For the better part of a year or so, we’ve been inundated with “Barbie” hype. That’s included articles about people jumping on the Barbie fashion trend, numerous quippy sound bites from the film’s cast (but mostly Ryan Gosling), and coverage of folks vying to stay inside a life-size Barbie house. It’s often felt as though our brains have been seized by residents of Barbieland.
And for the most part, it seems like many of us haven’t minded that one bit. With Barbie always trending on social media, it was inevitable to participate in memory loops of having the dolls as children. Or, at our worst, to engage in unproductive quarrels defending them to naysayers who advised that the toys did more harm to our body and racial image than we admit.
Amid all of that, though, emerged a most intriguing question: Is Barbie feminist? Granted, the Mattel doll — and it cannot be emphasised enough that it is just a doll — is quite literally a plastic manifestation of the (generally white) male gaze, down to her tiny waist, blonde hair and ample boobs. Oh, and she hasn’t aged a day since she was launched in 1959.
But she eventually took many forms across the racial spectrum, along with careers as a doctor, astronaut, pilot and more. She also owned a few homes, including the iconic dream house and beach house, and she had the best friends.
All of this makes the answer to the feminist question, as applied to the doll, quite nuanced — fascinatingly so. But applied to the movie? That’s proved to be even more complex, if for different reasons.
It’s important, though, to ask: Why does it matter at all if a movie is feminist? The short answer is, it doesn’t. This kind of expectation has risen in the social media age as some audiences place the qualifier on certain pop culture offerings, regardless of whether that comports with the reality or has anything to do with their merit.
But, as we’ve seen many times in the past, twist any story hard enough and it can absolutely become a feminist movie. And maybe even be good.
Barbie kinda falls into that assessment. Directed by Greta Gerwig and co-written with her partner, Noah Baumbach, the movie is a vivid amalgamation of mainstream expectations, obvious brand recognition and the ambitions that the film’s creators wanted to explore on their own.
The New York Times reported that when Gerwig was approached about writing the film, “the parameters were extremely broad: She could do anything she wanted.” Well, after watching the movie, it feels easier to believe that it was perhaps anything inside of already branded confines.
On the positive end, Barbie has a lot to offer within its just-under-two-hour running time. It’s heartfelt, sexy, weird, naive, feminist-lite and pink. Like, so very pink.
Its hue, more than anything else, is the most visually striking aspect of the movie. Barbie is not particularly feminist. It’s a lot more complicated than that, just like most people are — and how any great character should be presented.
Here, the eponymous doll — or Stereotypical Barbie, as the character herself owns — is embodied to perfection by a wide-eyed Margot Robbie, who’s also a producer on the film with Gerwig and Baumbach.
She wakes up each day in a land of pink to her squad of fellow Barbies (zestfully portrayed by Issa Rae, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef and many others) living their best lives in their wall-less homes and ideal jobs.
Each day is wonderful, just like the day before and the day before that. Barbie’s beau, Ken (a sublime Gosling), also fittingly serves his purpose as — to borrow a line from another complexly feminist offering, Sex and the City — one of those “great, nice guys to have fun with.”
The self-awareness and impeccably mascara’d winks practically ping off the screen in glorious measure, even from the first few moments of Barbie. Gerwig and Baumbach were obviously cognisant of the questions around whether the doll is a feminist emblem, and they went to great lengths attempting to prove that it always has been.
In fact, that became the crux of the plot and, to its detriment, the entire point of the film. Soon, Stereotypical Barbie begins to show signs of being, well, less stereotypical — e.g., having existential fears and cellulite — and must venture from Barbieland to the Real World to find out which human has caused the malfunction and rectify the issue immediately.
But once Stereotypical Barbie, with a surprise accompaniment by the always overeager Ken, arrives in Los Angeles, everything goes topsy-turvy as she learns that female domination only exists in Barbieland and patriarchy rules the Real World. Ken, however, has an entirely different kind of awakening that gives him a new purpose.
So it’s up to Stereotypical Barbie, and some new human friends played by America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt, to set the record straight that women are totally rad and must extricate themselves from patriarchy before things get even worse.
All of this works, though on a surface level. It cannot be overstated that Robbie and Gosling are excellent here, delicately balancing the kind of pathos and ridiculousness — sometimes at the same time — that is necessary for the often goofy and occasionally earnest story.
There’s a whole choreographed scene with many different Kens, played by actors like Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir, that is just as superfluous and glossy as the character inherently seems to be. It also appears to serve as a reminder of how diverse the Ken doll is.
Ferrera, meanwhile, is tremendous as a mom determined to show her daughter, and the audience, that Barbie is still feminist.
But that’s also the part that the movie is unable to escape — this need to tell us how feminist and cool the doll is, especially for a younger generation that might consider it passe. “Barbie” even threads a reminder (albeit an interesting one) that Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler actually created the doll to show that women can, as the slogan goes, “be anything.”
It’s worth noting here that some Mattel execs (many of whom are apparently still quite male) named Ynon Kreiz, Richard Dickson and Robbie Brenner are producers on “Barbie.” That should immediately raise eyebrows about why the film, at its worst, feels more like brand promotion than anything else, with just a hint of an actual soul.
Even the movie’s diversity feels cursory. As great as it is to see Barbies and Kens played by Black, brown, Asian and/or queer actors, as well as those that use wheelchairs, this remains Stereotypical Barbie’s world. It’s her story, her boyfriend, her activation and her feminist motives, with other characters merely sprinkled throughout for deliriously funny one-liners and necessary assists. (Gosling and Ferrera’s characters are the exceptions here, and that’s mainly because they have full storylines.)
Admittedly, it sounds silly to criticise a movie about a doll for having little soul. But Barbie is most effective when it explores its protagonist’s internal fight for a conscience against corporate and social expectations.
Is she supposed to be feminist or “ordinary?” Can she be ordinary and a feminist at the same time? Can she be feminist and still be Barbie? Is that faithful branding or a complete rebrand? And doesn’t trying to accommodate the brand or an audience defeat the purpose of self-actualisation?
It’s the meta, incredibly sharp commentary and self-reflection that can help propel any brand-inspired movie, a la The Social Network. And that makes you wonder what prior Barbie screenwriter Diablo Cody, who’s known for darker fare like “Juno” and “Young Adult,” would have done with it.
But is “Barbie” a fun time at the cinema? Absolutely. Will it make you laugh, and maybe even tear up at points? For sure. Then the filmmakers, and Mattel, did their job.