A review and discussion by Kate O’Brien.
I think it is safe to say that the Barbie movie was one of the most anticipated movies of 2023. The PR team went above and beyond. I’d been looking forward to seeing the movie for months and months and I am so delighted that I finally got to see it.
I have never worked so hard to avoid spoilers before, because as I’m sure many of you know, this movie has generated a lot of discussion online.
So before I dive into my discussion, let’s get two things clear.
First of all this is not a children’s movie. So to all the parents who are making statements about how this movie is inappropriate for children and that they had to leave early with their nine year old … this is not a children’s movie. It is rated 12A in Ireland which means that the material is not considered appropriate for anyone under the age of twelve years old.
Secondly, and most importantly, the Barbie movie is NOT anti-men. This movie has been called “woke.” It has been called “anti-men” and that just simply is not true. In fact, it is disappointing to see that quite a lot of people have either missed the point entirely, or they’re refusing to see the movie and its themes properly. It should be noted that this line of criticism is coming from a specific kind of audience, however it is still disappointing to see a movie be dismissed when Barbie has arguably brought some very important points of discussion to the table.
I’ve seen the movie referred to as “feminism 101” and while I somewhat agree with this statement, I don’t think this is a bad thing. Some people need a basic introduction to feminism.
Is the movie very blunt with its messaging? Yes. Is this a bad thing? I don’t think so. Was it a perfect movie? No. In fact there are some things that I wish were done slightly differently in order to allow for more nuance in the piece, however I think that overall Barbie is a fantastic movie.
It is incredibly funny. It is packed with a great cast. The sets are absolutely gorgeous, and they have that real old Hollywood feel because so many of them are hand painted instead of everything being done on a green screen. The soundtrack is upbeat and fun, and in all the bright, pink glory, this movie still hits you right in the heartstrings because it is filled with such poignancy.
The movie was released on July 21st 2023 and it was directed by Greta Gerwig. The plot follows stereotypical Barbie as her perfect life is interrupted by cellulite and impending thoughts of death. Suddenly Barbie’s dream house is a place of nightmares and in order to go back to the way things have always been, she must travel from Barbie Land to the Real World. In the Real World, Barbie must find the girl who has been playing with her – all Barbie dolls are being played with by someone – because Barbie’s existential crisis is due to the girl’s thoughts merging with Barbie’s.
So it is a quest, a bright pink quest as Barbie sets off from the idyllic Barbie Land, a place where women rule, to the Real World, where she faces the complex realities of being a woman.
The opening narration explains the impact of Barbie, you see, before there were Barbie dolls, little girls played with baby dolls, and ironing boards, and mops. Little girls played pretend at being mothers for being a mother and a homemaker is what girls could aspire to be.
Now it is important for me to state that there is nothing wrong with aspiring to be a mother and/or a homemaker. This fact is often forgotten in the hustle culture that we often see society subscribe to, however it also must be noted that there is a huge difference between wanting to be a mother, and being told that being a mother is all you are allowed to aspire to be as a woman. So the fact that Barbie had her own job, her own house, and her own car, and could be anything in a time where women could not even have their own bank accounts was hugely significant and the motto that Barbie can be anything was and still is hugely inspiring.
In Barbie Land, all of the Barbies believed that this belief that women could be anything and that they were fully empowered had liberated all women in the Real World, so Barbie was expecting a very warm welcome, however things didn’t go as Barbie planned.
Before fully diving into the themes of Barbie, it is crucial to talk about Ken. Ryan Gosling was the perfect Ken to Margot Robbie’s perfect Barbie. He was brilliant, his comedic timing and his commitment to the role of Ken was hysterical. He had the entire cinema laughing.
At this point I’d like to note that I cannot remember the last time I was in a full cinema. The entire screening room was booked out and every single seat was filled. The sea of pink was delightful to see. Everyone was excited, everyone was taking turns taking photos in the Barbie box in the lobby, and the overall atmosphere was just so much fun. I think we could all do with some more “We’re going to see the Barbie movie” energy in our lives.
Back to the plot. Ken desperately wants Barbie to open her heart and her dream house to him. He ends up accompanying her on her journey to the Real World and while Barbie is horrified by the patriarchy, Ken is overjoyed.
This is where one can start to jump into the themes of Barbie. In Barbie Land, the Kens are just Kens. She’s everything and he’s just Ken. It is Barbie’s dream house and she does not want him there. He does not stay over because it is girls night. Every night is girls night. As the narration says, Barbie has a perfect day everyday and Ken only has a good day if Barbie notices him.
Ken feels left out and under appreciated so when he sees that men are powerful due to the patriarchy in the Real World, he is eager to bring that philosophy back to Barbie Land.
