“So the story begins”, this phrase from Blur’s “Country House” came to my mind after I saw the “Barbie” movie. In the Barbieland everything is perfectly pink plastic and stereotypical until the thoughts of death knocks the door. That changes everything. I won’t tell you the whole story but I should warn you that if you have no problem with misogyny, patriarchy, and you don’t like to think critically, or be part of journey of discovery, then Greta Gerwig’s movie is definitely not for you. And also for the conservative viewers: “Barbie” does not promote the stay-at-home wife role model from 1950s. The whole thing is that she really can do whatever she wants and she can be whoever she wants to be!
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You might’ve read that the opening scene of “Barbie” alludes to Stanley Kubrick’s prologue of “2001: A Space Odyssey”. However, instead of a monumental obelisk you get a monumental Barbie, right after hearing the story with voice of Helen Mirren, how to girls in the past play with baby-dolls. A little side note, if I’m correct, dolls that looked like women were already common in the seventeenth century (Juliette Peers, The Fashion Doll: From Bébé Jumeau to Barbie (2004)).
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Most of all, “Barbie” is fun. You get bits that sprinkle in your brain like Barbie’s glitter. I love that particular part when Barbie’s watching my beloved BBC’s “Pride and Prejudice” for the seventh time (but who hasn’t watched it so many times?! I have). On the TV screen we can see a very well known clip with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Another scene: Barbie complains that she isn’t stereotypical pretty anymore while Hellen Mirren’s voice points out that in fact Margot Robbie as unpretty is poor casting, not Margot herself. And yet another one funny moment when we hear that Barbie is a fascist.
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A bit of history here. In the beginning there was Lilli. Lilli was a cartoon character created by Reinhard Beuthien for Bild-Zeitung in Hamburg. She appeared for the first time in 1952. Max Weissbroodt from Hausser/Elastolin company produced a doll based on that very comic strip. Since 1955 Lilli was sold as “a gag gift for adult males”. Ariel Levy from “The New Yorker” magazine referred to Lilli as a “sex doll”. That changed in 1956 when Ruth Handler, Mattel’s co-founder, spent her holidays in Europe and bought Lilli for her daughter, Barbara, Barbie. And then Ruth’s “Barbie” doll debuted on March 9, 1959. Mattel acquired the rights to Bild’s Lilli in 1964. After that production of the German doll was stopped. (More: M.G. Lord, Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll (Walker, 2009)).
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And finally, I like the costumes, make-up and set design. Of course, Barbie receives a lot of criticism for promoting an unrealistic body image. It is something we do to ourselves. We hear from the screen that for other women and men, we are either too thin, too fit or too fat. We must make a statement that we eat healthy, we are a good parent, or why we chose a career, etc.
The same with stereotypical Ken (Ryan Gosling). So you’ve got Barbies individuated by their professions like: Lawyer Barbie, President Barbie, and so on. But Kens are just Kens. Every Ken is simply Ken. The most individualised is the Ken, Barbie’s designated mate. He defines his job as a beach, not even a lifeguard (“which is a common misconception”), as he cares to explain to the audience. Yes, here is also a challenge for Ken to learn who he really is. For the moment he becomes a fan of patriarchalism because at last he feels that he is not yet another Ken. And that first we have to define ourselves and then choose relationships (friends, partners, or romantic relationships), so we should not define ourselves through the prism of others or ideas.
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For me “Barbie” is definitely the best when she consciously plays with the form, winks to us, juggles with conventions (musical, comedy, action film) and age themes. At the end I would like to quote the Entertainment Weekly saying “Barbie is fierce, funny, and deeply feminist adventure that dares you to laugh and cry”.
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