Medium font.