So this is where I can see why some people would call this movie “anti-men” because Ken is presented in a fur coat, a bandana, there are horses and trucks everywhere, and he comes across like a macho idiot. This is too easy, and it does not pay attention to the way that the movie addresses how the system of the patriarchy is harmful to women and men. I will say that the patriarchy is more harmful to women than men, because men benefit from the patriarchy. Ken’s experience in the Real World highlights this. Immediately after arriving Barbie is catcalled, she is groped by a stranger who slaps her on the behind, and she senses a violent undertone in the way that people leer at her. For the first time ever she is self-conscious and nervous about her personal safety, whereas Ken feels admired, powerful, and emboldened when he sees a man very rudely dismiss a woman, a colleague, and get away with it. He sees the patriarchy as a system that will appreciate him and give him power, and he does not think about the way it hurts women.
While Barbie is searching for the girl who is playing with her, Ken goes back to Barbie Land and without Barbie there to stop him, he begins to take over and turn the place into a Kendom. He takes over Barbie’s dream house, completely destroying it, and as all the Kens get onboard, the Barbies become brainwashed. These powerful women who were doctors and lawyers, and the President, are reduced to beer bringing maids. No, this is not an exaggeration, they’re literally given French maid outfits to wear because the patriarchy views women as subservient to men.
While it is clear that Ken was taken for granted at the beginning of the movie, it is interesting that him gaining more power involved stripping women of theirs. He could not just be on the same level as these powerful, intelligent, accomplished Barbies, he could not just give the Kens the same status, he had to be on top.
In the Real World, Barbie finds the girl who has been playing with her or at least Barbie thinks she has when she finds Sasha. She is devastated to learn that Sasha and her friends think that Barbie has not helped women at all. Sasha states that Barbie has made women feel bad about themselves due to setting impossible beauty standards, but Barbie argues that that was never the point, the point was supposed to be that Barbie could be anything.
I found this very interesting because initially I thought that this would be the core argument of the movie. I played with Barbie dolls when I was a little girl. I had the dream house and the plane, and I always remembered the tagline of you can be anything! Barbie was magical, she was amazing, and I never felt any kind of societal beauty pressures because of a doll. Barbie was always empowering and I say that as a woman in my twenties. I’ve never heard any of my peers say that Barbie had a negative impact, we all have very fond memories of playing with Barbie dolls when we were younger and watching all of the Barbie movies. That is not to say that I’ve never heard Barbie being critiqued, but I will say that any criticism I’ve heard about Barbie was always from people who were older than myself, who never really played with Barbie dolls, and who kind of seemed to miss the “You can be anything” memo. So it was interesting to see a teenager have that negative opinion of Barbie in this movie.
The plot twist came in the form of Sasha not being the girl that Barbie needed to find, instead it was her mother. All of the memories that Barbie was seeing of young Sasha playing also included her mother playing with her. Her mother Gloria works for Mattel. She’s been drawing Barbie dolls, one of them being “Thoughts of death Barbie” It is Gloria’s thoughts and feelings that are merging with Barbie’s and it is Gloria who delivers the most poignant and powerful monologue of the whole movie.
In her quest to fix everything, Barbie brings Sasha and Gloria back to Barbie Land where she discovers what Ken has done. While confronting Ken, he asks her how it feels to be dismissed? He informs her that every night will be boys night from now on. The parallel is clear.
Now. I have two conflicting thoughts about this point, because on one hand I think that the Kens were overlooked and dismissed by the Barbies at the start of the movie. When Ken asks her how it feels to be treated like this, Gosling did an amazing job of letting the hurt break through the faux-macho facade. I don’t think anyone, man or woman, should be dismissed and treated as less than, however I also worry about saying that Barbie’s lack of attention caused Ken to act this way. He lashes out due to being hurt yes, however I think it is worryingly easy to twist the entire plot in a way that blames women for men’s anger and harmful reactions due to affections not being returned. It is a slippery slope and I do wish that the movie would have handled this more carefully.
Barbie is devastated by the loss of her dream house and by seeing her friends reduced to mindless carriers of beer, and she is still struggling with all the new feelings she is having about life and death and meaning. She breaks down crying and when asked what is wrong, she tells Gloria that she is not pretty anymore. She’s weird.
Gloria, played by the brilliant America Ferrera delivers a powerful monologue about the complexities of being a woman. She passionately lays out how it can feel impossible, because so many expectations are placed on women and so many of them are contradictory. You have to be a boss but never hurt feelings, you have to lead but listen to everyone, you have to be a mother but never talk about your kids, you have to be pretty but not too pretty. The list goes on and on. At this point the narration interrupts to say that Margot Robbie was the wrong person to cast to talk about not feeling pretty and this line got a laugh in the cinema, but this got me thinking.
