Barbie – the movie.
Barbie wakes up in her perfect world – full of other Barbies. It is a fantastic, hot-pink but still plastic world where Barbie is everything she ever wanted to be, everyone is nice, life is a beach, and Ken adores her. This is the dream world of the 1960s and 70s feminism (called 2nd wave feminism) where women can do anything men can do, but better. Barbie is beautiful, a lawyer, a doctor, the president, a construction worker – every meaningful role is held by a Barbie, and Ken is an inept accessory.
It turns out this world does not work for Ken. Waiting to be noticed by Barbie and competing with other Kens for Barbie’s attention does not constitute a meaningful existence for Ken. But this tension does not drive the plot. Rather, on day two, Barbie awakes with cellulite, flat feet, and is conscious of death and decay. Somehow she has been infected, or affected by the ordeals of her owner in the real world.
With stowaway Ken still an adage, Barbie travels to the real world to rectify the brokenness in her owner and restore Barbieland to its former glory. Barbie anticipates a real world where she has inspired a generation of young girls to be doctors, lawyers, and construction workers – a world of empowered, liberated, and fulfilled women. Instead, she discovers a world where gender wars continue, patriarchy still oppresses, and moody teenage girls and their mums have lost faith in Barbie and her 1970s plastic promises. Barbie goes to Mattel’s head office to put things right, only to discover it too, is a male-dominated multinational that oppresses.
In the meantime, Ken discovers patriarchy – men (with horses) rule the world. He rushes back to Barbieland, turns it upside down into ‘Kendom’, and it becomes the 1940s and 50s patriarchy where women are the accessory who offer their man a beer, and nothing more.
Barbie, her real-world owner and her moody teenage daughter eventually return to Barbieland, which has now become Kendom. Together the three of them deconstruct Kendom’s patriarchy, re-empowering girl power to take over the world again. But it does not return to the dream world of the plastic 1970s. Poor (but still beautiful) Barbie has an existential crisis. Who is she, and what does she contribute? She yearns to be an agent of change, not the product of a male-driven multinational.
Except it turns out the men don’t own Mattel. Barbie looked behind the curtain in Oz and found the wizard was a male multinational pulling the levers, only to discover there was a curtain behind the curtain. It is an unassuming aging lady who controls the levers. She had created Barbie to be a timeless ideal. Barbie was never meant to be what men were but better. That would be to become what you despise. Barbie could be Barbie, and Ken could be Ken, and we will all live happily ever after.
According to Google’s audience reviews, people either love or hate this movie. For those who love it, it is playful, self-effacing, and dripping with cultural illusions. It switches ironically between Barbieland and the real world, providing two platforms where it can critique both patriarchy and 1970s 2nd wave feminism as one-dimensional, and replace it with the inclusive 4th wave feminism of now.
The movie has three powerful soliloquies. One where the real-world mother talks about how hard it is to be a woman. You have to be clever – but not too smart; speak up – but not dominate; succeed – but not win; be a partner – but not a doormat or a leader. You could sense the women in the audience feeling validated. Another is given by the moody teenager, and the third by the beautiful but woe-is-me Barbie.
For those who hate it, the movie is too clever by half, and in the end, confused, and without hope or solution. It does not offer insight or a way forward for females. Gender wars are not the only struggle, nor the root of all of women’s problems. The real world where real women do not feel they fit and need the validification this movie offers – is the world of 1950s patriarchy. Today is very different, yet women still feel they don’t know their place. Barbie just needs to be an individual, yet her journey to self-discovery required others. Barbie just needs to be Barbie, her existential crisis is over, and she can still be anything, but remains a no-thing.
Speaking as a male, this movie is the opposite of validifying. Males are, if not all, a significant part of the problem. The only male whose character undergoes any positive development is a homosexual. Is the 21st century more of a challenge for women than men? I’m not so sure. But debating who the greater victim is not a way forward.
Watch the movie. Watch it, like I did, with your daughter. Then, on the drive home, deconstruct how the Hollywood that created the Barbie and Ken of the 1970s has little more insight or answers now than it did back then. By contrast, the biblical narrative of male female as like yet distinct, interdependent, actors together in the greater story of reflecting God’s glory by bringing order to his creation whatever the decade or century – this plot is as timeless and insightful as ever.