As a man, I love Barbie. Men have Barbie’s too, ya know?
They’re called Harley-Davidsons. Harley was founded in 1903, and Mattel Toys co-founder Ruth Handler created Barbie in 1959, so H-D clearly came up with the accessorizing concept first. See, your stock dealership Harley is a good-enough but ever-so-slightly boring motorcycle with thousands of (expensive) options to customize and upgrade.
Boys: “I’m gonna replace my 883 engine with a 1200 kit, illegal racing cams, and a bigger air filter. More torque!”
Girls: “I’m collecting the original Barbie in her classic black and white swimsuit paired with some hoop earrings and a low ponytail; ‘Totally Hair’ Barbie with her 70’s printed dress, hot pink sweatband, and fabulously long crimped hair; and Day-to-Night Barbie with two hot pink outfits for inspiration: a business suit for hard work and a sparkly pink skirt for when the night comes around.”
Same deal, basically. The business of America is business. Love Barbie.
I was less able to relate to the throngs of women and girls packing New York City’s Times Square, all decked-out in pink, lining up to see “Barbie.” Not to mention men, similarly pretty in pink, shouting across streets at the ladies: “Work, Barbies, work!” It will go down in history as the cultural phenomenon of the “Barbenheimer” summer blockbuster weekend—$536.7 million box office gross worldwide. The business of America is business. And also partying.
Is “Barbie” any good? For an adult hetero male, not so much, but a dad escorting his 14-year-old daughter and a couple of her pink-clad besties earns a gold star.
My first beef with “Barbie,” though, is the lack of legitimately playful, fun stuff for kids still young enough to be actually playing with the Mattel toy, who, although she still looks 19, is 64 years old this year. Which brings to mind the Beatles lyric, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” For Barbie, the answer is obviously yes. My second beef with Barbie is coming up.
‘Barbie’
Like the opening of “Lord of the Rings,” the stone-age history of the artifact is narrated. Here Helen Mirren tells about Barbie: Since the dawn of time, girls played with dolls, but the dolls were all babies, and functioned as test-runs for future mothering.Then, combining 1968’s classic soundtrack from “2001: A Space Odyssey” with 1958’s “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,” a giant Barbie appears on a beach, ushering in the feminist era wherein a life of spawning babies is phased out in favor of women being able to be anything women want to be.
And then, conceptually and stylistically reminiscent of Olivia Wilde’s recent “Don’t Worry Darling,” in an acceptably sweet and funny first 20 minutes, “stereotypical” Barbie (Margot Robbie, who else?), Ken (Ryan Gosling) and their various clones, inhabit Barbie’s pink, matriarchal “Barbieland” universe. They’re all eternally Stepford-wife smiley, with a non-existence of bad moods (the exception proving the rule is a “Withdrawn by Mattel” pregnant doll named Midge).
Barbie wakes, takes a water-less shower, pantomimes eating and drinking OJ and waffles, floats down to her pink Corvette, and then all the Barbie’s and Ken’s party on a pink beach with solid, plastic waves that Ken, who’s main job is “Beach,” runs at, and bounces off of. The way kids play, you know?
The many iterations of “Barbie” include President Barbie (Issa Rae), who lives in a pink White House, and many Black, Asian, Latina and, of course, trans Barbies—in Barbieland—from shiny plastic sea to shiny plastic sea.
And then Barbie suddenly one day wakes up with bad breath and starts asking questions about the inevitability of death. And the permanent arch of her high-heeled feet suddenly go flat. Barbie’s existential crisis!
Weird Barbie
Barbie’s little plastic self visits “Weird Barbie” (Kate McKinnon). “Weird Barbie” was cut, burnt, shaved, Mohawk’d, and tatted, basically, by the troubled girl-child that owned her.
In keeping with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s current infatuation with alternate realities, Barbie traverses a portal to go live in the “real world,” traveling via various pink vehicles, with Ken in the back seat of all of them. Because Ken is fated always to take a backseat to Barbie. His only want in life is to be gazed upon by her. So sad. This is part of my second beef with Barbie, but we'll get to that in a bit.
Lo and behold, in the real world, Barbie is sexually harassed by construction workers on Venice Beach; her explanation of a general lack of genitalia falling on deaf ears.
The reason Barbie has to go to the real world is that she needs to ascertain what’s making her human owner (Ariana Greenblatt), and her owner’s mom (America Ferrera) feel so depressed that their bad vibes are making Barbie’s waffles get burnt in the toaster, her feet flat, and so on. It’s the Butterfly Effect of the real world messing with Mattel toys in alternative realities, you see.
Meanwhile, back at corporate Mattel, the CEO (Will Ferrell) figures out Barbie and Ken have gone off the reservation and must be returned, pronto, to Barbie-land. A search ensues. None of that part is particularly funny. Except for the fact that any time Will Ferrell plays a human male dunce it’s at least mildly funny.
