Now Showing: Real Life Barbie
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August 3, 2023[Warning: many spoilers here]
Play is a part of the childhood experience and it’s one that extends into adulthood in different ways. Dolls in particular have a special place in my own heart. As a child I loved playing with dolls and I still have a few! I had a couple of baby dolls and some dolls that were “older” that were very good students when my sister and I played school. Even though Barbie was popular during my childhood, I never had one and I didn’t much care for them back then.
As the parents of 4 daughters, my husband and I never thought twice about giving our girls a wide variety of toys and dolls: baby dolls, Polly Pocket dolls, Barbie and Ken dolls, even a few Bratz made their way into their toy box. Our daughters played with everything. Barbie and Ken were a special challenge because part of the fun was supposed to be changing them into different outfits, yet they are notoriously impossible to dress!
It was not surprising to me to find out some filmmakers in Hollywood decided to take Barbie and Ken out to play. When I first heard a movie based on the doll characters was being filmed, I was cautiously optimistic. Our family watched many animated Barbie movies when our girls were young and I was hopeful this film would be a fun and entertaining frolic across an imaginary world with Barbie and her friends going on some exciting adventure. It was nothing like what I expected.
I saw the movie with my 17 year old daughter, Trinity, who had already watched it once. She liked it. Some of the things she liked about it, I found good too. Watching it from the perspective of a Catholic wife, mother, and Family Life Minister, I was disappointed at the negative messages it conveyed about what it takes to find fulfillment as a woman. I was also dismayed about how men were portrayed in it. For me, the movie (not the doll) is about the end of innocence.
The first sign of trouble came in the form of the first trailer I saw. It depicted the opening scene of the movie: little girls violently smashing their baby dolls to pieces at the sight of a Godzilla sized Barbie doll. As a real baby and baby doll lover, I found this very disturbing. Baby dolls teach both little girls and boys about caring for and nurturing infants. Barbie coming into the world did not erase the need for children to learn to be caring. The second “slam on the brakes” moment for me was when I learned it was rated PG-13, clearly, this is not a movie intended for little girls.
For those who haven’t seen it, allow me to set the scene. In this Barbie Land, all the women are named Barbie, except for Midge, and all men there are named Ken, except for Alan. Barbie begins to experience some unusual signs and symptoms which leads to a trip into the real world.
The good: The set design and cinematography (especially of Barbie Land) is top notch. There is mention of how Barbie has inspired girls to reach for the stars since Barbie herself moved on from being just a “teen model” to become an astronaut. The list of jobs Barbie has had over the years is impressive. There is nothing in our Catholic faith that conflicts with the idea that women can use their God given talents as professionals. Another good part of the movie is within the storyline that brings Barbie and Ken into the real world. This involves the healing of a relationship between a mother and young daughter who aren’t getting along. There's a beautiful scene between Barbie and an elderly woman, in which Barbie recognizes the old woman's beauty which is nice. The movie ends with a tender home movie style montage of mothers playing with their daughters that is very touching.
The bad: The script is a hot mess with incoherent and very confusing story lines, multiple endings, and worst of all it doesn’t stay true to Barbie’s story. For example, Midge was created to be Barbie’s best friend (Barbie is even Midge’s Maid of Honor), but she is marginalized and made fun of as the “discontinued pregnant Barbie.” Alan is Midge’s husband in Barbie lore, but he never interacts with Midge at all in the movie. In Barbie’s actual story, she is a part of a large family, with parents, Margaret and George, and many siblings: Skipper, Stacie, Chelsea, twins Tutti and Todd, but these characters are nowhere in the movie. The fact that Barbie is part of a large family is conveniently left out. Good relationships between men and women, marriage, and family do not exist in Barbie Land. Another major inconsistency involves Ken. While Ken is literally created for Barbie, something the character reminds Barbie of in the movie, she ends up breaking up with him, preferring solitude, to his companionship. This idea that men and women can only find fulfillment in isolation is unrealistic and very contrary to our beliefs as Catholics. God made men and women for each other and this union is a part of God’s plan. It's a union that is the foundation of the family.