I think Margot Robbie was the perfect person to cast to make this point because yes, she is gorgeous. She is extremely conventionally attractive, yet she still feels the pressure that comes with the expectation to be pretty. If the beautiful Margot Robbie sometimes feels unattractive, it just highlights even more in my opinion how someone can be beautiful, but they will still struggle and feel the pressure that society puts on them. Gloria’s speech breaks the Barbies out of their trances one by one and together they take back Barbie Land.
It is at this key point that the movie highlights how damaging the patriarchy is, not only to women but to men too. Ken sees everything he has done crumble and he is upset, but he does not cry because he feels he can not and should not cry. Barbie tells him that it is okay to cry.
Hilariously, he tells her that he lost interest in the patriarchy when he found out it was not actually about horses but he felt such pressure to lead, to keep up the facade. This moment highlights how men face enormous pressure too. Pressure to be leaders, to bottle their emotions, to put on a tough facade all the time, to like huge trucks, and sports and to never go against the grain because if you do that then you’re not a “real” man. Of course it is okay to like trucks, and to like sports etc. The problem arises when society tells men, you must like these specific things and behave in this specific way, because if you don’t, then you’re not a “real” man.
Ken has been defining himself by his girlfriend, his job, his car, his house, by all of the things in his life instead of figuring out who he is. He needs to learn how to be just Ken, without those things, and he needs to learn that that is enough. It is interesting because I think women are often defined by the things in our lives. We’re asked if we have boyfriends, are we engaged, do we want kids, and then if we have kids we get asked about mam guilt and how we handle being a mam while working etc. etc. It was interesting to see that trope subverted as so many romantic comedies follow a woman who must find her own identity outside of the relationships in her life.
Barbie apologises for taking Ken for granted, and I really wish he would have apologised for how he treated the Barbies and for ruining her dream house, but instead he just thanks her for her apology and supports her on her quest for meaning in her life.
This is the point that I really wish had been handled differently, because while it is true that Ken was taken for granted, he did treat the Barbies badly. The Kens were just Kens yes, but they were never stripped of their jobs and made to bring the Barbies drinks while wearing French maid outfits. So I do think Barbie was owed an apology too. If that scene had been a few minutes longer, if Ken had apologised for his wrongdoings too, that would have felt better in my opinion.
The movie ends with Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, giving her a choice. It is another poignant scene because Ruth tells Barbie that she named Barbie after her own daughter, and she always wanted her daughter and Barbie to do great things. She says that mothers stand still so that their daughters can look back and see how far they’ve come. That line made me cry all over again. It is such a beautiful line. It is so easy to critique women of the past. I discuss a particular pet peeve of mine a lot which is when women of a certain time are critiqued by today’s standards, especially in period pieces. It is not fair to judge a19th century woman by today’s rules or a 1950’s woman by today’s rules. So many women of their time did what they could when they had very little rights, very little education, and very little autonomy. While it is still not perfect in 2023, we’ve come a long way. My great grandmother, my grandmother even, my great aunt who is in her nineties, she is in awe of the things that I get to do and say and be, and she is so proud. This line made me think of her, and of all the women who were young at a certain time, who had to leave school at fourteen or younger, who were considered “on the shelf” at just twenty-five or even younger if they weren’t married by then. It made me think of how they raised another generation, who raised another, who raised my generation. I’m so proud of my mam, of my grandmother, of my great grandmother, and the thing that Barbie really highlighted, the thing that made me, and so many other women in the cinema so emotional is the fact that we were all girls once.
So the movie ends with Ken accepting that he is “Kenough.” Glorious! The entire cinema laughed again. I don’t remember the last time I laughed so much at a character.
Barbie makes a choice. She no longer wants to be an idea, she wants to be the person making the ideas. She wants to be real, to experience life and have all the feelings. So that is exactly what she does. She becomes real.
Overall I thought Barbie was lots of fun. It was bright, it was pink. It was a celebration of girlhood that touched upon the complex realities that come with maturing into a woman. There is internal pressure, there is external pressure, and it is so important to know your own worth and not be defined by other things. Again, while it is not a perfect movie, and its message could be more nuanced at times, this movie is definitely not anti-men. I don’t think it is anti-anybody. I think it brings really important topics to the table. I think it is a movie that opens the conversation. I think it shows how women and men can be negatively impacted by issues, and how the key really is to be kind and respectful and caring to everyone.
I would absolutely recommend it. I will be going to see it again.
This Barbie is a movie lover! This Barbie is a literary reviewer!
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