BARBIE 🧵 *spoiler alert*
Barbieland is a feminist utopia, which inspires but also disappoints because it can never actually exist and wouldn't be desirable even if it did. There is no pregnancy in Barbieland. There is no future. It's the eternal, pointless present. (1/)
Barbieland is a feminist utopia, which inspires but also disappoints because it can never actually exist and wouldn't be desirable even if it did. There is no pregnancy in Barbieland. There is no future. It's the eternal, pointless present. (1/)
The narrator shows us all the different types of Barbies in Barbieland: President Barbie, Doctor Barbie, et al. But there's one Barbie that was discontinued: Pregnant Barbie. No motherhood allowed here. (2/)
The feminist utopia is not for adults. It's childish. And it's dark. Upon discovering Barbie in the very first scene, an homage to "2001: A Space Odyssey," little girls who had been playing happily with baby dolls begin to destroy them. Feminism makes girls kill babies. (3/)
When Barbie becomes self-conscious and cracks appear in the apparent bliss of Barbieland, feminist guru Weird Barbie presents Stereotypical Barbie with a choice: the blue pill of fantasy, represented by high heels, or the red pill of reality, represented by birkenstocks. (4/)
She chooses the heels. But Weird Barbie won't let her. Weird Barbie only gave Stereotypical Barbie the illusion of choice. One recalls Simone de Beauvoir's demand that women not be given the choice to stay home because too many would take it. (5/)
Men are nothing but ornaments for women in "Barbieland," creations of the feminist fantasy. Hence Ken's fascination with (and misunderstanding of) "patriarchy" when he visits the real world. (6/)
Ken performs a caricature of manliness when he returns to "Kendom"—the "toxic masculinity" of men reacting against feminism without training in proper manliness—but he still folds whenever Barbie looks his way. Hence Barbie's insistence that he discover his true identity. (7/)
A right-wing criticism of the movie is that Barbie and Ken don't end up together. Of course they don't: Ken is a simp and a cuck. He's a product of feminist fantasy. Even at the end, he says, "I'm a liberated man! I know crying's not weak." No normal woman wants a wimp. (8/)
Ken's not a husband. He's a "long-term, low-commitment boyfriend." Barbie needs a real man to achieve her goal. She won't find it in the feminist utopia of Barbieland, nor will she find it in Kendom, the flipside of the Barbieland coin. She'll only find it in the real world. (9/)
What's her goal? By the end, it's no longer to be a girlboss publicly in charge of everything. The real-world mother in the story, while lamenting the 'impossibility' of being a woman, bemoans specifically the demands that feminism, not nature or tradition, makes of women. (10/)
The real-world mother concludes her speech by requesting a Barbie for whom "it's okay to just want to be a mom." Ruth, creator of Barbie, underscores this point when Barbie, during her visit to reality, asks, "Women work here?" Ruth responds, "We do more than work here." (11/)
This line has two meanings. On one hand, Ruth does more than "work" in that she's the creator, not merely an employee. On the other, she does "more" than work. The film consistently insists that work is neither the only nor the most important thing that women do. Family is. (12/)
By the way, although in the "patriarchal" real world men wield all the public power, it's always women who advance the plot, largely unnoticed, through subtle actions such as sketching a doll. "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." (13/)
The feminist conception of patriarchy isn't real. As Ruth's godlike character explains, "Humans make things up—like 'patriarchy' and 'Barbie,'" to cope with a difficult and confusing world. (14/)
But there's a trans character—with whom Ken flirts! Sure, in the feminist utopia. The handsome Kens are also gaga for homely Barbies in Barbieland. It's a feminist fantasy—a fantasy that Barbie ultimately rejects as inferior to the real, supposedly patriarchal world. (15/)
When even a modicum of reality enters Barbieland through a rift in spacetime, the feminist posture of the Barbies collapses—e.g., President Barbie gives up her office to serve a Ken—and they're happier than they were before. (16/)
Eventually, feminists snap the Barbies out of their complacency with patriarchy. This is presented as a cure to brainwashing. But the "cure" is just another brainwashing, more active and less natural than that which got the Barbies to embrace patriarchy in the first place. (17/)
Once Barbieland has been restored to a feminist utopia, what happens? Barbie rejects it and chooses to live in reality. Why? To pursue her dream. And what's her dream? Family. Not to be a girlboss. Not to get a job—to have kids. (18/)
In the final scene, Barbie enters an office building, walks up to the receptionist, and says she's here for her appointment. We assume it's a job interview until Barbie is asked and responds, "I'm here to see...my gynecologist!" (19/)
It's a joke about Barbie's plastic pelvis. It's also a vivid declaration of her telos, the consummation of the (conservative, anti-feminist, pro-family, pro-motherhood) theme of the entire movie established in the very first scene. (20/)
Also, the performances and cinematography are terrific.
tl;dr: Greta Gerwig is a serious, sophisticated, marvelous filmmaker. (/fin)
tl;dr: Greta Gerwig is a serious, sophisticated, marvelous filmmaker. (/fin)
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