News

Feb 12, 2024

The ‘Barbie’ Movie Isn’t Feminist Propaganda, It’s A Two

Barbie and Ken If you listen to the rightwing echo chamber much, you’ll hear the same tired line over and over again: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is man-hating feminist propaganda. I’ve watched and

Barbie and Ken

If you listen to the rightwing echo chamber much, you’ll hear the same tired line over and over again: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is man-hating feminist propaganda. I’ve watched and read some truly boneheaded critiques since the film hit theaters, and I use the word “critique” lightly, with a dash of salt. Hey, it’s easy to screech and wail about “feminist propaganda” and “man-hating” and the best part is you don’t even have to go see the movie to do it!

I have my own thoughts on the matter, of course. For the most part, I genuinely enjoyed Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling’s dolls-to-life flick, but I think they didn’t quite stick the landing when it came to the over-arching message, which felt both dated and at times cloying and ham-fisted. It was close with the clever Kendom allegory, but still no cigar.

Still, I could tell what they were going for and it’s a clever way to shed light on the problems with inequality.

Also, it was funny! The musical bits were hilarious!

There’s just one thing that still bugs me when I think about the film. Like the 1989 movie The Wizard before it—which was basically the biggest video game ad ever created, hyping up kids for Nintendo’s upcoming release of Super Mario Bros. 3—Barbie is little more than an elaborate makeover: A two-hour long Mattel commercial.

The California-based company is worth billions, but a lot of its products are starting to feel dated, and let’s face it: Barbie, with her long legs and oversized bosom might be the most dated of them all. In a #MeToo era where slogans like “all bodies are beautiful” run rampant, the doll that makes actual girls feel bad about their self-image has become a lot less popular, in spite of attempts to diversify the dolls and place more emphasis on their intelligence and achievements. (Of course, maybe dolls in general are just less popular in an age of screens).

Enter Greta Gerwig and the Barbie movie. This is a film that explicitly acknowledges the un-coolness of Barbie when Robbie’s Barbie is belittled by a middle-schooler in the school cafeteria, and pokes fun at the Barbies for their delusional belief that they’ve “fixed” gender inequality in the real world. It’s a subtle wink-and-a-nod at the ironic duality of Barbie existing as both a feminist icon and a symbol of capitalism, patriarchy and oppressive beauty norms.

And then the movie makes Barbie real. It gets to work painting her in a whole new, more progressive, more human light. The message of the film isn’t that men are bad, or even that inequality can be fixed if we all just get along and work together. The message is actually directed at women who used to play with Barbies (hence the prominence of America Ferrera’s Gloria, who gets the main speech) when they were kids, and reassures them that they can still look back fondly on their childhood toys and be part of a new, better, more modern, more feminist-leaning era. Oh and hey, also, maybe still buy Barbie dolls for their nieces and daughters.

In other words, the Barbie movie is just one great, big, fairly clever, just-edgy-enough rebranding campaign for the famous doll line. Mattel was onboard, even though the company (led by a feckless Will Farrell as CEO) is painted as the villain (while Ruth Handler, Barbie’s creator, is the equivalent of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Force Ghost).

That’s some pretty slick marketing if you ask me. Barbie is still pink, sure, but pink is cool again. And I am Kenough. (There’s an Obi-Wan Ken joke in here somewhere but I’m not finding it).

What did you think of Barbie? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.