The kind of entitlement that feeds off of validation. Barbie returns, crushed by the realization that her original, privileged form exists as a consequence of entitlement, and not endeavour. “The Patriarchy Wins,” he chimes gleefully, after consuming steroidal cultural tickers like monster trucks, overlong fur coats and posters of Sylvester Stallone looking like he will eat your eyes with his abs.Ī stand-off ensues, as Ken colonizes Barbieland with ideas inspired by ‘the patriarchy’. Ken, forever a second citizen in Barbieland, on the other hand learns the ways of pompous men.

A mother-daughter duo plays the reflective mirror for this epiphany to eventually take shape. Barbie learns about her lack of agency, the fact that her existence as a symbol of feminine beauty has maybe done more harm than good. Barbie and Ken head into the real world, where they ‘find themselves’, for both good and bad. Instead, Barbie focuses on its political messaging, through a ragged, bubble-gum approach to satire.

The technicality of it all is neither important nor is it afforded any attention. All Kens in Barbieland are obviously in love with Barbie.Īfter she has existential visions about a woman who is unhappy with her doll in the real world, stereotypical Barbie must travel to reality, to suture the time-reality-space-crack thing that has opened up. There is also, of course, Ken, played by a mesmeric Ryan Gosling, who threatens to, at times against the pronounced intent of the film, run away with the film. It’s a tricky role that Robbie pulls off with ease. Robbie plays Barbie with just the right balance of naivety and sensual charm, as the object of both derision and empathy. The fact that the prettiest but dumbest Barbie rules this surreal place has vulgarity and ostentatiousness baked right into the loaf of the film’s first spread of narrative. There is Doctor Barbie, President Barbie, and the ostracized, Weird (euphemism for ugly) Barbie. Margot Robbie plays ‘stereotypical Barbie’, the one true queen of Barbieland, who lives alongside equal, but less-celebrated versions of herself. Is Barbie, the doll, a liberally traded monstrosity or is she more of a caged tragedy in Barbieland, where she is herself but without the potentially liberating idea of everything else she could have been?ĭirected by Greta Gerwig, Barbie, is a feminist odyssey that strips the material idea of a doll to detach it from the burden of conformity that the pink filter of her many versions come to represent.

In both worlds, the character/doll represents a formative question. In a scene from Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, a life-infused doll in ‘Barbieland’ claims: “Thanks to Barbie, the problems of feminism and inequality have been solved.” It’s an early coda to the dismantling-of-a-myth that takes us from the make-believe place of toy manufacturer Mattle’s beloved ‘dollscape’ to reality and back in the film.

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