from the pen of icarus blake

I enjoyed Barbie (2023), watching Margot Robbie play out the eponymous role in candied yellows and pinks.  I cheered the himboification of Ryan Gosling and the charming brainlessness of Ken.  I even teared up at the climactic scene set to Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For”.  Barbie is fun, I would watch it again, I quote it sometimes.

“Goodnight Barbie!  I’m definitely not thinking about death anymore!”

But something felt off, even in digging through my wardrobe to find a single pink item of clothing to wear to the showing (I own one, it’s an American Psycho t-shirt).  Something about this movie is just a little to the left.  It’s the feeling I imagine someone would have while watching a Midsommer Night’s Dream performed with unique brilliance on a stage that is also the gaping mouth of a giant angler fish.  You want to be consumed in the plot, in the antics of Puck and the expert lighting effects and scene changes, but sometimes you can’t help but think about the actors on stage being consumed instead.    

Barbieland is utopian, with the jobs and positions of power filled by Barbies.  The Kens fight for the attention of the Barbies.  They have no purpose in the society of Barbieland besides to seek the attention of Barbies.  Those who don’t fit that mold end up in the same position as Weird Barbie (and, presumably, Cock Ring Ken, whose cameo I cheered) on the outskirts, only to be acknowledged when you have a very un-Barbie problem.  Weird Barbie is wise, but she is also ostracized for her uncanny appearance and behavior — to be used by the Barbies, but never to be a part of Barbieland.  This reflects, in some ways, the stated intent of the Mattel corporation as it is depicted in the movie — Barbie can be anything (but she can’t be ugly).

That makes sense to me.  As does the depiction of Mattel as a large, ugly corporate block with exactly one woman in a secretarial position.  Setting up contrasts between Barbieland and the seat of Barbie in the real world make perfect sense, but where this falls short is in the depiction of Mattel’s CEO and board of directors.  The sympathetic, even reasonable worry they show for Barbie entering the real world, their depiction as misguided, the fervent speech the CEO gives at the end, all reflect the hand Mattel itself has in the movie.  They are set up as villains, but no, they are not the villains, of course!  How could they be!  They truly care about the self esteem of little girls and these men in suits in the big gray office building love Barbie so much that her creator even resides there as a ghost.  It’s tongue in cheek, but it’s also unchallenged by the narrative.

This lack of actual challenge to the authority of the Mattel corporation is reflected in the narrative of patriarchy invading Barbieland.  The Kens, an undervalued class of society, see a world in which they rule and do not question it.  These powerful women (the Barbies) have no resistance to it, and must fall back on the wisdom of the societally ostracized weirdos.  The invasion of patriarchy is blamed on the Barbies for not appreciating the Kens — not outright, but implied.  Barbie did not pay attention to Ken, she was not interested, and her lack of interest led him to do terrible things.  It feels like a candy-coated reflection of the Nice Guy showing up on a woman’s doorstep to shoot her dead for the crime of not liking him back.  Sure, he shouldn’t have to base his self worth on womens’ interest in him, but the tragedy here is not the male ego, but the woman with a bullet in her brain. Barbie wants to pretend like it’s subverting the status quo.  A feminist dream, declaring that not only can women be whatever they want to be, but also that men deserve to value themselves outside of a patriarchy that flattens their lives into a hypermasculine cardboard cutout.  In fact, Barbie refuses to challenge the systems in place that support both the subjugation of femininity and the flattening of masculinity.  Barbie becomes human at the end, but Barbieland returns to the control of the Barbies with token acknowledgements of the complaints of the Kens.  The Mattel corporation maintains control, though the one woman in the company gets a promotion.  There is no change in the before and after, except that Barbie has stepped into a world dominated by patriarchy that was not changed by her actions, that she is now subjected to for the reward of being a real woman.  The structures remain in place.  There is no satisfying resolution provided to the problems.  There is no metamorphosis, no steps toward change in either Barbieland or the real world that come about as the result of the characters’ actions in the movie.  The stage is still an angler fish.