Barbie overview: a feminist parable preventing to be nice regardless of Mattel

Barbies would possibly “simply” be toys, however Barbie™ is an impossibly good paragon of glamorous femininity who’s had as many specialised professions over the course of her 64-year-long existence as she has bespoke outfits. There are few items of corporate-owned IP which are actually as Iconic (within the pre-social media sense of the phrase) because the doll that put Mattel on the map and taught youngsters of all genders — however particularly little ladies — to lengthy for warm pink dreamhouses. That’s why it isn’t all that stunning to see Mattel Studio’s model protection-minded affect splashed throughout Warner Bros.’ new live-action Barbie film from author / director Greta Gerwig.

Worthwhile because the Barbie model is, it makes all of the sense on this planet that Mattel would need Gerwig’s characteristic — a playful, surreal journey that does double responsibility as a deconstruction of its namesake and her technicolor, dreamlike world — to play by a algorithm meant to guard their investments. However as effectively meant as Mattel’s enter presumably was, Gerwig clearly got here with a daring imaginative and prescient constructed across the thought of deconstructing among the extra advanced realities of what Barbie represents with a purpose to inform a very trendy, feminist story.

Watching the film, you may usually really feel how Mattel and Gerwig’s plans for Barbie weren’t essentially in sync and the way these variations led to compromises being made. Fortunately, that doesn’t hold the film from being enjoyable. But it surely does make it quite laborious to get misplaced within the fantasy of all of it — particularly as soon as Barbie begins going meta to poke enjoyable on the studios behind it in a approach that appears to be turning into extra widespread.

Together with celebrating innumerable items of Mattel’s historical past, Barbie tells the story of how essentially the most Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) in all of Barbie Land beneficial properties the tiniest little bit of self-awareness in the future and begins to seek out her rising sense of advanced personhood so alarming that she units off for the Actual World to seek out out what the hell is occurring. Just like the overwhelming majority of Barbies who name Barbie Land residence, all Stereotypical Barbie is aware of about her personal world is predicated on the picture-perfect, idealized experiences she and her buddies are capable of breeze their methods via solely utilizing the ability of their imaginations. 

Issues don’t simply occur to Barbies. They’re very a lot the arbiters of their very own wills who’ve labored laborious to turn into folks like President Barbie (Issa Rae), Dr. Barbie (Hari Nef), Lawyer Barbie (Sharon Rooney), and Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Barbie (Alexandra Shipp). However life for Barbies additionally isn’t particularly tough or sophisticated, partially as a result of they’re all dolls residing in a plastic paradise. Primarily, although, it’s as a result of Barbie Land’s an expressly woman-controlled utopia harking back to Steven Universe’s Gem Homeworld, the place neither misogyny nor the idea of a patriarchy exists as a result of that’s not what Barbie™ is about.

As an unseen Helen Mirren — who appears to be taking part in a model of herself as Barbie’s narrator — factors out who’s who within the movie’s opening act, you may see how Mattel’s willingness to let Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach’s script poke enjoyable at Barbie™ led to some extraordinarily good world-building.

Barbie Land isn’t only a predominantly pink pocket dimension the place Life-Dimension-like dolls dwell in life-sized, but nonetheless toy-like dream houses. It’s the embodiment of the easy-to-digest, corporate-approved feminism and feminine empowerment that Mattel and lots of different toy firms deal in. Solely in Barbie Land, the concept of a predominantly feminine supreme court docket or development websites stuffed with nothing however hardworking girls aren’t simply goals — they’re a daily a part of on a regular basis life. And all of the Barbies are higher for it due to the way it reinforces their perception that they’ll do something.

However outdoors of the Stereotypical Barbie-obsessed Ken whose job is to face on the seaside (Ryan Gosling), not one of the different Kens (Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, and John Cena) are ever actually given personalities to talk of. It’s clearly a purposeful choice meant to strengthen the concept that Ken dolls, which have been invented after Barbie dolls, are the Eves to their Adams — accessory-like beings created to be companions quite than their very own folks. However as strong as the concept is, in follow, it has a approach of constructing the Kens of colour really feel like thinly-written afterthoughts hovering round Gosling and like Barbie isn’t certain how you can make the most of its whole forged — a sense that intensifies increasingly more because the film progresses.

Lengthy earlier than Barbie even begins to have her existential disaster and search steerage from Bizarre Barbie (Kate McKinnon), it turns into painfully clear that there was a powerful want on both Mattel or Warner Bros. elements for audiences to be spoon-fed as a lot of the movie as attainable earlier than truly sitting down in theaters. In the event you’ve watched even a few Barbie’s lengthier adverts or the music video for Dua Lipa’s (who performs Mermaid Barbie) “Dance the Evening,” you’ve seen a major chunk of this movie and its extra memorable moments.

What you’ve seen much less of is how usually Barbie slows right down to have characters repeat jokes and belabor factors as if it doesn’t belief the viewers to catch beats on their preliminary deliveries. A few of that may be attributed to the PG-13 film attempting to guarantee that viewers of all ages are capable of interact as a result of as existentially heavy and barely flirty as Barbie will get at instances, it’s a film about Barbies, which is clearly going to enchantment to a bunch of literal youngsters. However as soon as Barbie’s in the true world being harassed by lascivious males, ruthless teen ladies, and a bumbling, evil company that the film goes to nice lengths to make enjoyable of, you additionally get the sense that greater than a little bit of the film’s unevenness on the backend stems from Mattel placing its foot down about the way it, too, wanted to be part of Barbie’s live-action, theatrical debut.

There’s a time and a spot for companies to attempt getting in on the enjoyable of occasions like this by means of meta humor that acknowledges their very own existence and the position they play in bringing tasks like films about Barbie dolls into being. However quite than creating the mandatory circumstances for these sorts of jokes to land, not want rationalization, and add substance to Barbie, each Mattel and Warner Bros.’ self-insert jokes work extra to remind you the way the film is finally a corporate-branded endeavor designed to maneuver merchandise.

That doesn’t hold Gerwig’s newest from being an pleasing time spotlighting a decidedly impressed efficiency from Robbie. However it’s going to make the rabid Barbie discourse much more exhausting than it already is when the characteristic hits theaters on July twenty first.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .