Directed by Greta Gerwig. Written by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig.
The movie of the summer, of the year most likely, Barbie has turned the world a distinct shade of pink with commercial tie-ins that range from the apt (Barbie-branded hair brushes and fashion accessories) to the dubious (UNO playing cards and doughnuts), and our life online hasn’t gone untouched either, as phrases, memes, and screengrabs have entered popular phraseology overnight and become cultural shorthand.
With omnipresence comes awareness, which soon engenders division, and the rabble has been roused when it comes to Greta Gerwig’s film. It’s either black or white when it comes to this pink movie. How’d it ever get to this?
Barbie (Margot Robbie, who else?) lives a perfect life in Barbieland, a real place tethered to our own world by toy magic. As “Generic Barbie,” she lives in the perfect house where the shower water is always the perfect temperature, the toast is always perfectly toasted, and every night is girls’ night. One of those girls coming for girls’ night is the president, because Barbies occupy every position of prominence and power here, since Barbies can, of course, become anything they put their mind to.
Also residing in Barbieland are Kens. They have jobs too, albeit less illustrious and defined. Take for example the Ken who’s ostensibly Barbie’s boyfriend. His job is “to beach.” Barbie doesn’t know where he lives. She’s never really thought about it. On the other hand, Barbie’s all Ken really thinks about, because, as he puts it, it’s “Barbie and Ken!”. Roy is just a name unless “Siegfried &” precedes it, and Robin doesn’t make a lot of sense without Batman.
As you can see, life’s pretty swell for Barbies in Barbieland, but suddenly Generic Barbie starts having intrusive thoughts about death, and things turn off their axis, with the toast getting burnt, her morning breath becoming as bad as yours or mine, and cellulite forming on her thighs. To make things right, she must enter the real world and speak to the girl who’s playing with her doll and infusing her with these bad vibes. Existential angst, wrapped in plastic.
Once in the real world, she realizes it’s very different from her own Barbie-ist utopia, and the reckoning has consequences for both her and for Ken, who suddenly sees a world where Kens enjoy a much more prominent station in life, all thanks to something called “the patriarchy”.
As soon as words like “patriarchy” and “feminism” find themselves in the same sentence, you can be sure outraged spittle starts coating keyboards as the emotionally ill-adjusted spew terms like “whataboutism” and “reverse sexism” on internet forums. All of the discourse surrounding Barbie is locked in a death spiral arguing whether Barbie is a celebration of women or it’s a nefarious woke, misandrist conspiracy.
It was perhaps inevitable it’d end this way, because Barbie is built for internet engagement. It makes its points with monologues like it was some blowhard Twitter-thread and those points are written in all caps. Its jokes are primarily saved for poking fun at men’s macho preoccupations, and its moments of sincerity are reserved for women’s plight (some of which Barbie contributed to).
Barbie isn’t as insightful and rigorous so as to become some proxy war between Judith Butler and Jordan B. Peterson. What it is, is fun. Equally attuned to its childhood heritage and contemporary significance, it lampoons itself throughout. Barbie knows Barbie. Both its imagined legacy of female exceptionalism, but also the hairier parts of its real actual legacy, be it consumerism, normativity, or body dysmorphia. It pokes fun at ivory tower feminism while roasting himbos, filmbros, biz bros, misogynists and every other stereotype clown that works at the patriarchal circus.
It’s this latter part that has rattled the monkey cage, and it’s been a classic case of call-and-response where comment sections have filled with “not all men!!!” vitriol from people who don’t care for comedy at their (gender’s) expense.
Most of Barbie is a cavalcade of dazzling musical acts, witty lines, but also cartoonish pratfalls and some dumb slapstick that feels like it’s more for the toddler siblings of the girls who play with Barbie dolls. It has powerhouse performances as well, with Ryan Gosling shining bright as Ken. The way he satirizes masculinity as the world’s most insecure loverboy is right up there with his role as Jacob in Crazy, Stupid, Love. More than the dolls, what stands out is the seamless assembly of the finished dollhouse.
The texture and feel of Gerwig’s movie is so cohesive and diligently put together, it’s like the separation of parts disappear and the movie just appears fully formed. In Gerwig’s eye, there’s a real affection for the physical universe of Barbie, whatever it might suggest about how consumerism is taught from childhood, and it’s all delivered with such buoyant energy that Barbie is like a big bubblegum bubble rapidly inflating before finally bursting with a satisfying pop.
Two years ago, Top Gun: Maverick fist-pumped its way into colossal success, reminding us that unapologetic man spectacle can still rule the day. It was reductive, silly, but self-assured and executed on its own terms. Barbie lives much the same way, punched out in pastel-coloured plastic where it’s all hard edges and big arm-movements. No one seemed up in arms about Top Gun, though.
Barbie is for anyone who wants a good time and an engrossing adventure. If you’d like the finer points of feminism, toxic masculinity and social inequality discussed with exacting detail in a forum à la ancient Greece, I suggest you watch Women Talking, the concisely named film by Sarah Polley where a group of women living in a cult do exactly that. Barbie isn’t about that, and if you think a movie about a doll that was meant to represent the perfect woman shouldn’t have strong opinions on gender dynamics, then you best steer clear.
Right or wrong, anything that divides like this, conquers, and fact is Barbie has already made more than $1 billion worldwide. Yes, a billion. With a b. As in Barbie.
Mikkel Frederiksen 