Greta Gerwig's Feminist Manifesto: Barbie

Warning: This article contains spoilers. 

The blockbuster movie ‘Barbie’ grossed 162 million dollars in its first weekend. The movie was marketed brilliantly with mottos like ‘She is everything’’ and ‘’He is just Ken.’’ The film’s promotion has been eye-catching regarding the color theme and the self-explanatory focal point color pink. The movie turned out to be one-eighty different than what was expected. The audience was prepared for a pink and 'fun and games movie. Although it was all of that, ‘’Barbie’’ is so much more. Barbie is everything, having existential crises and thoughts of death while learning to navigate her everyday life with flat foot syndrome. 

Barbieland and Reality

Greta Gerwig herself stated that she wanted the movie to be anarchic, wild, and funny. ‘’Barbie’’ challenges notions like sexism and patriarchy through the perfect utopia of Barbie's land. While Barbieland is a utopia for the audience it is the reality of barbies in the movie. Barbieland is the location where all the Barbies have occupations to their hearts' desire and are not exposed to sexism because it does not exist, to begin with. Therefore, the initiation process on which Barbie embarks underlines the utopian elements of her pre-reality world. Upon Barbie’s arrival to the real world, her perception of what reality is shifts and new dynamics start to play into her knowledge of society and womanhood.

The montage where Barbies are shown to collect awards is significant when it comes to this matriarchal collective habitat since Barbies respond to winning trophies with sentences like ‘’Thank you. I worked hard and I deserve it.’’ This further emphasizes women and their efforts to place themselves in containers that do not engulf them as a whole anymore, the environments from which they have grown but still force themselves to stay due to an inferiority complex or the pre-established social hierarchy where men tend to possess the majority of the manager titles as it can be seen from MATTEL establishment where the manager and all the other essential members are male.

It is important to note that while Barbie is sexually harassed as soon as she sets her flat foot into the real world, Ken can roam the streets without being a sex object. In this scene, Barbie even mentions how she feels too self-aware, but in a bad way because she is treated as a product of sexist male desires.

Ken’s discovery of the notion of patriarchy is an important element in the movie since he then proceeds to shift the dynamics of Barbieland through ill acts like looting and self-proclaiming Barbie’s dreamhouse, brainwashing all the other Barbies and maintaining this status quo with other Kens through comradeship that stemmed from being men.

The Phallic Symbol or The Lack Thereof

Barbie and Ken have a scene where Barbie explains that neither of them has genitals. Barbieland and its utopic quality, therefore is maintained through the non-existence of female and male genitalia, since the phallic is the epitome symbol for power and influence. An environment in which the penis cannot be found produces inevitable neutrality regarding gender-specific roles and expectations since the real world largely operates on the heteronormative understanding of gender and sex. 

Sasha’s ‘’Woke’’ Personality and Gloria’s Speech

With the hopes of ‘’correcting’’ her depressive state and especially her ‘flat foot,’ Barbie arrives in the real world where she finds Sasha, who Barbie thinks is the source of her defects. To Barbie’s total surprise and disappointment, Sasha hates Barbie and the ideals to which it caters as a symbol of impossible-to-achieve perfection. Sasha delivers a speech as to why Barbie promotes unrealistic beauty standards and how these unrealistic standards are imposed on women in the real world since they are expected to account for the beauty standard. Later Barbie discovers that the reason why she has changed both mentally and physically is Sasha’s mother, Gloria.

Gloria’s monologue about womanhood is either loved or hated. The reason why people think the speech is poor is because it befalls, for some, surface-level. However, Barbie, as in the movie, was never marketed as a feminist movie in any of the trailers or posters. The motive was not to gain clout from the feminist discourse as people discovered this aspect of the movie simultaneously as they were watching it. Therefore, from a movie that did not even participate in innuendos regarding its political stance, it cannot be expected that the feminist agenda it promotes ought to be found within the subtext or in between the lines or intricate symbols.

Furthermore, the movie was promoted for everyone, meaning all legal ages and all genders were subject to the message of the movie. Regarding the fact that little girls, boys, and people of all ages and sexes were going to watch the movie, Gloria’s speech about womanhood and women never being acknowledged as good or even enough no matter what they do and how they do it had to be spoon-fed, in a way. I think America Ferrera’s great acting compensated for the simplicity of the deliverance when it comes to her character’s iconic monologue. 

Ken’s Arc

In a movie where the motto for Barbie is ‘’She is everything,’’ and for Ken it is ‘’He is just Ken,’’ the fact that Ken even got a whole character arc is vital in terms of the movie’s feminist agenda. Ken’s self-indulgent ideas and selfish motives to make Barbieland a place where patriarchy reigned were reminiscent of the real world and his experience when he was there. The movie has a lot of funny scenes that reference the fraud and so-called gender-equal companies and institutions such as the answer a man gives to Ken, ‘’We do it. We just hide it better.’’ when he asks if they are not doing the patriarchy anymore.  

Ken is rejected by Barbie regarding his romantic feelings throughout the whole movie and he is offended by her approach toward him. He even sings ‘’I am just Ken. Anywhere else I’d be 10.’’ In this way, the ‘anywhere else’ in question stands for the real world. Ken’s fragile masculinity is affected even more so when he discovers the real world and what it means to be a man there, hence his attempts to transform the Barbieland into a place of patriarchal ruling and the Barbie's Dreamhouse into ‘’Mojo Dojo Casa House.’’

By the end of the movie, Barbie and Ken reconcile and Ken still asks for a kiss in terms of his romantic tendencies toward her and Barbie rejects him once again. In the end, Barbie apologizes to Ken, which is evocative of Barbie respecting and loving him despite his self-interested deeds while Ken and other Kens neither compensate for their actions nor face their consequences. Barbies take Barbieland back with teamwork and the previous harmony is restored. Kens still have the same rights and do not face discrimination, sexism, or sexual assault. The scene where president Barbie says maybe in the future Kens could even have a place in diplomatic affairs as much as women do in the real world is a both funny and sarcastic detail. 

Motherhood

Ruth is the creator of Barbie. Barbie meets Ruth in the MATTEL building and she makes another appearance at the end of the movie. Barbie, having undergone a transition after she visits the real world, is baffled by the purpose of her life and the meaning of her existence. Barbie wants to be the doer of the thing and the creator and not the product itself. So, she asks Ruth if she can be human and Ruth answers she can interfere as much as she can with her daughter.  ‘’We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they have come.’’ This quote of Ruth highlights the altruistic tendencies of motherhood and the prerequisites of maternal existence that come before womanhood. Ruth’s appearance was such a heart-melting touch to the movie as she also states that Barbie’s name was inspired by her daughter, Barbara. "Humans only have one end. Ideas live forever." This quote of Ruth tells that Barbie, as an idea, is immortal and therefore Barbie’s real human experience will not take away from Barbie as a product. 

The Final Scene

The scene with which the movie closes is brilliant in terms of Barbie’s real-world experience as a ‘real’ woman. Barbie is shown to wear business casual clothing as she enters a building. Just as the audience thinks she is there for a possible job interview she says she is there for her appointment with her gynecologist. Barbie did not apply for a powerful position, she did not try to be the president, and she did not change the whole system, but she was just being a woman, showing up for her doctor's appointment. The ending scene is, therefore, reminiscent of the whole movie, since if Barbie can be everything, so can you.