my thoughts are marbles, roll with me

59. [Movie Review] Barbie (2023): That's because they're dream houses, *%$@#

[SPOILERS ahead!!! in case you were interested in watching it]

I wanted to wait to watch Barbie (2023) because I wanted to go with my sister. I actually went with her two friends. Waited in line to watch the Barbie movie... call that a Barbecue. I absolutely appreciated the "school spirit" that this movie brought to the local community. Every young person I saw sported a pink article of clothing and went to the cinema brimming with enthusiasm as they posed and took photos of their friends with the Barbie poster. It was very cute.

Although, I have some mixed feelings about the film. I didn't overly love it and I didn't hate it. I knew that I was walking into a thinly veiled meta-story/2 hour long Mattel advertisement, which had some social and political commentary sprinkled in it. I knew that this was not going to be a kids movie (but I brought my teenage sister with me lol we never really played with Barbies when we were little to be honest, but we thought it would be a fun summer movie).

I wasn't sure how the message was going to come across exactly. Boy oh boy, I think this film might just break social media with how divisive these reviews were.

Cast

That costume and art design - utterly phenomenal. Wow. I would not be surprised if they got an Oscar for the dream houses alone. I was so impressed with the craftsmanship in making that whole Barbieland come to life on the big screen. There was no CGI for all of that. Those houses were completely constructed. I was blown away by the visuals in creating the props, the furniture, the sets. Amazing. It was so on-theme and beautifully made.

my thoughts are marbles, roll with me

Photo from How Those ‘Barbie’ Dreamhouses Came to Life: ‘We All Had to Believe in It’

by Kyle Buchanan, 26 July 2023 New York Times article

The casting was very very well done. Margot Robbie is the perfect Barbie. Actual perfection. She delivered. No other person can possibly do this role justice other than her. She made me laugh, she made me shed a tear, she acted with her whole heart. Trying to juggle the comedic bits interwoven with the serious message that this movie throws at you is very difficult. She did a flawless job.

Everything in that movie was imaginative, vibrant, cheeky- but only when it's trying to have fun. I loved the camp. I loved the playfulness of this. It went into the right direction at the beginning. Also- I think that Gosling and all of the other Kens were the only ones fully committed to the gags and the physicality of it all.

For Gosling's character, I thought it was a weird and dissatisfying response to the "incel epidemic". Ken could have been such a cool thing to explore. He exists, but is completely deprived of privilege in Barbieland. His occupation is quite literally "Beach". The woman he loves doesn't really care for him at all- only to discover that the "real world" is out there and the patriarchy hits... and it hits good to Ken. Barbie was essentially trying to stop all the Kens from doing a Jan. 6 insurrection part two, electric boogaloo. All of the Ken's were like "I'm Ken~" like they needed to search for that all along?! They're Ken?! Okay yes- ?! I didn't like this "what about the Kens?!" storyline at all. Why? Just why?!

This is what I saw- I think Ken's struggle to preserve the "Barbie and Ken" package deal is actually quite deep. It is literally the only thing that gives him meaning. But the film just waves him off?? It was weird to empathize with the guy because I would be siding with a "metaphorical incel" or something, correct? Ken struggling with his entire existence revolving around being an accessory for Barbie and never being seen as a valuable thing on his own is unironically a way more interesting aspect of a character than whatever message they tried to shove in with Barbie herself. If they just perhaps explored that a bit more? It honestly would have been better received. Except that... they didn't nail any of that.

In the cinema, there were audible "awww"s of sympathy when Ken was being so obviously mistreated in Barbieland. Ken was so devoted to her and wants respect, which was really endearing- especially in the context of mistreatment. Then they had him take over Barbieland and it was like a natural hero character arc. He threw off an oppressor, but this is presented as a bad thing in the story. Bro was trying to make change right? The film was using patriarchy as such a charged word and it does a lot of heavy lifting to make you dislike a previously sympathetic character. The return to the Barbie-dominated Barbieland (with all these now-demoted Ken's) feels empty when we know the Ken's are still looked down on. They're like "yeah we'll let Ken have some kind of representation in our government..." like a little morsel of our giant cake. That was a strange thing to add in to be honest.

I do not want to watch a Ken movie. They should have just made the entire plot just a little better.

The issue about this film is that it was an oversimplification of everything- like the patriarchy. I thought they would say something a bit more on this topic especially, it sort of touched upon actual patriarchal tools of control (e.g., violence, money), but it fell a little short.

I like how it was a feminist film, but I didn't like how they portrayed it. There was a wonderful monologue by America Ferrera giving a speech about how frustrating and difficult being a woman is. I really liked how she delivered that. However, the scene after her speech made me shake my head in disappointment. Although, I appreciated the bit where Robbie's character says, "by expressing the woman's cognitive dissonance within the patriarchy, you awakened her!", but honestly they thought of such a... weird idea to restore things back to "normal" again.

The “solution” to the Barbie-world patriarchy problem was to manipulate the Ken’s into thinking the Barbie’s actually liked them and play them off each other in order to get them to fight with each other. This is bad satire. I know it's just satire and over-exaggeration. I totally get why they were trying to do this, but it was just in bad taste personally. This message shows us everything possible to further a purposeful, emotional, and political divide between men and women. Almost like it's a bit patronizing. Both the Barbieland and the "real world" places were super oppressive and when they switch, they are over-correcting to the other extreme. It seemed like there was no space for nuance in this sort of satire. I think a lot of things can be subtle and not so heavy-handed sometimes.

This movie gave me cinematic whiplash, but hey at least it was funny, visually-appealing, and I had a great time with my sister. I rated it as 3/5 stars on Letterboxd.

~ you guys ever think about dying?,

<3 K

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