Note: This story won second place in the “Review” category of the 2024 Pennsylvania Press Club Awards. Congratulations, Bella!
By Isabella Torres ‘24
Explore the mystical Barbieland with Stereotypical Barbie and Beach Ken in Greta Gerwig’s third movie Barbie. A lighthearted commentary on the real world with a spotlight on mother-daughter relationships, it revamps feminism, an ideal that many believe is obsolete, into an easily consumable medium.
Released on July 21, 2023, Barbie grossed $1.44 billion USD and is the highest-grossing film of 2023 and 14th highest-grossing film of all time. You can watch the movie on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, HBO Max, and many more. The movie will also be on cable TV on HBO in the upcoming weeks.
Barbie follows Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), Gloria (America Ferrera), and Gloria’s daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) as they try to stop Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) from turning Barbieland, a thriving matriarchal society into a harmful patriarchal society with his Mojo Dojo Casa House. Gloria and Sasha are a mother and daughter who travel to Barbieland to help the Barbies find their peace again. Barbieland was created to seem like a traditional toy world. Everything was two-dimensional from the pool to the ocean. All of the pastel colors of the set and costumes bring to life the dolls of our childhood.
Greta Gerwig, who has directed two other award-winning films, Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019), took the reins again in Barbie (2023) and is up for more awards heading into the 2024 film award season. Greta Gerwig focuses on common themes in all her films such as mother-daughter relationships, feminism, and women finding their own space in their world.
While some may not like or appreciate that Margot Robbie starred in Barbie, she was never supposed to begin with; she was only meant to produce the movie. Greta Gerwig believed that she was perfect for the role. Margot exceeded expectations in her portrayal of Barbie. Barbie was never meant to be an ‘airhead’ ; she had jobs, dreams, and aspirations just like the girl who played with the doll. It was imperative to the film’s success that Barbie experienced the world, not for its ideal, but for its reality.
A great example of this is when Barbie first meets Sasha. After Sasha bullies Barbie, she feels her first human emotion other than content and joy. The audience can connect with this character because of the realistic emotion she experiences for the first time. While Stereotypical Barbie continues to have an identity crisis, Beach Ken discovers the patriarchy and leaves Barbie in the real world.
The harsh transition from the matriarchal society Barbieland once was to the patriarchal society Ken made, highlighted the experience a young girl has when growing up in a world that does not appreciate her for what she can bring to the table. Gerwig’s introduction to this transition is humorous and lighthearted and again did a great job at making the feminist ideal and experience easy to digest for kids and those alike.
America Ferrera’s monologue that kick starts the revolution in Barbieland perfectly depicted the feminine experience. Greta Gerwig is known for incorporating powerful monologues given by powerful women to widen the understanding of inequality in her films. Gloria validated women’s existence like a universal call to action. Similar to how it rallied the Barbies to band together, it should rally women all over the world. It is an innocent example of feminism in mainstream film.
Barbie is a great introduction for young girls to feminism because of its lighthearted delivery. The humor/comedy and famous actors provide an undemanding political film for people to enjoy. Weaving such a strong message into the movie left the audience with much to think about later. It was not just the toy that made it popular; it was the message.