Show notes
The first thing I noticed when I stepped into a Brooklyn movie theater at 4:30 p.m. on a Thursday, the day before “Barbie” opened nationwide, was the palpable buzz of anticipation.
Before the Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” even began, you could sense the hunger of the audience; the sense that we had been waiting for something just like this. When the lights came up about two hours later — after watching Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) leave Barbie Land for the Real World, discover the horrors of patriarchy, and the beauties of being a human woman, rather than an idea or an object — I was surrounded by a diverse group of people in varying shades of pink, with wide smiles and wet eyes.
As we were walking out of the theater, a man dressed in varying shades of pale pink turned to his friend and said matter-of-factly: “I didn’t realize how much that movie would fuck me up.” Same, dude. Same. A movie that starts with Helen Mirren opining about the history of baby dolls and ends with gynecology? Ideal!
And then it hit me: this is the ecstasy of feeling seen. The unfettered joy of a big, splashy, cultural moment that unapologetically speaks to you.
Growing up in the ‘90s, my relationship with Barbie was a fraught one. Barbie (full name Barbara Millicent Roberts) first hit shelves in 1959, joined two years later by her ultimate accessory, Ken. So by the time I discovered her, it just seemed like playing with and idolizing and eventually hating Barbie was a fact of girlhood.
She was everywhere, wrapped in plastic and fantastic 😉. She had so many jobs and so many high heels. She was beautiful and adult and aspirational, and also a site for cultural critique; a battlefield on which larger gender battles were fought. She represented oppressive beauty standards, weight anxiety, and the continued power of light skin and sleek blonde hair. As I began a decades-long (maybe life long?) During my brief tomboy phase, I sold all my Barbies at our neighborhood yard sale and bought a bike with the proceeds. Except one, who I dubbed Space Barbie. She got to stay.
All of this is to say that I wouldn’t have assumed that a movie about Barbie would leave me feeling so much, so deeply.
And yet it did! Maybe it’s the beauty of participating in a true Cultural Event, or maybe it’s that this doll loomed so large in my own girlhood, or maybe it’s because I adore Ryan Gosling, or maybe it’s because Michael Cera’s portrayal of tender masculinity in Allan tugged at my heartstrings, or maybe it’s because the movie is so unashamed about participating in campy femininity, or maybe it’s because a lot of terrible shit has happened in this country in the last decade and it just felt fucking great to laugh and weep and wear bright pink.
Though “Barbie” centers the experiences of women and girls, it’s also a film that is deeply interested in masculinity. We learn early on that being a Ken is a frustrating, isolating experience. Kens needs the Barbies attention in order to have any self-worth or identity, I and when it isn’t freely offered 100 percent of the time, they resort to force and control. But even domination doesn’t feel all that good. Stealing Barbie’s dream house and turning it into a Mojo Dojo Casa House filled with horse decor doesn’t fix the fundamental emptiness and disconnection that so many of the Kens seem to feel. The Kens are in conflict with each other more often than they are bonding. And though there’s just one Allan — allegedly BFF to Ken — none of them ever really talk to him. “Barbie” wants us all to remember that patriarchy hurts men too.
Of course, “Barbie” isn’t a radical feminist treatise. It still centers whiteness, and its interests still lie in the gender binary. Plus, it’s a studio film, produced by Mattel. One can only assume that Gerwig was given a relatively long creative leash because executives knew that they would be able to sell the shit out of an ungodly number of different Barbie products in the film’s wake. More people in seats means more people buying not just Barbie dolls, but Barbie suitcases, Barbie jewelry, Barbie living room sets, Barbie pool floats, Barbie candles, Barbie Crocs, Barbie scrunchies, Barbie roller skates, Barbie toothpaste, and Barbie bacon cheeseburgers. (Yes, for real.)
As with all complex cultural products, that somehow both challenge and reify the worst of the world we live in, I am thinking about “Barbie” as a catalyst for dialogue and self-reflection. The movie’s Feminism 101 and $100 million dollar marketing budget are worthy of discussion, as are its dissections of the performance of manhood, and the contradicting demands of womanhood.
We all see different things in “Barbie”: Susan Faludi saw the aftermath of Dobbs, Allison P. Davis saw Greta Gerwig’s own professional history, Jessica DeFino saw craven merchandising. I see pieces of all of these things, and I’m sure I’ll see more when I see the movie for a second time, maybe even a third. But no matter what you see, and how it changes over time, it’s worth taking “Barbie” and its place in the film canon seriously.
To begin unpacking all that “Barbie” is, and what it isn’t, I enlisted my friend Liz Plank, a brilliant writer, podcaster, newsletter-er and filmmaker. We discussed what we loved about “Barbie,” as well as the film’s inherent limitations. And we asked ourselves, what do our mixed up feelings about Barbie say about us and the world we live in? Hope you enjoy! Xo
Refer a friendRecommended “Barbie” reading:
“For The Love Of Ken,” Liz Plank, Airplane Mode with Liz Plank
“I Saw ‘Barbie’ With Susan Faludi, And She Has A Theory About It,” Jessica Bennett, NYTimes
“The Dark Side of Barbie: Crime, Racial Issues and Rampant Sexism,” Abby Monteil, Rolling Stone
“What Is Greta Gerwig Trying To Tell Us?,” Allison P. Davis, NYMag
“The Hunger Fed By Taylor Swift and Barbie,” Michelle Goldberg, NYTimes
“Barbie Has Cellulite (But You Don’t Have To),” Jessica DeFino, The Unpublishable
“Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ Dream Job,” Willa Paskin, New York Times Magazine
“Why Barbie Must Be Punished,” Leslie Jamison, New Yorker
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