Barbie (2023)

"I'm not pretty anymore!"

Director

Greta Gerwig

Cast

Margot Robbie - Stereotypical Barbie

Ryan Gosling - Ken

Helen Mirren - Narrator
America Ferrera - Gloria
Ariana Greenblatt - Sasha
Will Ferrell - Mattel CEO
Rhea Perlman - Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel
Kate McKinnon - Weird Barbie
Michael Cera - Allan

I'm late to the game as usual. Regardless, I finally sat through the 2023 movie, "Barbie" based on the popular doll from Mattel. And like the movie, my thoughts seem disjointed. 

While it was in theaters, I was often asked mainly from female coworkers if I was going to see it. 

With all the hype behind it, I knew my wife and I would sit through it at some point.  

Who would have thought that a movie based on the Barbie doll would be such a polarizing flick. It's doused in social political commentary. So much so that it has caused a lot of strong opinions from both sides of the political aisle. 

Some conservative commentators loved it. Other conservatives loathed it. Meanwhile, some liberal commentators like Bill Maher also hated it. 

Despite all that, "Barbie" is certainly one of the most, if not the most, successful film of 2023. The Los Angeles Times calls it a "Billion Dollar milestone for women in Hollywood" pointing out that the movie earned an estimated $1.03 billion at the box office as of August 8.  

"Barbie" director, Greta Gerwig has a lot of acclaim in Hollywood, having directed "Lady Bird" and "Little Women." 

At first, I didn't know what to make of "Barbie." 

I have a suspicion that a lot of critics know it's a poor movie but pretend to like it because of the underlying political message, and because Gerwig directed it.

And audiences must praise it, or else they'll be bashed by Hollywood's elite producers and directors all over social media. Hollywood has, for some reason, developed a disdain for modern audiences. And when movies with a "woke" message or trope of any degree is inserted, and that movie flops (which they've been doing lately), then the powers-that-be in Hollywood go to social media foaming at the mouth to lambast and ridicule movie-goers. 

Since when is Barbie so political in the first place? Sure, she was a game changer in the world of dolls when she made her debut in 1959. The movie opens with this point. 

What's terrible about the movie "Barbie" has nothing to do with the intellectual property at the center. Nor is it all the pink in the film. 

What baffles me is who Gerwig's intended audience is. Is it left-leaning people? Is it kids? Is it adults only?  

My seven-year-old daughter wanted to see it, and knowing what I did before watching it, I was reluctant to let her see this. After watching it, I think a lot of this would have gone over her head. 

The movie's blatant message surrounds feminism.

G.K. Chesterton once said “It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands." That sums up the movie's message, as muddled as it is, rather nicely. 

Ryan Gosling as the simp, "Ken" and
Margot Robbie as "Stereotypical Barbie" in "Barbie."

My initial impression of "Barbie" is that it's a frustrating, overly preachy, tired, bitter screed of anti-male vitriol that doesn't even try to so much as pretend to be intelligent and creative. It's one exposition scene after another.

The film opens with a satirical nod to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" as little girls trade their baby dolls that promote motherhood for the Barbie doll that appears as the towering monolithic emblem of liberation and consumerism, with Helen Mirren narrating. 

The movie continues along this line that all leads to unhappiness in Barbie herself (Margot Robbie). Thoughts of mortality begin plaguing Barbie. So, she goes to the Barbieland outcast "Weird Barbie" (Kate McKinnon) who explains she has to leave Barbieland and go to the real world to find the child that's playing with her. That way, she can overcome these afflictions and bridge the portal between Barbieland and the real world. Robbie's Barbie starts calling herself "stereotypical Barbie" to differentiate herself from the other Barbies. 

Men are depicted as dumb, pointless, and juvenile. By the way, none of this was included in the initial marketing.  

By the end of the movie, I wondered if maybe the movie is really a satire towards society's irrational, far-flung hostilities towards this so-called "patriarchy." I honestly can't tell. That word "patriarchy" is used a lot in the movie, by the way.

There's an anti-male sentiment that's strongly felt in the movie's portrayal of Barbie's boyfriend, Ken (Ryan Gosling). He, along with the other "Kens" (all the guy dolls are named Ken, except for his one buddy, Allen, played by Michael Cera) are a bunch of simps. Allen is a simp, too, by the way. But he doesn't really serve much of a purpose in the story. 

Gosling's Ken doll is an infantile product of feminist ideology. All he wants is to be Barbie's boyfriend because, as he correctly points out, it has always been "Barbie and Ken." But Barbie doesn't want to be hindered by Ken or any other male. Again, I can't tell if Ken is a satirical character or a political statement. 

I was completely confused by the moral of the story. It concludes with the idea that the best parts of a woman are those that make them mothers. However, there's a pungent smell of the repulsive idea that a woman's happiness is found away from men and children who are nothing but a hindrance to their material and career success. 

So, is the intended audience those who have the "correct" politics?

The males and females are portrayed with an us-versus-them mentality that develops through the movie, especially when stereotypical Barbie returns to Barbieland. 

