Further than the Plastic: Analyzing The Barbie Movie
Barbie, 2023
Directed By: Greta Gerwig
The film "Barbie" is about Barbieland, a matriarchal society where women are confident in themselves, independent, and successful, and is home to stereotypical Barbie and a vast variety of other Barbies. The Barbies hold important jobs like doctors, lawyers, and politicians while the Kens spend their days relaxing at the beach. Beach Ken feels that Barbie makes him happy and tries to get closer to her, but she rejects him because of her independence and the value of her female relationships. Barbie becomes overwhelmed with concerns about her mortality during a dance party. The next day, she learns she can't seem to accomplish her usual tasks and that she has cellulite and flattened feet (like regular people). Weird Barbie, a clever but deformed Barbie tells Stereotypical Babrie that she has to go into the real world and find the child who is playing with her in order to recover from her state. Then, Barbie discovers Ken hiding in her convertible as she makes her trip to the real world and hesitantly lets him come with her. When the two arrive at Venice Beach, their presence in the real world alarms the CEO of Mattel, who orders their capture. The point of the trip was for Barbie to find the child playing with her and instead, she finds Sasha, a teen girl who once owned Barbie. Sahsa meets Barbie and accuses her of promoting unattainable beauty standards and of being a fascist. Confounded, Barbie learns that her existential crisis was caused by Gloria, a Mattel worker, and Sasha's mother. Gloria, who was going through her own identity problem, started playing with Sasha's Barbie toys and unintentionally transferred her worries to Barbie (since the doll is connected to the person that is playing with it). Barbie is then on the run from the CEO of Mattel and his employees, and the three of them then journey to Barbieland. In the real world, Ken discovers the patriarchal system and experiences his first feelings of respect and acceptance. He convinces the other Kens to take control when he returns to Barbieland, where the Barbies get placed in submissive roles like servants, housewives, and accommodating girlfriends. When Stereotypical Barbie arrives, she tries to convince Ken and the other Barbies to go back to how things were, but she is rejected. She falls into a deep depression, but Gloria comforts her by giving her a motivational speech about what it truly means to be a woman. Sasha, Gloria, Weird Barbie, Allan, and other discarded dolls encourage the Barbies to break free from the Kens and manipulate them into fighting among themselves so that the Barbies can regain their positions of authority and stop the Kens from changing the constitution to guarantee male superiority. The Barbies also recognize the flaw in their former social structure and settle to make some changes in Barbieland, including improved treatment of the Kens and all other dolls who are considered outcasts. Barbie and Ken admit their mistakes and apologize to one another. Barbie pushes Ken to develop an independent identity in response to Ken's concern that he lacks a feeling of identity and purpose without her. Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel and the person who created Barbie, appears to Barbie when she is still unclear about her own identity and purpose. Ruth Handler tells Barbie that her tale is unfinished and that her history has expanded beyond her beginnings.
The Plot driver of the Barbie movie is stereotypical Barbie's physical changes at the beginning of the film. Changes such as having flat feet and gaining cellulite. If it wasn't for those changes, she wouldn't have gone to weird Barbie about her issues and started her quest. Her existential crisis was also connected to the changes that she was going through, but just those thoughts she was having wouldn't have been enough for her to try to go get help. Even though one might think that it was her existential crisis that was the main plot driver, if you look between the lines, it was because of the physical changes that she was having that starts her journey throughout the movie.
The 3 main acts of the film begin with, when Stereotypical Barbie had discovered the issues she was having. Such as physical changes and thoughts about death and suffering. These issues made her visit Weird Barbie, an outcast and reject of Barbieland. The advice she was given was to go journey to the real world to find the child playing with her in order to help fix their issues resulting in her own being fixed too. Barbie rides in her convertible to the real world, and on the way she finds Ken in her backseat and reluctantly takes him with her on the trip. When they arrive, Barbie is hit with the reality of our world and how all the issues she thought were of the past are still very present in our day in age. Such as the way men act and treat women and how we live in patriarchy vs The Matriarchy of Barbieland.
Barbie's mission was to find the person playing with her and once she does, she realizes that her mission isn't going to be as easy as she thought it would be. She was first under the impression that the one playing with her was a teen girl named Sasha but she comes to find that it is actually her mother who was projecting her dark thoughts and feelings. After this discovery, Gloria, Sasha's mother agrees to go with Barbie to Barbieland but they come to find that Barbieland was not how they left it. Ken made it to Barbieland first, inspired by the respect he gained in the real world, and taught all the Kens a new way of living which in turn affected the Barbies' way of living too. When Gloria, Barbie, and Sasha arrive they devise a plan in order to restore the order of the way things were before. As a result, Barbie discovers that there is so much more to life than she thought there was and she found the beauty in the little things and as a result, her perspective was changed. Sidenote: at the very end of the movie she is visited by the original owner of Mattel (the Barbie company) and this scene teaches her about life and true love.
The main character change of the film is Barbie herself. At the beginning of the movie, she starts off as a kind but vapid character given the fact that she is "Stereotypical Barbie" Although a good person, her personality didn't offer many distinguishing qualities. Throughout the film, she goes through several changes. Just her going to the real world and discovering the beauty in life changes her outlook on things. At a certain point during the film, she breaks down because all the other Barbies have distinguishing factors such as being presidents, congresswomen, astronauts, and positions of power while simultaneously she is "stereotypical Barbie" and that's what she is "supposed to be good at" but I think its discovered through the course of the movie is that she is a leader and she learns that herself too.
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