The Barbie Film Pokes Fun at the Human Condition -- That's A Good Thing
Women are flawed, so are men. The Barbie film recognizes that and has fun with it.
If you follow the too-online crowds who can’t stop talking about everything and anything related to the culture war, you’re likely going to hear them talk about the live-action Barbie movie.
One set will tell you the movie is about progressivism and recognizing how much better things would be if women were in charge. The other set will tell you this is another attempt to indoctrinate people into the cult of wokeism.
I watched the movie this past weekend and find it to be neither. If anything, the movie offers criticism of feminism as much as it offers praise, while thumbing its nose at the cult of wokeism and progressive thought, particularly in raising the question about whether or not utopia actually exists. (Of course, it does poke fun at men running the show, because what else would you expect in a feminine film.)
The film focuses on Margot Robbie as “Stereotypical Barbie,” or what one would assume is the generic template for the Barbie doll, and how everything in her life in Barbieland is exactly what it is when girls play with Barbies. The food isn’t real, the outfits are aplenty and every Barbie is walking on the balls of her feet, because how else could they wear high heels.
And then there’s Ken, portrayed by Ryan Gosling. His job is that of “beach,” meaning he primarily stands around holding a surfboard and smiling. In Barbieland, the role of every Ken is to spend the day playing a sport while the role of every Barbie is to run the show, whether it’s a working class or credentialed class career. (It should be no surprise that Barbie comes before Ken here because, after all, that’s how the dolls are marketed.)
However, when Stereotypical Barbie begins to experience abnormalities like a milk carton showing an expiration date, the development of cellulite on her thighs and asking other Barbies if they ever thought about “dying,” she must seek out “Weird Barbie” for advice. (She’s called “Weird Barbie” because the girl who owned her cut her hair and, otherwise, played rough with her.) It turns out that Stereotypical Barbie’s owner is unhappy and, so, Barbie must head off to the real world to find out why.
Meanwhile, Ken sneaks along for the journey to the real world (you see, his goal in life is to get Barbie to notice him). When they arrive, Barbie is surprised that women don’t actually work all the jobs (witness her surprise at no women working on a construction crew) while Ken becomes enamored with the idea of “patriarchy” simply because he can be the center of attention (though he finds out being a man isn’t enough by itself to get the jobs that men have).
Our heroine believes she has located the unhappy girl, but the girl is actually too woke for her own good and calls Barbie a fascist, which hurts her feelings. Barbie is then lured back to Mattel headquarters to be put back into her box and return to Barbieland (Mattel headquarters is where we meet the corporate CEO, played by Will Ferrell, whose character is basically Will Ferrell if he really were a corporate CEO). She has second thoughts, though, a hijinks chase ensues because of course it does, and Barbie escapes with the girl and her mother — and it’s her mother who is the actual doll owner.
Barbie decides to bring the two back to Barbieland, but meanwhile, Ken has already returned, dubbing it the Kendom, in which we go over the top with stereotypes about manly men and the women who are only happy to serve them — this comes complete with mini fridges filled with beer, because of course it must.
Along the way, we get a bunch of obscure references to the world of Barbie (Alan plays a key role, pregnant Midge gets a cameo and Skipper gets both a cameo and a joke about how she was the first to escape into the real world) plus several instances of breaking the fourth wall (the narrator’s comments about Robbie’s ability to act a scene drew plenty of laughs from those in attendance).
I won’t go further into the plot, but this movie never was meant to be about the plot as much as it was meant to be a critique of the human condition and what it has wrought us. It has brought us the patriarchy in which men are supposed to be bold and daring but prone to violence that ultimately leads to war. It has also brought us feminism which sought to open doors to careers thought to be exclusive to men, only for it to become more about status and personal satisfaction (it’s for good reason why Barbie wonders why there are no women working the construction jobs in the real world).
As for wokeism, the movie does more to poke fun at it than anything else. The young girl who Barbie first encounters is more of the mean girl type than a heroine (though she does bond with her mother in a rendition of “Closer to Fine,” which seems to be the Barbie theme song). And then there’s the mid-movie “advertisement” for an emotionally distraught Barbie, which struck me as a shot right at the biggest problem with the woke movement, in that it must always assume the worst about everything. (By the way, the faux advertisement may have drawn the most laughs out of anything in the movie.)
Getting to Beach Ken for a moment, the whole point of his journey is that he just wants to be noticed for who he is, particularly by Stereotypical Barbie. Even after the Barbies trick the Kens into fighting with one another (though it’s mostly by throwing balls and swinging tennis rackets) so the Barbies can regain control of Barbieland, it’s hard not to sympathize with Ken, who simply wants to be acknowledged by the girl he may or may not have a crush on. (It’s also fitting that his chosen theme song would be Matchbox 20’s “Push,” a song that plenty have misunderstood but, in a way, describes Ken’s dilemma).
Meanwhile, Barbie herself learns that, while the real world has its faults, it may not have anything to do with whether men or women are in charge. It leads to her deciding, even after the Barbies regain control, to leave Barbieland for the real world.
And it’s only fitting that the ghost of Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, be the one to truly help Barbie better understand the real world — yes, women do have their struggles, but they experience plenty of joy, too, and the joy they experience is really what being a woman is all about. (It’s worth noting that Handler is a perfect example of the entrepreneur who has an idea and takes a chance on it, so it’s fitting that her movie character would be the one to understand the world’s challenges but what makes it wonderful, too.)
In other words, for those who think Barbie was supposed to be a celebration of progressivism while sticking it to the patriarchy, or that it’s trying to indoctrinate an innocent populace, it is really a celebration of womanhood in terms of what makes women unique, rather than being reduced to a bunch of signs (hat tip for this to an enjoyable review of the movie by Nina Power for Compact Magazine). And while the movie may not quite resolve Ken’s story as some may hope, it recognizes that men play an important role and it works for the best when men and women agree to get along.
The film is neither a victory nor a defeat for either side in the culture war but a rebuke of both — that women being in charge doesn’t mean utopia, that men aren’t always confident in themselves despite their bravado, but that both can learn from each other if they aren’t constantly worried about whose running the show.
Most of all, Barbie pokes fun at the human condition. That may actually explain the main reason for its popularity. For a lot of Disney films that are failing to draw at the box office, the characters who are front and center are supposed to overcome a plot point, not a character flaw. Meanwhile, what the majority of movie watchers may want are characters who are flawed and learn to overcome the flaws, even if the flaws remain, because that’s what makes a character relatable.
As for Barbie, it is about the heroine learning to deal with flaws, but in the end, recognizing that flaws are what make us human — and that, in a comedy (which is what the movie is), it’s perfectly fine for viewers to laugh about those flaws without worrying about what side of the culture war you pick.