- It made me question to purpose of life.
- It made me ponder the reason for existence.
- It made me wonder is there a God.
- It made me ask... Why?
Today, we take a look at Barbie.
To the epic swelling orchestral composition of "Thus Sprach Zarathustra", narrator Helen Mirren tells the tale of how little girls had only baby dolls to play with until the arrival of... BARBIE! Now little girls had a role model to inspire them to roles beyond just motherhood. In BARBIE, girls had inspiration to be anything they wanted to be: scientists, astronauts, athletes, corporate and political leaders. Because of BARBIE, girls would grow up to be women, free to be whoever they wanted to be. Because of BARBIE, the world is a better place because women are in charge!
"Thanks to Barbie, all problems of feminism have been solved!"
The Narrator
Well...
Life is certainly good in Barbie Land, a candy-colored plastic heaven of eternal sunshine. It is here that Margot Robbie's Barbie* spend her days, each perfectly magical and magically perfect. For company she has other Barbie's to party with (such as Doctor Barbie, President Barbie and Mermaid Barbie) as well as an endless supply of devoted Kens, led by Gosling's frequently shirtless boy-toy.
Kens are irrelevant.
*Margot Robbie's Barbie is what is referred to as "Stereotypical Barbie", the root source, the quintessential version of what we think of when we think of Barbie.
Barbie is living her best Barbie life with her Barbie friends in her Barbie world and just having a good Barbie time and contemplating death and...
Wait! What?
Thoughts of death? Where the Barbie did that come from?
And then Barbie's perfectly arched feet that fit her perfectly arched shoes go flat.
This is all too weird to deal with.
Which means it's off to a visit to Weird Barbie.
Weird Barbie (played by Kate McKinnon because sometimes the world works like it should) represents all the Barbies that were played with too hard: hair cut, drawn on with crayon, forever posed in a split.
Weird Barbie sends Barbie on a quest to the real world to set things right. Ken (one of them, the Ryan Gosling one) joins Barbie in the real world and...
Well, it's not what Barbie or Ken expected.
Women are not in charge like they are in Barbie Land. Barbie is distressed to learn that girls see "Barbie" as an unfair and unrealistic standard for women.
And Ken discovers the wonders of something called "the patriarchy" and takes what he learns back to Barbie Land and that ain't pretty.
If you go into this movie expecting a light cotton candy day-glo pink concoction filled with Dream House frolic, well, what you get is a reflection on what it means to be human and specifically what it takes for a woman to survive in this crazy world of ours.
Margot Robbie is perfect as Barbie, modulating her performance from plastic smiling serenity to someone becoming more human.
There's a scene late in the movie where Barbie is in full on meltdown mode and sobs that she doesn't feel she's pretty.
Then the narrator adds this: "Note to filmmakers: Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point."
Barbie defies all expectations. In what could've been a 90+ minute commercial for Mattel skewers the corporate toy maker with a scenes of their all male corporate board (headed by Will Ferrell) making decisions with zero input from anyone female about their plans for Barbie.
The bright silly adventures in pink saturated Barbie Land and sun kissed Los Angeles gives way to a dark introspection of life itself when Barbie meets the ghost of Ruth Handler (Rhea Pearlman) who co-created Barbie and decides what she wants next in her existence.
Barbie chooses life.
The movie ends with Barbie, now going by the name "Barbara Handler", all happy about her first visit to a gynecologist.
Leave it to Barbie to turn what most women dread into a happy ending.
Next week, Cinema Sunday takes a look at another recent movie. I have become blogger, destroyer of time.
Next week: Oppenheimer.
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