Further Thoughts on Barbie

*Spoilers.*

About a week-and-a-half out from seeing the film, I’ve had more time to think about it and digest it. Even if the movie wasn’t a full-on revelation for me, I did enjoy it a lot and have spent a good while mulling over different aspects of it, including its sincere but at-times clunky messaging. That’s the part I want to look at today, although I definitely want to do another post at a later date geeking out over the exquisite Barbie-related details throughout the film.

First of all, the “women can do everything!” girlboss world of Barbie Land is a nice but flat fantasy. Part of this is certainly intentional—the Barbies naively assume that, by showing girls the limitless possibilities of womanhood through play, they’ve completely eradicated sexism in the Real World. So it makes sense that their female utopia is similarly naïve, a land of sparkly pink sisterhood where all the Barbies get along while doing awesome things and all the Kens are just there.

This last point, by the way, becomes part of the conflict in the film. The Barbies’ matriarchy doesn’t actively oppress the Kens, but it kind of ignores and dismisses them. When Gosling Ken, tired of feeling discounted by Robbie Barbie, comes back from the Real World excited to tell the others about patriarchy, they like the idea of creating a world where they’re in charge by fiat.

But getting back to Barbie Land, it never feels like a genuine “women can do everything!” utopia because the film always frames it in contrast to the Real World. The Barbies who win Nobel Prizes are pointed in not downplaying their accomplishments to be modest, and the passionate lawyer Barbie pleasantly remarks that she’s perfectly capable of being logical and emotional at the same time. But Barbies who’ve only known Barbie Land wouldn’t need to do that. There’s no reason to say women can be both logical and emotional because everyone in Barbie Land knows that and has never been taught to internalize otherwise. This, more than the plastic dreamhouses or fake beach waves, is why Barbie Land doesn’t fully feel like it could be a real place.

In what I hope isn’t too cringey a comparison, think about Wakanda. The people there don’t walk around talking about how oppressed they’re not or, say, how assuredly they don’t feel any pressure to straighten their hair. Instead, they just live their best lives, free and safe from state-sanctioned violence, rocking all kinds of beautiful Black hairstyles. With Wakanda, you can see a vision of what a Black culture untouched by slavery or colonization might look like. Now, obviously Barbie Land is not like Wakanda, and there are plenty of reasons for that, but my point is, Barbie Land can’t truly give you a picture of what a society untouched by misogyny might look like because, from a meta perspective, it only exists to satirize the sexism of the Real World.

That’s why, while I enjoy Barbie Land for plenty of reasons, it doesn’t exactly inspire me. I think the film’s themes come through better once Robbie Barbie and Gosling Ken arrive in the Real World. Their differing reactions to being ogled in their rollerblade outfits in Venice Beach are very well done—Barbie is confused but clearly concerned as she insists to Ken, “[My unsought attention from men] very much has an undertone of violence.” Likewise, it’s an easy plot point after having been in Barbie Land, but it is sad to see her continually looking for women in charge in the Real World, everywhere from boardrooms to construction sites, and being confused and disheartened when she can’t find any. Less explicit moments also resonate, like Barbie first being soothed when the Mattel execs tell her to “get in the box” but then realizing a safe and simple existence isn’t worth the tradeoff of being trapped.

While it’s a bummer to see the Kens take on quasi-villain roles with their Kendom Land patriarchy in the second half of the film, I find this satire a little more successful than regular Barbie Land is. Here, it works that it’s very on-the-nose and self-aware, because it’s all born out of Ken’s confused and slapdash ideas of what a patriarchy is supposed to look like after spending a few hours in Barbie Land. The Kens are a little like 7-year-olds pretending to be grownups with messages they’ve absorbed but don’t really understand. So the Barbies walk around in French maid outfits for the sole purpose of bringing them “brewsky beers” to mime drinking, all the mojo dojo casa houses are decorated with cars and horses, and all the Kens play the same obnoxious Matchbox Twenty song on the acoustic guitar (except Ben-Adir Ken, who plays it on the drum kit. Hee!)

It's here that Gloria, the film’s most incisive feminist figure, really shines. When Barbie starts to spiral, afraid that she won’t be able to save Barbie Land from Ken’s takeover, it pains Gloria to realize that even Barbie doesn’t think she’s smart or capable enough to do what needs to be done, that she doesn’t think she’s pretty. This leads Gloria to unload with a cascading monologue about all the incompatible expectations forced on women in the Real World, all the conflicting roles they’re supposed to play and the many ways they always have to balance being “too much” and “not enough” to satisfy society. This turns out to be the key, not just for breaking the Barbies out of Ken’s (I think inadvertent?) brainwashing, but for Robbie Barbie to realize she doesn’t want a perfect life. She wants a real life, with all the confusion, anxiety, and insecurity that comes with it. Just as Gloria convinces Mattel to design some Barbies who are ordinary rather than aspirational, Stereotypical Barbie herself decides that she wants to be ordinary too. There’s something lovely about that ending, and I do really like how that shakes out—Barbie’s pink Birkenstocks at the end are a great symbol of how she’s carrying her past into her present and is forging ahead with her own path.