The ugly: The PG-13 rating is justified. There are numerous raunchy attempts at humor including an extended exchange among the Kens about “beaching” each other off, a not too veiled reference to masturbation. Barbie’s journey into the real world is prompted when she becomes obsessed with death. At a time when anxiety and depression among girls is on the rise this seems very inappropriate. Barbie’s crisis, which includes her feet becoming flat, leads the doll to consult with the all-knowing “Weird Barbie” that tells her she must go to the real world to find the girl who is playing with her, who must be having a crisis. As “Weird Barbie” explains to Barbie what’s happening to her, she throws in a crude joke about wanting to see the “blob” under Ken’s shorts. The women in Barbie Land are sexist and the men don’t have jobs. This part is also inconsistent with Barbie’s story where Ken has been a doctor, a businessman, a pilot, a soccer player, a dog trainer an actor, and other professions. Ken and Barbie are both allowed to be successful in their make believe world, but not in this movie.
When Barbie and Ken make it to the real world, Barbie is cat-called and slapped on the rear end. During an exchange with construction workers which includes some sexual innuendo, Barbie announces to the men that she doesn’t have a vagina and Ken doesn’t have a penis. While Barbie sets off to find the girl that is playing with her, Ken begins to explore and learns that men have important and powerful jobs in the real world and that this is made possible by something called “patriarchy.” Barbie eventually finds the girl she’s been looking for, Sasha, at the girl’s junior high school and to Barbie’s dismay, the angry girl excoriates her for being the cause of all the problems women face in the world and calls her a fascist to boot. It makes no sense that a child this age would ever go off on such a political tirade, but many things don’t make sense in this movie. Barbie eventually discovers that it's actually the girl’s mother, Gloria, who is in pain, partly because of her relationship with her angry daughter. Barbie decides the solution is to take them both to Barbie Land where everything is perfect.
In the meantime, Ken, armed with “patriarchy” in the form of horse posters, beer, and terrible clothing, returns to Barbie Land where he somehow instantly brainwashes all the Barbies to become subservient to the Kens. Kendom is short lived. With the help of the worldly Gloria and Sasha, the Barbies are deprogrammed and regain control of Barbie Land. How? By sexually manipulating the Kens into going to war with each other. The Barbies do this by rejecting their Kens and some of them leave their Kens for other Kens, a clear nod to infidelity. While the men are fighting, the Barbies celebrate thwarting the Kens plans to institute patriarchy by having President Barbie drop an MF-bomb. The curse words are bleeped, but you can still tell what she says. What little girl doesn’t want to hear her idol, President Barbie, curse like a sailor? Hey mom, its Foul Mouth Barbie! Speaking of foul language, the song that is played under the end credits by rappers Ice Spice and Nikki Manaj, is littered with profanity.
The very ugly: The Barbie movie contains overt political propaganda. While many moms and daughters may just scratch their heads and move on from some vague references to real political events, the movie clearly promotes secular and progressive ideology. The destruction of the baby dolls at the beginning of the movie, and the alienation of Midge is an affront to babies and motherhood. Not a good message for girls of any age. For a movie that claims to be about female empowerment, it’s clear the film makers don’t consider motherhood or family important. The solution the script writers come up with to solve the conflict between the Barbies and the Kens is not unity and collaboration, but alienation. In film makers Greta Gerwig’s and Noah Baumbach’s Barbie world, the solution to the conflicts between men and women is abandonment. These are very anti-social, anti-relationship, anti-marriage and anti-family messages. Messages that completely contradict our Judeo-Christian view that both men and women are deserving of respect and are equal in dignity and a part of God’s plan. One of the biggest political statements the film makes is that you don’t even have to be female to be a Barbie. It features trans actor Hari Nef, a biological man, playing a Barbie.
I like Barbie and I really wanted to like this film. There are a few positive moments, but there are a lot more negative ones. Instead of creating a fun adventure for this classic character, the movie makers take her on a depressing journey in which she doesn’t even get a happy ending. She leaves her Ken and her perfect pink plastic kingdom and comes to life in the real world. Mind you, by this point the audience has been hit over the head numerous times with how terrible the real world is, with its patriarchy and sexism, yet this is where Barbie decides to go? Did I miss something? To add insult to injury, in the last scene, we see a very excited Barbie, not walking into a college admissions office because she wants to learn and improve herself, not walking onto a real sandy beach because she’s actually never stepped foot on one, no, her first stop as a real woman is the gynecologist’s office. This is the most sexist thing the writers could possibly do to Real World Barbie. After all the talk of female empowerment and how women can do anything, they reduce Barbara Millicent Roberts, to her lady parts. Not cool Hollywood, not cool at all.
Barbie History can be found at Barbie (barbiemedia.com)
