Why Barbie? The movie is not something I would normally sit through, but of course there is a lot of buzz around it now as Oscar season approaches. I certainly didn’t want to spend the money to sit in a Covid factory last summer for Barbenheimer, and the streaming price was outrageous until this new year. So in a drought of few shows while I wait for struck series to catch up, and Euro series to be released stateside this spring, I took a chance in watching a few more films normally out of my purview. The result with Barbie is that I loved the movie, as I’m a sucker for pop culture commentary, and can only scratch the surface of all the sly and not-so-sly references.
The plot is inane of course, which is part of the fun and allows the writers to say some wonderful things about pop culture and the current state of how we live now. Falling out of perfection, our heroine goes on a quest as suggested by the wise sage, the Yoda of Barbieland, a rough world-wise Barbie who’s been played with too much. She takes all the modes of transportation available in the Barbie world to get back to Reality, where she’ll know who to see somehow. Visiting Reality allows stretching of the fourth wall (breaking it comes very briefly when we see Margot without makeup making a comment). Mattel Corp ain’t Reality; the only Reality is Normal Barbie (see below) and some school scenes. There is real water at Mattel, which shocks Barbie when she drinks, but I say it’s probably artificial in its own way, filtered, treated and bottled in its perfection.
I love the 2001 opening scene, with the Zarathustra soundtrack. (All the songs are great, wonderfully repurposed). What appealed to kids at its introduction, its modern look and versatility, we now know was a plastic pop culture trap. But it was fun at the time. I love how they introduce Ruth, the inventor of Barbie and how far she is from the perfection she created. And then how she became a wraith on the 17th floor, an object absorbed by Mattel as they pull the strings behind the curtain and chase the latest in pop culture.
The entire population of the Barbie world is represented, including Ken and Allan and Skipper (Skipper eventually gets a purple hair streak by Mattel IRL to update her appeal). The male dolls have quite a time wrestling with their masculinity and their roles, flipping and flopping in and out of Reality and roles in Barbieland. Allan is dressed exactly like the doll. Ken dons all sorts of outfits, depending on his current take on masculinity. I couldn’t help but see him as Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, and later, Sly Stallone when in fur; then couldn’t unsee that, eww. In Reality, Ken’s fragile male ego results in the sotto voce insistence on having a penis to the construction crew. His adventure in Reality results in the cognitive dissonance of having male privilege, but how it’s tempered by the crumbling of the patriarchy and creeping credentialism when he tries to get work.
The artfulness of the sets and the costumes was astounding. The sly merchandising of showing the labels of the accessories as they are flung in the air, the acrobatics of the characters, the real and pretend water, all kept my interest at a time when I wind up playing with my iPhone as most movies drag on. The entire production crew was extremely talented. I am so unhappy Greta Gerwig got grief as a “Malibu-wave feminist” but she spun things to say she was happy to connect with so many people.
The only issue I had with the movie was it didn’t cover the morph of stereotypical Barbie into the professional and other Barbies. It would have been an interesting way to link Barbieland and Reality. But that’s a minor point.
The only other thing I can add is that I heard my class valedictorian had as her first job an assignment on an assembly line to attach the left arm on Barbie. We’ve fallen out of touch and I wonder what her take would be on this movie?
INTERESTING LINKS:
A friend of mine who poses space barbies in action or with astronauts:
A friend of mine had to take the dolls away from her kids when they took all the clothes off of Barbie and G.I. Joe and had them “play.” I guess it’s not uncommon:
On Christmas Day in 1993, kids all over America were delighted to find new Teen
Talk Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls under the tree - but shocked when the G.I. Joe voice-boxes chirped “I love to shop with you!" and the Barbies barked “Eat lead!"
In the words of NBC Nightly News, the youth of America had been “ambushed by the Barbie Liberation Organization." The B.L.O. claimed responsibility for switching the voice boxes on hundreds of the toys nationwide, making headlines around the world and even popping up on The Tonight Show and The Simpsons. The “toy terrorist cell" was reportedly made up of “veterans against war toys” and “concerned parents."
It takes all kinds:
'Human Barbie' Valeria Lukyanova says she wants to 'subsist on air and light alone' |
2023 Día De Muertos Barbie Doll – Mattel Creations
Normal Barbie:
This "Normal Barbie" Comes With Cellulite, Stretch Marks, Acne, And Tattoos
So much pink!
Barbie's Malibu Dream House is Available to Rent on Airbnb