Small Words

Update: Moviegoers have moved on from the flick but not before Barbie walked away with 188 awards and 419 nominations from the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Grammys, and more!
For fun, here’s a list of all Barbie’s accolades.

Spoilers!

I wasn’t sure I was going to like the Barbie movie. We’ve seen “feminist triumphs” that fall short and leave the theater thinking- “this was not for me.” But when I saw how much our favorite fine art reviewer – Ben Shapiro (famous for his delightfully droll WAP reading) liked the Barbie movie, calling it “the most woke” movie he’d ever seen I went in with high expectations. As much as he liked it, Shapiro may have had just a few criticisms too. He can be so high strung and with his health in mind, I would encourage him to remember that this is a movie about a doll and everything in it is a caricature. You know, for his blood pressure.

It feels like a play, with props, scripts, and dance numbers. Even the real-world characters feel a little like they are reading a stage play for the benefit of the audience. The power of imagination is really what makes the movie run. All it takes for our heroes, Barbie and Ken to traipse between Barbieland and the real world is a short montage. The movie doesn’t feel like it has to explain these things because the setting and the events are a ruse to talk about important things. Well, actually one thing: Patriarchy.

Throughout the movie, Patriarchy is on blast. This movie does not mince words. When Barbie and Ken first go to the real world, it’s overrun by patriarchal figureheads. Men on the street leer and harass women, express comradery, and generally resonate with each other’s masculinity. Ken is thrilled with this celebration of maleness, and it is here we begin to understand that he has been subjected to a form of oppression back in Barbieland. Meanwhile, Barbie makes her way to the company that created her, Mattel, and finds a boardroom full of men. Again, all of this is a caricature that exaggerates real aspects of our social hierarchy. And in reality, most men are not willy-nilly spanking the bottoms of every attractive spandex-wearing woman in Cali – there just isn’t enough time in the day. 

All of this exaggeration is a setup to make the following events easier to understand in the context of women’s rights. It helps us see important aspects of the battle for feminist equality. One that is often hidden by anger between men and women and amongst activists. That’s what I loved the most about this movie; it makes friends, not enemies

Back to the plot, now that he sees the glory of patriarchy, Ken scurries back to Barbieland and overthrows the Barbie social and political order, replacing it with some sort of broism.

 So as the movie progressed, we watched it become, not just about Patriarchy, but about all systems of oppression.

Nonetheless, our alliances are ultimately with Barbie, for several reasons, but perhaps most importantly because this is her movie! Behind all the strong messaging about patriarchy, there is always Barbie. To be specific there are three layers of Barbie: the main character of this movie, the doll franchise, and the ideas of femininity that they both represent. The movie seamlessly moves from one sense to another using Barbie (the character) as the vehicle.

We all know that Barbie is a source of division, especially among women. For many, Barbie was the first toy made for girls. Barbie meant economic inclusion; a dollar is a dollar whether you’re a girl or a boy, and this means a shot at equality. Other women reject Barbie’s unrealistic figure and vapid lifestyle, feeling that it creates a too specific and unreachable benchmark for girls. The movie accepts both interpretations without trying to work out the differences. It allows women to see their movement coming and going in any direction. I think this is an amazing achievement because it allows for these deep disagreements in the women’s movement to be forgotten and forgiven, at least where it concerns the movie.

The movie then hits it home with the now famously unsubtle speech by Gloria (played by America Ferrera). Her lines are unoriginal in every way- women have been saying this all my life. I have said it. The number of memes to this tune is staggering. And yet the “its impossible to be a woman” speech is incredibly powerful because women have never heard it in theaters- and as it turns out many men haven’t heard it at all.

Gloria’s follow-up statement was even more powerful (IMO) than acknowledging that women live in a world full of contradictory expectations. Gloria says: women can also be nothing-in-particular! We don’t need to strive to be a mother and the president of a company. Or cure cancer or become the next skateboarding champ to be valued. Men are mediocre all the time and women can be too! I loved that because both statements are about women’s personal choices being hyper-scrutinized by others- but the second is said in a fresh way.   

As “cut-throat” and direct as these statements are being portrayed by some they are pretty mild and intone with the movie. The movie consistently pulls its punches and avoids blame by being jocular. (It’s a comedy, Shapiro. Calm down.) Jokes roasting Mattel and Barbie (the doll) are treats for Barbie fans without alienating the audience. The brand is treated fondly and Mattel dismissively which is delightful for both anti and pro-barbie movie-goers. The movie delivers on the promise in its trailer “If you love Barbie this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie this movie is for you.”

The make-friends-not-enemies approach, is achieved by treating all the characters kindly. The narrative liked the men in this movie and so do we. We liked the Ken’s, we even, liked the buffoon president of Mattel who is played by the beloved kids’ comedian John William Ferrell- perfect casting. But maybe most surprisingly we liked Barbie. She was so likable and real that it wasn’t until the end of the movie that I realized that the third sense of Barbie is an allegory. As a symbol of femininity, Barbie was always struggling to know who she is and what she should be doing. In one of the final scenes, the ghost of Ruth Handler, the creator of the original Barbie (the doll) releases Barbie (the character) to find herself. In a nutshell, Ruth tells Barbie that the doll she created was never meant to be final or complete, and actually, being human is incompatible with being all three senses of Barbie. Humans are complex in a way a doll can never be. As are our ideas of femininity. What is feminine, what is female, and what, essentially, is a woman, is all knotted under patriarchy. Our definitions hardly know what’s up from down and inadequate definitions are often used hatefully and for the benefit of sustaining Patriarchy.

I’m going to end this post by venturing into one possible definition of the word “femininity” because “what is a woman” is, at this point, a tired (and boorish!) question. And obviously answering this question is not what The Barbie Movie is about.

Based on a concept in semantics the word “femineity” can be defined as the set of all things that is, was, and will ever be considered “feminine.” I believe in this scene, Ruth was trying to tell us and Barbie (the character) that she created the Barbie doll as a stand-in for this “set of all things” based on her understanding of women’s empowerment at the time.

Ruth’s original doll is now old fashion but that doesn’t weaken (or excuse) what Barbie meant and means to women today- good and bad. Ruth invites Barbie (the character) as well as the viewer to find their own authentic “femineity” and aim to accept others. She says Barbie is timeless because ideas on femininity don’t begin and end with Ruth- the set of all things feminine expands and contracts with every new generation. Ruth ends by saying “Humans only have one ending. Ideas live forever.”

Ideas AND Barbie©! This was a lovely sentiment, and basically cried my way through the movie but ending with “Viva La Barbie©!” is somehow very funny… still respect. Mattel, this was very smooth. And it did win the internet. Mad props.