FILM: Barbie

The Barbie film opens with a 2001: A Space Odyssey parody to explain the origins and impact of Barbie on the world, with Helen Mirren narrating in most serious BBC voice. At the outset, director Greta Gerwig has her tongue planted so far in her cheek that it actually curls around and tickles the brain a little. Barbie the brand encompasses a multitude of contradictions, with the stereotypical Barbie, impossibly thin with pink shoes and stylish wardrobe, also trying to inspire girls through the years by modeling being a doctor, a pilot, and an astronaut, while still always embracing her core pink perfection. The film leans into these contradictions, with a hilarious vision of life in “Barbieland”, where women (mostly named Barbie) live in wall-less and staircase-less dream houses and rule the world, and men (mostly named Ken) exist just to hang out at the beach in hopes that a Barbie might pay attention to them. Every day is perfect and pink in Barbieland until a rupture in the separation between Barbieland and the real world threatens to change everything, and Barbie must go into the real world to fix it. The film is a delightfully playful and visual confection with lots of winks and nods to the long history of the Barbie brand (embracing its less successful as well as more successful spin-offs), but the confection wraps a core of feminist critique that raises weighty questions about gender-based role models and the “male gaze”. Happily, the philosophical underpinnings aren’t so heavy as to lose track of telling a fun story and keeping us smiling and laughing, even while this Barbie forges new ground in providing a new role model for 21st century girls.