Ken
Other than Robbie’s ridiculously riveting looks, Ryan Gosling runs away with the film, eventually trading his beach abs for a big Barry White-looking white mink coat. Gosling has the best material to work with.
“Barbie” is a musical at least half the time, which will automatically turn it into an immediate cult classic, acted out ad infinitum in the drag clubs of America. Is Ken gay? Kinda? Maybe? He and Barbie never hook up because she’s more concerned with throwing a good party. In the real world, however, Barbie comes to realize that life as a human girl is complicated, and Ken comes to rather enjoy the patriarchy. So maybe not gay? Kinda hard to tell.
Deconstructing ‘Barbie’
“Barbie” is an allegorical farce, but let’s try and deconstruct it and see if it’s got any positive messages.“Patriarchy” is a word that is rammed down the audience’s throat throughout “Barbie.” “Patriarchy” used to mean, quite simply, that men ran things in the family. But in the last decade the meaning has been twisted to suggest that all aspects of life are dominated by powerful, white, privileged males over oppressed females, and anyone who dares challenge this notion is a misogynist. “Barbie” basically embraces this view, and suggests that the only solution to this dreadful patriarchal state of affairs is to replace it with a matriarchy, and this will save the planet.
The general plot is that Barbieland is a feminist utopia where the Barbies rule, and the Kens are a bunch of dim-witted, pathetic losers. And then Barbie and Ken rend the time-space continuum, go to the “real world,” and discover that it’s wonderful for men and bad for women, and Ken immediately adores the “patriarchy” and becomes entitled and arrogant, while poor Barbie becomes a vulnerable victim.
Methinks that in the actual, real world, the numerous confident, high-achieving women who live and work there would scoff at such a mischaracterization of their successful lives. And all the patriarchy-riddled “real world” of the film does, in the end, is give voice to men who really don’t want to live in Barbieland where men are stupid, and yet we’re railroaded into thinking it’s wrong for men not to embrace being weak, emasculated Ken-dummies. Ken even sings a song about his “blond fragility.”
And then, the newly empowered Ken goes back to Barbie-land, where he and the other Kens turn it into their own man-cave of “Kendom” and the Barbies become subservient. But wait! Stereotypical Barbie takes control again and turns all the Kens subservient! Isn’t the narrative of feminism supposed to be that women want equality with men, and not a complete reversal of the perceived unequal social power structure? Here, audiences are left in little doubt that all that matters is that women are in charge.
See, ultimately I don’t think this is what women really want. Even if they managed to get it, after a while, they would want something different. It’s not that long ago that Paula Cole wrote a song called “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?” The message of the movie is that establishing a matriarchy is the perfect cure for the patriarchy, when in fact it’s the exact same thing that they would like us to loath in the first place.
Overall
That said, one could make the argument that this is all a subtle dig at feminism. It might be the filmmaker’s intention to demonstrate how the concept of the feminist utopia destroys men. And if that’s the actual message of “Barbie,” I’m all for it. Here’s another possibility: by showing how ridiculous both extremes of matriarchy and patriarchy are, and suggesting that humankind should eradicate both, then it becomes a trans narrative: both extremes are evil, so why be either? But since “Barbie” appears to affirm the matriarchy, doesn’t it logically follow that “Barbie” is inherently transphobic? So why are there trans-Barbies? Who the heck knows what director Greta Gerwig is trying to say here? It’s a fairytale without an actual coherent message.But let’s go ahead and state the obvious, “Barbie,” along with the “Transformer” franchise, is an advertisement for Mattel toys. And as such, would beg to be labeled as a kid’s movie. And yet a screenplay loaded with words like “existential,” “patriarchy,” and “cellulite,” with the above-described message, ain’t really for a kids’ movie. “Barbie” is basically an over-prolonged “Saturday Night Live” sketch; a cute joke stretched, as Bilbo said, “like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.”
Barbie dolls and the accessorizing of them, may have, arguably, helped little girls decide whether they want to be medical doctor Barbie, president Barbie, or fighter-jock Barbie. Maybe all that accessorizing is life-defining á la the book “What color is your Parachute?”
I’ll tell you what though—having the 3-inch-thick Harley-Davidson aftermarket parts book on a shelf near the toilet doesn’t help a man define the meaning of life (speaking for a friend). It just fosters the mindset of wanting more. And keeping America wanting more is at the root of America’s business. Which is business.
‘Barbie’
Director: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrerra, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Helen Mirren, Michael Cera, Dua Lipa, John Cena, Rhea Perlman, Issa Rae, Ariana Greenblatt
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour, 54 minutes
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