Ken and his Ken pals set up a "patriarchy," which Ken learned about in the real world, and all the other Barbies just go along with it. 

So, stereotypical Barbie has to snap the other Barbies out of it so they can reestablish themselves as the heads of Barbieland when the Kens aren't looking. Again, inconsistent writing. 

Ken, who's portrayed as incompetent and stupid while the Barbies are brilliant and smart, is still able to take over the matriarchal Barbieland in no time whatsoever, and with hardly any effort! And the "smart and intelligent" other Barbies don't even notice. So, who's really the stupid ones? Chalk one up for the patriarchy!

The premise boils down to how women don't need men, and men don't need women. That's the only way both sexes can be free... or something? It seems there's an out-of-the-way effort today to portray marriage and the complimentary nature of men and women as some sort of indentured servitude on the part of women. This sentiment is definitely felt in "Barbie." 

Again, I caught wind of this message only to be left wondering if it's satirical or the actual point the movie is trying to make. At the same time, there's a scene in which the discontinuation of the doll "Midge" who in the Barbie doll line is pregnant and married to Allen, is commented on and criticized. Talk about mixed messages. 

I felt like the movie was trying to beat me over the head with the dishonest message that women are treated in today's society as second-class citizens struggling to survive in this male-dominated society who keep women from succeeding. 

America Ferrera, who plays a Mattel employee named Gloria that ends up helping Barbie in the real world, has a drawn-out diatribe that is a shining example of the movie's preachy hack writing about that very subject. 

All this preaching about the "subjugation" of women is, of course, spewed by women who are immensely wealthy and successful. Nothing is more irritating than being lectured on the trouncing of women in society by filthy rich women in Hollywood who are more successful and famous than I can ever hope to be. These same women made more money with this one movie than I could make in my lifetime. Yet they still insist on this narrative. Give me a break!

Regardless, I think the strangest, yet funniest part is how the company Mattel, which has been the toymaker that manufactured Barbie all these years, unmercifully throws itself under the bus. And here I though Ken was a simp!

The company portrays its board of directors as being all white males, which left-leaning ideologues want people to think is the worst thing to be. Never mind the fact that Mattel's CEO was a woman for 30 years. And the current board is actually composed of six men and five women. But someone at Mattel agreed to allow the company and the board to be depicted as a big part of the problem. Grovel much, Mattel? 

Anyways, these white male directors are all clueless of the plight of women, and are portrayed as awful for failing to maintain Barbie to what she was supposed to be. Barbie's problem ends up being that she failed at living up to the symbol of female empowerment she was intended to be, and Mattel didn't help that situation any. 

"I'm a man with no power. Does that make me a woman," one of the board members claims.

Will Ferrel plays Mattel's CEO in charge of a board of directors. And like Ken, he comes across as an imbecile.  

Nothing is consistent in this film, least of all the characters. 

In one scene, Barbie is a ditzy plastic doll. Later, she's lecturing about commerce. 

Later in the movie, Barbie meets up with a girl named Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), Gloria's daughter, in the real world whom she thinks is the same girl that played with her all these years. When she finds Sasha at her high school, teenage Sasha verbally bashes her with a politically motivated diatribe about how Barbie failed women that ends with her calling Barbie a "fascist." 

There's my argument against public education. Teacher, leave them kids alone! 

And when Barbie hits the real world, she's bombarded with an onslaught of sexism, even within the police force, that is heavily exaggerated. 

I had to rub my temples in frustration as Mattel handed over their popular product, "Barbie" over to Barbie hating producers with a major chip on their shoulder. I mean, someone at Mattel gave the green light to depict its own financially successful, decades long pop-culture icon as bad and terrible for failing to be the women's liberator she was intended to be. Liberated from what? A girl's natural instinct, maybe? The evil men ruling everything and keeping women down, so says influential millionaire women in Hollywood?

In the end, the spirit of Barbie's creator and former longtime Mattel CEO, Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), tells Stereotypical Barbie that Barbie's legacy continues to grow and evolve, blah, blah, blah.... So, now Barbie is good enough to keep around a while longer for little girls to keep playing with.

Whatever the movie's intentions are, the writers were all too happy getting high off the fumes off their own tangled mental gymnastics. 

The only amusing part of the movie was Ryan Gosling's performance. He got some laughs out of me.

In the final scene, I think motherhood ends up being the world vision Barbie accepts. I can get behind that, unless I misread the message. Was it pro-feminist, or was it anti-feminist? I can't tell. 

Despite having no interest in Barbie dolls outside of the doll's cultural impact, I would be perfectly fine with a Barbie movie in and of itself. I would even give it a positive review based on what is.

Unfortunately, it's a poorly written movie with inconsistent writing, confusing characters, an even more confusing message that left me wondering what I was supposed to get out of this experience in the first place. I hope Ryan is the only actor to win an Oscar for this movie. That'll be hilarious!  

Anyways, I gave it a chance. And as I've allowed the movie to settle in my head, I still don't know what to make of it.