I was waiting on a sofa in the theater room. My mind was a little bit scattered after watching Oppenheimer. I checked the clock, it was around 8.20 PM. In less than 10 minutes, I had to go into the cinema in which I was supposed to see the next Barbenheimer movie, Barbie. Watching movies alone has been my favorite thing to do, and this never bothered me before. But I gotta be honest, watching this movie alone requires quite a courage 😅.
The reason I watch Barbie, despite its hype and the fact that it was being released with Oppenheimer is because Greta Gerwig. Ever since I watched Little Women in 2020 and Lady Bird last year, I love how she slips messages between the lines, plots and
I feel like both Oppenheimer and Barbie are not easy films to watch, especially if you like me who watch both films on the same day with 10-minute break. Both films requires us to think, what the meanings the film wants to share with us.
So, I’m not surprised if many people find Barbie boring or whatsoever. To watch Greta’s film you need broader perspective, so then you can grasp the idea behind this movie’s plot.
The Perfect Barbie World
Barbie basically is about barbie dolls in the perfect Barbie World. In this world you’ll see barbies doing the same, mundane activities perpetually. You wake up, take a shower, make breakfast, socialize with other dolls, and in the afternoon you have a dance floor party, then you go to sleep. And it goes again, and again, and again.
Besides the barbies, there are also kens (male dolls), who unlike barbies, they don’t seem to have perfect mundane activities You’ll likely to see them in the beach, doing whatever they do and nobody would notice. Basically they’re just kens. Nothing more.
The story follows Barbie (yes, each barbies and kens don’t have unique name to themselves) who is portrayed by the gorgeous Margot Robbie who, one days, loose her perfect “barbie”-ness. Her toes touches the ground, no longer perfect day, everything in her life is ruined.
So, in order to get her “perfect barbie” back, she must go to the human world to meet with the human who plays her.
Creative, Fun, Whimsical Humor
Well, I have to say that Barbie is way beyond my expectations in terms of the creative and humor aspects. I didn’t expect humor like that would appear in movies like this. The humor is conveyed explicitly, and it’s funny. I remember watching the narrator said something (If you know, you know 😂) and that made the studio filled with laughter.
Maybe it’s because the storyline itself is really flexible that it allows humors like this to unexpectedly happened. I can sense that Gerwig really uses her minds to do experiments, do something different in this movie.
Women and Men, Feminism and Masculinity
I really like how the film discover gender from both perspective, from feminism side (the barbies) and masculinity side (the kens), something that I RARELY see being discussed on Internet. I think this is really important when it comes to gender equality.
I personally get the idea of this by seeing the sovereignty in the Barbie Land throughout the film. In the first part, the barbies rule the world. But they discard the kens. Kens are just kens. And when Ken (Ryan Gosling) has a feeling for Barbie (Margot Robbie), Barbie just ignore him, even though he’s definitely a good person, and have girls party instead.
This part really resonates with me, because there are genuine kens out there, often being neglected by women because of “women empowerment”. For me this is totally wrong feminism (even I’d say toxic feminism). You don’t have to discard men for you to shine. Women don’t need to make men dumb or stupid for them to be bejeweled.
The next part, the land is being taken over by the kens. Here you’ll see the toxic masculinity, the jargon you must have heard on internet. The kens are simply being rude, they lost their sensibility. Patriarchy is allover the land. Men rule the world. The kens do the unhealthy comparison among each other. You can’t show your feelings, otherwise you’re weak. You’re not cool if you can’t alure the barbies, the many barbies you’ve got in your arms, the cooler you are. If you don’t have abs, you’re not cool. If you don’t do this, you’re not man enough. Again, I personally have been in that situation.
The third period is when the barbies realize that in order to get equality, they don’t have to disregard the kens. They can shine together. Barbies and kens can be friends, there are no castes between them.
Beside the gender equality and deep discovery of the two genders, Barbie is also about how the stereotype image that the barbie dolls have made to people, especially to women. Ever since it was released in 1950s, the barbie dolls represent women with white clear skin, skinny body, small hips and even tall. The dolls even shows materialism lifestyle conveyed through their fancy designs and items. It was like that until late 2010s, when Mattel (the company that produces the doll) started making variant type of barbies. But still, if we hear the “Barbie” word, that type would likely pop in our head.
Now, the film takes perspective from the stereotypical barbie The perfect women we would see who seems to have everything, who doesn’t deal with existential crisis, who always have their answer in their hands. But in the film, they, too, deal with those problems.
This is the best aspect of the film in my opinion.
The Lecture in The Ending
I tried as much as I could to be empathetic with this film. I worked with my mind to what message Greta wants to deliver in Barbie, since I know Gerwig delivers feminism messages in this film, just like what she always does. Even I did some research when writing this article.
Although I am certainly no expert in this particular topic, nor am I in gender equality or any similar related topics, there is something off with the ending. And I have to be honest, I don’t like it.
Little Women and Lady Bird is famously known as the emotional-provoking monologue by the main character (Saoirse Ronan who plays the main characters in the two films). When I watched the two films, I couldn’t get that monologue out of my head.
Like her two previous movies, Barbie also has the iconic monologue scenes. This was what I had been waiting for. But as the monologue went, I knew there was something off that I don’t like about this. And that is, the monologue is sooo soo, preachy.
America Ferrera does a really really spectacular role in the movie, I didn’t expect that she takes important role in the film. When she does the monologue scene, I could sense the frustration she feels as a woman, the pressure she and other women face as they often take several roles at once in everyday life (you can be a CEO while being a mother, for an example, the roles that requires full attention of a person).
But the scene alone is like watching TED Talk. Everyone gathers around her, and she start the speech. At first I got the emotion, but as she preach, it got boring. The message is undoubtedly important, but how the film conveys and deliver the message is really awful.
But still…, Gerwig doesn’t really make me truly devastated in disappointment. Even though America’s speech is so disappointing, I do really like the speech of Barbie (Margot Robbie) to Ken! I really love that, not only women support women, this scene shows us that feminism doesn’t mean women don’t care with men. They do. And Barbie’s speech to Ken, God, that’s so, so touching. We shouldn’t define ourselves with other people. We’re not our girlfriend or boyfriend.
Questions Left Unanswered
Even though Greta and Noah (the writers of this film) is perfect utilizing their creativity and the message they want to share through the film is really, really good.
However, the plot itself is not that good. There are transitions between the scenes I found strange and feel like it’s forced. And of course, there are questions left unanswered (or if they are, the answers are not concisely and conspicuously delivered.
For example, what does the Martell people really do in that film? And what stance they have, are they pro with feminism, or the other philosophy, or do they just “faking it”, selling the feminism jargon without ever believe in and care with it? And the most frequently asked: why Barbie does what she does in the ending, why she choose that? This scene comes really abruptly, the film tries to cover it with emotional talks between Barbie and the other character but it doesn’t answer this question.
Overall, Barbie unexpectedly fun, whimsical and really thought-provoking. What people thogught was a cheezy romance or films for kids, it turned out the film itself is deeper than that. I can say that both Oppeheimer and Barbie are type of film you need to think of so you’ll get the general idea what these films is trying to tell us.
And therefore, despite some of my disappointments in this film, this is me being generous to give Barbie the same rate with Oppenheimer: 7/10 🌟.
0 Comment