In a Barbie World

I’m a Barbie girl from way back. Some of my happiest memories in childhood were creating an entire barbie village in my grandma’s living room, complete with shoeboxes for beds and Totally Hair Barbie marrying Wet N’ Wild Ken at the end. As a child, I pictured myself growing up and being Barbie- blond, ponytailed, driving a pink convertible to the movies as soon as I turned 16. I, too, wanted to be President and Ballerina and an amateur astronaut. 

So I have been really, really looking forward to this movie. Yesterday my 17 year old daughter and I put on our Barbiest outfits and made our way to the first matinee. We laughed, we cried, we cringed at Ken. Afterwards we watched little girls get their picture taken in the big pink Barbie box in the foyer and started the best part of any movie date- the debrief. 

“So, what did you think?” she asked. I know I can get critical easily, so I started with everything I loved. The bright pink branding: *chef’s kiss.* Margot Robbie? Superb. Even Ryan Gosling as Ken, a choice I hadn’t understood, was a great choice. The way he conveyed so much through simple poses was really high level humor. 

We both loved how the movie went into Big Things- “What was I made for,” being a woman- no, being human. We love films that are actually art and not just entertainment, and this was. 

“What did you feel?” I asked, because I’ve been learning to acknowledge that emotions are great indicators, more than just the cerebral thoughts and words that I usually lean on. 

“Melancholy,” she answered. “From about the middle of the movie all the way through the end.” 

“Same.” 

Melancholy is such a weird emotion for a Barbie movie. It seems like joy, glee, hope are the more likely feelings to come from such a wide, sparkly smile on such a perfect plastic face. But melancholy is exactly what the film conveyed. The theme song by Billie Eilish encapsulates well- in fact, you could skip the movie and just watch this short music video to get the same impression.

One of the main themes in the Barbie movie is the idea of gender roles. In Barbieland, the Barbies rule and the Kens drool. They make a trip to the Real World and find “the Patriarchy,” and there’s a scuffle for power- what are women for, what are Kens for? Everyone’s trying to make sense of their places, and it causes a bit of chaos and lots of hurt feelings. 

Depending on where you stand on the spectrum of being a feminist, you might enjoy or cringe at things in this movie. (If you’re really anti-feminist, you’ll hate it. The very opening scene where Barbie mythologically emerges from the void and causes little girls everywhere to smash their baby dolls will probably make you picket.) But I’m talking to those of us who believe, at some level, that the treatment and opportunities of a human should not be restricted by their gender. 

The thing is- there are so many questions in that spectrum. You can go from “a woman should be able to have a bank account without a man’s permission” all the way to “Masculinity is the root of all social evils.” And the Barbie movie kinda slides around on that spectrum. It would be tempting to argue about all the specific things that the movie implicitly or explicitly communicated about that spectrum, but I just want to talk about this one thing: 

The Barbie Dreamhouse. (spoilers ahead)

When the movie first sees Barbie, she is waking up on the third floor of her pink Dreamhouse. She’s lying in the center of a sequined covered, shell shaped bed. She opens her eyes, smiles, and begins her perfect day, where her clothes are perfect, her waffle is perfect, and she slides down a perfect twisty slide to her crystal clear pool. 

All around her are other variations of the Dreamhouse, each one containing a single occupant: another Barbie, living another perfect version of a Barbie day. 

The next day, she wakes up, and something is wrong. She has bad breath. Her waffle burns. Her Dream Life isn’t perfect. So, Barbie sets out to find out what’s going wrong- and along the way, there’s Ken. 

Ken is in love with Barbie- no, he’s infatuated with her. Everything he does is based on her. But after she brushes him off a few times, he stumbles onto a new idea- “the Patriarchy.” 

Do you know what Ken does? He goes back and takes over the Barbie Dreamhouse. He modifies everything into what are HIS dreams. Horses, beer, surfing, TV. Barbie is, of course, devastated. 

There’s a big conflict, a few twists, and then Barbie and Ken are facing each other talking about what happened. They each apologize, but then Ken says something interesting: 

“I thought this could be OUR dreamhouse,” he says. Barbie doesn’t reply. So he goes on:

“I just don’t know who I am without you.”

“You’re Ken,” Barbie replies….“Maybe its time to discover who Ken is.”

Meaning, apart from Barbie. 

As the movie ends, (big spoiler) Barbie chooses to be human- and there is this vague message that the messy unknown potential of being a human is preferable to the tidy plastic existence of being a doll. But she does it alone. She doesn’t need Ken. She never needed him. And presumably, he’s learning that he doesn’t need her. 

You guys. This is the deep issue when it comes to gender: Do we need each other, or not? 

According to the Barbie movie, the dream world for Barbies is when each Barbie lives alone in her own personal Dreamhouse. No interference, no inconvenience. As Barbie says to Ken when he wants to stay over “But… I don’t want you here! *smile*” 

Barbie wants so much to wrestle with big questions- why am I here, what am I made for, what is a woman- but in trying to give herself limitless possibilities, she ends up what she wanted to be- Independent. Alone. 

Is this gender equality? That we can all grow up and do whatever we want, live however we want, and no one can make any demands on us? This is The Dream? I think that’s why the movie felt so melancholy. It’s lonely!

I want to make a few caveats here if it seems like I’m building a strawman. Barbie is not entirely alone at the end: She makes friends with a woman and her daughter (and their 5 second screen time dad) There is ONE eternally pregnant doll, Midge, present in Barbie world, and during the passionate speech by America Ferrrerra, the idea is put forward that a woman should be allowed to be a mom “if she wants.” 

But these things are all, again, very self-focused. 

In the Barbie universe, we find ourselves “apart from each other.” And then somehow in each of us reaching self-actualization, maybe we can come back and interact and enjoy each other. 

But this isn’t true! Humans need connection. This isn’t my opinion- it’s pretty documented. 

 Brene Brown says “Connection is why we’re here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.”

And connection is messy. It’s unpleasant sometimes! We have to move over on the bed, we have to smell each other’s breath. We have to chose to give when it would be nicer to take! 

But this is how we become the greatest versions of ourselves- when we discover who we are- not in a pink three story monument to ourselves, but in a Dream house filled with the colors and flavors of people we are committed to. People we adore and laugh with, argue with and disagree with. 

In the Barbie world, everyone is Barbie. Everyone is pink, plastic, perfect. So who is Barbie? Barbie is most known when she’s set against the spectrum of non Barbies- real humans that don’t share her characteristics. But she can’t be there until she lets go of her self-focused life and embraces community and connections and conflicts with non-barbies. And we are the same way!

We are most unique when surrounded by others, and we are most satisfied when we are connected. 

If we’re wondering what we’re made for, I think it’s actually each other.