Relationship Spotlight: Barbie & Gloria (Barbie)

*Spoilers.*

I watched Barbie again recently and was reminded how much I enjoy these two. Whether you ship it or not, their relationship is something special.

Barbie has been acting strangely. She can’t stop thinking about death, her heels are touching the ground, and imperfections have been intruding on her perfect world. She’s sent to the Real World to find the girl who’s playing with her, the only way to fix things—only it all goes wrong. Sasha wants nothing to do with her and reads her the riot act.

Then Sasha’s mom picks her up from school and hears her talking about the “reality-challenged” woman who thinks she’s Barbie. And Gloria isn’t thrown by that for longer than a second. As she looks out and sees Barbie getting into one of the black Mattel trucks, she doesn’t question it. That’s Barbie. Of course it’s Barbie.

What Gloria doesn’t know yet, though, is that it’s her Barbie. Sasha’s Barbie that she’s been nostalgically, sadly playing with on her own, using as inspiration for her drawings. Feeling the distance that’s grown between her and Sasha, Gloria has been trying to recapture the magic of that easier time, when Sasha was little and they had fun together. She doesn’t know how her own sadness has been affecting Barbie.

She just knows she has to go after her. Even though I twigged it before the reveal, I love the simultaneous realization between Barbie and Gloria, that, “I came here for you.” I love that Barbie’s troubles are tied to the sad, weird mom that she’s become entangled with, and I love that Gloria believes and understands all of this. Granted, Mattel is fully aware of Barbie Land and knows that dolls have crossed into the Real World before, but Gloria doesn’t seem to have known that. While the discovery of this magic hits her like a brick wall, she believes in it, because she needs magic.

I really like that both Barbie and Gloria have such a delightful time on their trip back to Barbie Land, complete with singing along to the Indigo Girls. As Gloria says, she never gets to do anything for herself, and she relishes her long-overdue chance to have silly fun while wearing fabulous outfits. And when they arrive at Barbie Land and discover the Ken takeover, when Barbie freaks out and gives up, Gloria doesn’t turn her back on her. Sasha may think that Barbie has just validated all her judgments about the doll, but Gloria doesn’t write her off. Despite how wildly different their life experiences have been, Gloria recognizes that Barbie is going through something that’s completely beyond her conception, but she also believes that Barbie has it in her to step up and face it.

Barbie goes on her wild journey to the Real World because she wants to put everything back the way it’s “supposed” to be. She’s always just wanted things to stay the same, and the thought of change and unpredictability terrifies her. But over the course of her adventure—and most crucially, through getting to know Gloria—she learns how to embrace just that. By the end of the film, she’s decided that being human is what she really wants, and that wouldn’t have happened if her journey had been a matter of finding the sad little girl playing with her and figuring out how to make her happy again. The story is so much better for Gloria’s place in it, and both characters become better through knowing one another.

A Few Thoughts on Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Roles of 2023

Like so many other people, I had the odd experience of watching Kingsley Ben-Adir play the villain in a Marvel show and one of the Kens from Barbie one right after the other. And honestly, my effect was diluted, because I wasn’t able to see Barbie until a few weeks after it was released—when it first came out, episodes of Secret Invasion were still dropping! I rewatched Barbie recently, and it reminded me that this dichotomy might be the starkest demonstration I’ve ever seen that a role’s size matters far less than its content.

I’m hardly alone in saying I was disappointed in Secret Invasion, for so many reasons. I won’t rehash all that again, but one of the things I’d been anticipating about the show was seeing Ben-Adir as Gravik. I knew how talented he was—I’ve seen One Night in Miami—but for me, this was another area where the series disappointed me. Not because Ben-Adir gave a bad performance, but because the character of Gravik gave him so little to hold onto. In fact, the few scenes where he really got to shine just highlighted how much he was wasted on the show.

In contrast, we have Barbie. Now, Ben-Adir plays probably a second-tier Ken—obviously less prominent than Ryan Gosling’s, and less than Simu Liu’s as well. But that doesn’t hold him back in the slightest, because he’s an utter delight every time he’s onscreen. Whether he’s holding Gosling-Ken’s ice cream, gagging at the sight of Robbie-Barbie’s flat feet, or serenading a Barbie on the trap set while the rest of the Kens play guitar, he makes the most of every moment, effortlessly funny and memorable.

How can that be? With only a handful of lines and reaction shots in a single blockbuster, how can Ben-Adir make a bigger impact than as the main antagonist with multiple monologues in a six-episode TV series? Simply put, Ben-Adir’s Ken is a great example of a side character functioning perfectly within a story. He improves every scene he’s in without stealing focus, and even with a thin characterization, everything he does totally tracks with who he is. Meanwhile, Gravik never really gets off the ground as a character—his motivations come too late and feel too small, and a number of his actions conflict with one another. Ken is a terrific sandbox for Ben-Adir to play around in, but Gravik is just dead weight pulling him down.

This isn’t the first time I’ve thought that supporting roles don’t have to be lesser. For example, one of my favorite Tony Leung Chiu-wai roles is still his performance as Broken Sword in Hero, and there’s no other role in the film I’d have rather seen him play. I’ve been semi-obsessively writing up Favorite Characters posts for Our Flag Means Death, and no matter how little screentime the various crew members get, each one embodies their character fantastically. But the contrast between these two roles makes the point so clearly, and the fact that they were released on top of one another heightens it even more.

As an offshoot of this notion, I saw some chatter after Barbie came out that Ben-Adir should’ve had Liu’s role as the rival to Gosling-Ken. That definitely would’ve been a bigger role for him, and I don’t doubt that he could’ve been a lot of fun in it. But personally, I wouldn’t have wanted to give up his hilarious, winning performance as his Ken. I wouldn’t trade a moment of that sweet, dumb guy asking the other Kens to guess what bird he’s thinking of (“Pelican,”) or proudly asserting, “I have hats”—more screentime as a different character wouldn’t have been worth it when he’s so good as this one.

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.