Over the years, Barbie has been many things: a symbol of unattainable beauty standards, a career woman, an embodiment of the male gaze of Ken, an inspiration for young girls. Whilst in the USA I stayed with a relative and employee of Warner Brothers. So, yes, this meant a special advanced screening of the movie, packed with delighted people wearing pink. Not my demographic, you understand, so dragging my heels I thought, “Ahrr, well when in Rome.”
Warner Bros. Pictures
To my surprise, the film asks existential questions: How do we exchange ideas? What prevents us from becoming the best versions of ourselves? What makes us human? It’s kind of brand marketing for Mattel — and it’s also a work of art from the writer-director Greta Gerwig.
The film invites you to consider all the sides of Barbie. Rolling her eyes in exasperation at me, my host explained: You can’t talk about yourself without talking about the things that influenced you, and often, those are things that you have consumed or bought. We often think the things that make us us are the things we play with, consume, watch, and listen to.
We can become very possessive of those things. At the same time, we’re not completely composed of them. Think vegemite, sauvignon blanc, your favourite shoes, the Silver Ferns, Dame Val Adams.
This fluffy cinema argues for Barbie as not just a product, but a protagonist — someone who deserves her own heroine’s journey, and whose function is to represent a brand, but also represent the ideal of womanhood to young girls.
All of that gets wrapped up into this film.
Make no mistake — this is a feminist film, or at least it tries to be nuanced about what feminism means. Early on, the Barbies believe they live in a feminist world. But their idea of feminism is flawed. They live in this world in which Kens are second-class citizens. There isn’t gender parity. The film wrestles with this glossy idea of feminism that a lot of young girls were sold. Being told that you can be anything is inspirational, but that’s not necessarily truthful. That debate is what the film invites you to think about.
America Ferrera’s serious monologue about the challenges and contradictions of womanhood is a striking moment in the film, with otherwise a lot of dance routines and fun costumes and sparkles.
What Greta Gerwig has done is put this speech inside a Trojan horse of a film. In a meta way, that’s true to the experience that America Ferrera’s character is talking about.
After the film and fizz, my cousin summed up Barbie perfectly: “For women, in order to succeed, you have to constantly negotiate your power. Like, you have to play up this idea of not being too aggressive or threatening, so you have to giggle a little bit. You keep having to conform to these expectations of how women should act.”