I’m tired of being told we’ve achieved gender equality: what can we learn from Greta Gerwig’s Barbie 2023?
Antonia Jenkinson 25/07/23
This post contains spoilers for Barbie (2023).
With Greta Gerwig’s previous directorial work leaning more into the art-house independent style of cinema with Ladybird and Little Women, Barbie (2023) could be jarring on a first watch with its musical numbers, vibrant childlike aesthetics, and of course being about a toy. To fully appreciate Barbie, it must be understood outside the realms of Gerwig’s existing work. I’m not going to reminisce about my nostalgia for playing with barbies – in fact, until this film, I was against promoting Barbie to young girls under the fear of unhealthy self-image. Barbie is an outlier in Gerwig’s cinematographic portfolio and this theme of appreciating individuality outside of expectations is precisely how I intend to lead into writing about Barbie.
To explore an existentialism in femininity with nuance is not easy, particularly when creating a script intended for 12A blockbuster audiences. Achieving such levels of self-reflection, both individually and societally is a triumph. Gerwig manages to compact decades old and contemporary twenty-first century misogyny into an hour and forty-five minutes is not only educational and introspective, but thoroughly entertaining and beautiful to look at.
There seem to be two fundamental misunderstandings at the film’s debut; one being that it is a misandrist piece of media, and the other being that intelligent politics cannot coexist with a blockbuster film. I would like to draw attention to the fact that these two misconceptions are integrally intertwined. Reviews coming in from the likes of Fox News query a supposed misandry flowing through the veins of the film. It seems to me that to reach such an anti-feminist, scaremongering conclusion, one must have attended a screening both blinded with ear defenders on, as the entire point of the movie establishes that for people to exist in harmony with the complexity of human consciousness, no one can be superior. Barbie does not ask audiences to presume that the way forward is replacing patriarchy with matriarchy – it clearly recognises that, as Simone De Beauvoir notes in Le Deuxieme Sexe, the only way to revolutionise patriarchy is to abolish and rebuild. In fact, Ryan Gosling’s Ken acts as the perfect example of this, by attempting to swap out female power for male power, and coming to the realisation that neither are sustainable, the film vocalises that gender equality is the only way to maintain fairness and democracy in Barbieland.
Life in plastic isn’t always fantastic…
Of course, an industry propped up on the subjugation of those with less power will never fully accurately express the intricacies of intersectionality, not to mention how out of touch Hollywood production is with modern feminism. Barbie’s critiques of patriarchy are unfortunately limited to a predominantly white, able-bodied, privileged perspective, and there absolutely still exists a huge gap in the film industry exploring why women of colour experience feminism differently to white women. I of course also expect that given the huge box office success of Barbie in its opening weekend, this vocal public desire for political media will be capitalised upon, and it is hugely important to recognise superficial attempts at recreating revolution for profit. Without question, the possibility that Mattel has appropriated the language of empowerment in a hollow attempt to profit off of feminism is no abstract reality. However, Barbie provides an incredibly powerful, and approachable, launch pad for the masses to critically analyse surroundings. In my opinion, its failings do not outweigh the potential for change, and perhaps simultaneously highlight the necessity for intersectional platforming in big budget film. Whether or not you think Barbie is too political, or not political enough is a central focus of the film: women have always been unwillingly inherent political devices, rather than people.
Perhaps it’s optimistic, but I have high hopes that Gerwig’s Barbie, thanks to its fantastic marketing and content, will assume a catalytic position in introducing radical feminist conversations to young generations in a way that is accessible, without being patronising.
We are all just ordinary barbies, trying our best to exist in a demanding world of complicated double standards that permeate our reality. Slowly, but surely, we learning to become individual, not just women, dolls. Each time we pass on our experiences of womanhood to the next generation, it becomes easier to embrace identity outside of hegemonic femininity.
Gerwig, and Barbie, ask us the simple question: What were we made for? And the answer is up to us to decide.