WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS
Oh boy, here comes that curmudgeon from "The Gods Are Bored," about to sneer and jeer at the summer's most iconic (and history's highest earning) movie. Trust me, though, this will not be a defense of Ken. Instead I feel like someone ought to point out the failure of imagination, the indefensible and incomprehensible messages about mothers and daughters, and about the autonomy of tweens in this troubling confection of a film.
What? Barbie is a failure of imagination? But Greta Gerwig! Nah, it's not Greta's fault. It's that big ol' Mattel, trying to be cute and boost the bottom line with more sales of a flagship product.
Let's start with the character Weird Barbie. Oh boy! This movie is going to explore the fact that some kids clip their Barbies' hair and bend them out of shape!
Oh brother.
Let me tell you about the Weird Barbies that dwelled in my home when one of my daughters was a tween and the other an impressionable stripling.
Oh yes, my tween daughter played with Barbies. Gosh, we had a bin of them. We had:
*anorexic Barbie
*pathological tattooed Barbie
*drug addicted Barbie
*parkour Barbie with attendant injuries
and
*gender fluid Ken
One day I heard a lot of drama being performed in the living room, and when I investigated, these are the Barbies my daughter introduced me to. Now, I have lived long enough to know that nothing -- and I mean nothing about my lives or my children's lives -- is unique to our home. I'm 100% certain that other imaginative youngsters in other imaginative homes were playing with their too-skinny-too-cheerful dolls in the same manner.
See the dark turn this film takes if a director tackles the reality of this toy meant to be sold in the truckloads to enhance shareholder value? But wait, there's more.
In the film, our heroine Stereotypical Barbie becomes existential when her real-world owner starts entwining real-world thoughts with the toy. Okay, that's an interesting premise. Whoa, see above! But I have a deeper question. If Barbie's toy behavior is interwoven with her owner's behavior, what happens to
*naked thrift store Barbie hanging upside down in a plastic bag?
I'll leave that to you to ponder.
Let's move along.
In the opening sequence, listless young girls are seen playing with baby dolls, an activity that the narrator ensures us lacks all imagination and prepares the children for nothing but motherhood. As if motherhood in and of itself has no worth. Thank you, feminists of the 1960s and 1970s, for vilifying the human race's most important task, thereby providing the oligarchy with a workforce it could pay less and work harder while dumping children in daycare! And thank you, Barbie creator, for Supreme Court Barbie, as if every youthful beauty with a 26-inch waist can sit on our nation's highest court! You know what Barbie has never been in all her incarnations? A mom. And that is our nation's disgrace. But it does make rich men richer.
Ironically, the secondary hero of this film is a mom. This mom is sad because her tween daughter is dressing in grunge and separating from her, as all tweens do. The tween caught my attention more than the mom. For my money the best scene in the whole film is where Barbie, in all her blonde fake pinkness, introduces herself to the grungy teen and quickly gets showered with disdain and sent packing. I loved that! If there was a brief moment of verisimilitude in this film, that was it.
But as the film unfolds and the tween's mom becomes ascendant, the tween goes along for the ride and winds up pretty in pink, dancing and laughing with the Barbies. Friends, this was seriously offensive. Tween girl, you've got it all wrong, with your grunge and dirty hair! Get with the Mattel program! Here's a pink bolero jacket. Look how cute you are in it!
No. Just no. Grunge tween should have had the autonomy to tell Barbie and her mom that clothes don't matter. Thinking matters. Being yourself matters. And if your self loves dark shapeless clothing, you have the right to your choice. And you're a tween. It's natural to be seeking some distance from your parents and to make a statement about who you are.
Now it gets personal.
Barbie was created the year I was born. Of course I had one of these dolls by the time I was four. I didn't play with Barbie much. Her big tits and wasp waist bothered me. Also, she came clad in a swimsuit, and if you wanted her to be dressed you had to buy clothes. All my friends had better Barbie clothes than I did. So I ditched Barbie in favor of playing Vietnam War with the boys.
In the film we meet Barbie's creator, an actress who I just love who here plays against type as a gentle, struggling grandma who wanted to earn a living wage. Okay, Mattel. Whatever you say.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER STOP HERE IF YOU LIKE SURPRISES
This gentle grandma creator gives Stereotypical Barbie the greatest gift - becoming human. And what does it mean to be human? Well, many of the images projected on the screen are of mothers loving and nurturing children. Very sweet indeed. But, Barbie? You were born in 1959. You are no longer the Maiden or the Mother. You're now a Crone. Welcome to being a 64-year-old woman! You are:
*hip replacement Barbie
*arthritis Barbie
*anxious mammogram Barbie
*chronic earache Barbie
*underpaid overworked bullied Barbie
*true existential crisis Barbie
*anxiety disorder Barbie
and
*OK Boomer Barbie
How do you like it so far?
The bottom line is that the Barbie movie was funded and produced by two companies, Universal Studios and Mattel, whose interests lie in market share. So they got a talented director to make a pretty film that takes shots at the patriarchy but certainly never addresses the problematic role Barbie has played in the lives of generations of young girls. I have to give credit to my own daughter for sinking her Barbies deep into the dark side of America, making them suffer the way so many American women do.
And by the way, that same daughter reversed an overdose on the streets of Philadelphia this weekend. The victim was a slender young girl who ran away as soon as she could stand.
