Barbie Movie Review – We’re All Barbie Girls Living in a Patriarchal World

Image Courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures

I may be late to the party, but I finally saw Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. I absolutely loved the movie - it is a feminist fever dream of pink, plastic, and patriarchy.

The opening of the film, in a homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, shows a group of miserable little girls in the desert. Wearing greys and beige, they resolutely play with baby dolls, cook and do the ironing. These are the toys young girls are given to play with, practising for the future, indoctrinating this sense of wives and motherhood from a young age.

But then Barbie is introduced.

Launched in 1959, Barbie was something different to the classic baby dolls - she was beautiful, she was successful, she was perfect. This was a woman you aspired to be. I never really played much with Barbies when I was young - I was more into Bratz dolls at that age, but I do appreciate how Barbie paved the way for a different kind of playtime. I never liked playing with baby dolls when I was younger, which may have a correlation with me not wanting children now…

Despite being revolutionary at the time, the problem became that Barbie was too perfect and women couldn’t actually be Barbie. The tall, thin, white, blonde, conventionally attractive woman didn’t represent so many people playing with Barbie. Since its inception, Barbie has become more inclusive - Mattel now states that Barbie is ‘the most diverse doll line’, with 35 skin tones, 97 hairstyles, and 9 body types. There are also Barbies that are differently abled, including those in wheelchairs or the first Barbie with Down Syndrome. Although it wasn’t until recent years that Barbies of different body types or abilities were introduced, this is represented throughout the diverse and stellar cast in the film. 

The film takes place in the utopia of Barbieland, where Barbies rule, every day is the best day ever, and Barbies believe they have solved all problems of equality in the real world by inspiring girls to achieve whatever they want to. Yet when our stereotypical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, starts to malfunction - having feelings of death, flat feet, and cellulite - she has to travel to the real world to bond with the girl who is playing with her. Upon meeting the tween girl, Sasha, Barbie is shocked to be called a bimbo and told she has ‘set back feminism fifty years’ by making women feel bad about themselves due to her unrealistic beauty standards.

We discover that it is actually Sasha’s mom, Gloria, played by America Ferreira, who has been playing with her old Barbies and is therefore manifesting feelings of depression and doubt into Robbie’s Barbie. She has turned her from ‘stereotypical Barbie’ into ‘irrepressible thoughts of death Barbie’, ‘cellulite Barbie’, and ‘depression Barbie’. She delivers a powerful speech about the impossibilities of being a perfect woman and a mom, and puts forward the idea of a ‘normal Barbie’ to represent all people just trying their best to get through the day.

While the movie resonates with women, it is definitely not anti-men. Ryan Gosling brings the Kenergy to his role, with choreographed dance moves and the movie’s only musical number. In Barbieland, Barbie is everything, and he is just Ken. He exists to be with Barbie, and his job is ‘beach’ - not lifeguard, just beach. When he follows Barbie to the real world, Ken is enthralled to discover that men actually have the upper hand and rule the show. He is delighted to bring the patriarchy back to Barbieland. From then on the Kens dominate, taking over the Barbie dream houses and making them ‘Mojo Dojo Casa Houses’. The Barbies become brainwashed, giving up their jobs as president and supreme court ruler to serve the Kens ‘brewski beers’ and rub their feet while wearing maids outfits. Ken’s idea of the patriarchy is intrinsically linked to men on horses, donning Western clothes and drinking in saloons.

At the end of the movie, the Barbies are able to trick the Kens into fighting, and are therefore able to vote to keep the Barbie constitution and take back their power. But they decide that things shouldn’t go back to the way they were, with the Kens feeling completely useless and inferior. Barbie tells Ken that he needs to discover who he is as just Ken, not as Barbie AND Ken. He discovers that he is ‘Kenough’ just as he is. The Kens aren’t allowed on the supreme court or to be president, but can have smaller responsibilities, and as the narrator Helen Mirren points out, soon this will give the Kens ‘as much power as women now have in the real world’. 

Despite this victory, stereotypical Barbie doesn’t feel like Barbie anymore. She takes the philosophical leap to become a real human woman, with all the thoughts and feelings and mortality that comes along with this. The movie ends with her going on her first appointment to the gynaecologist, as she finally has a vagina!

I think this is a perfect example of funny feminism - the film was laugh out loud, while also making you think deeply about womanhood, society and the meaning of life. It makes really great points without being ‘preachy’ - and it’s a clever way to make this point through dolls. I wouldn’t say this is a kids film, and is definitely more aimed at adult women, but there are messages aimed at different people and viewers can take away from the film what they want to; whether you are an Allan feeling as though you don’t fit into the stereotypical manhood, a Ken who is grappling with toxic masculinity, a mother and daughter having a difficult relationship, a woman struggling with all the complications and restrictions of the gender, or anyone trying to understand the overwhelming feelings of being a person and their sense of purpose.

The Barbie movie has had some of the most influential marketing ever seen. As someone who works in marketing and PR, it has been awe-inspiring to see what they have managed to pull off - from countless collabs with renowned brands, to a constant social media presence, and each screening at the cinema being booked up for weeks on end.

People may say it's overhyped, but I think it’s interesting that when, for example, a new Marvel film comes out and has insane marketing no one says a word, but when it’s something like Barbie aimed very explicitly at women, with vibrant pink everywhere, people think that the marketing has gone too far. That’s because things made for and enjoyed by women are often belittled in society.

The way that the Barbie movie has been embraced so publicly and has been such a huge success both financially and influentially helps to pave the way to create more stories and dialogue around the experiences of being a woman. Mattel have even announced that their next foray into the big screen will be with a Polly Pocket movie.

If only the issues of equality in the real world could be fixed as simply as they are in Barbieland. But I do believe that this movie has helped to open up a much-needed conversation that we can continue to work towards.

Written by Ally McLaren
Editor

Hi, I’m Ally, Editor of This Modern Struggle Magazine.

You may have seen my writing in Mouthy Magazine or Darling Magazine. I currently work in Marketing and PR and do freelance copywriting on the side. I also have experience in journalism and feature writing for women’s magazines and national press.

When I’m not writing you can find me eating pizza, stroking my cat and watching true crime documentaries.

I started this magazine for all the fellow strugglers who feel the same way that I do; like everyone else has it all figured out and you just don’t know what you’re doing in life.