Some thoughts on Barbie

For all the uproar, the movie seemed neither feminist nor anti-feminist

I didn’t know much about the Barbie movie before going to see it. In fact, I was not even planning on seeing it or aware that it would be something I would be interested in. But as many people I know poured in to see it, and as much discourse emerged, I accepted an invite to go check it out last weekend.

This film has attracted lots of commentary from conservative or anti-woke centrist reviewers. Within this camp are first what one may deem the passionate haters. Under this view, Barbie is a woke and gratuitously man-hating feminist manifesto. I will write how I can see why it is interpreted that way, but disagree with this interpretation. The other camp views Barbie as hardly feminist, using devices like satire to point out the absurdity of modern feminism and its claims about patriarchy.

I got something a bit different out of it, which I will try to articulate in this review.

The film starts by portraying the ostensibly ideal world of Barbie-land, where all the meaningful work and leadership roles are done by women - AKA, the Barbies. We are soon introduced to the Kens, who seek the attention of Barbie and are clearly depicted as some kind of subordinate in Barbieland, subject to the dictates of the Barbies. Beach-Ken (Ryan Gosling) attempts to impress Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) throughout the film.

Off the bat, I can see why this would be interpreted as some sort of vindictive female fantasy: the Supreme Court is all women. The President is a woman. It is taken as a given that women hold all the positions of power. Because these have been traditionally male institutions, one may few this as flipping the switch and asking men “how does that feel?” Particularly in a world where men seem to not exist independent from their attachment to the women.

But the film is not endorsing the order of Barbieland as one that is the most moral or correct. It is simply portraying an aesthetically feminine landscape where women live worry-free. Initially, this may seem appealing to women. But it is devoid of emotion and human connection. The Barbies are worshipped by the Kens, but never make any genuine connection with them. Their friendships with each other are superficial, as are their emotions in general. In the end, when Barbie finds out what it is like to feel - as humans do - she opts to enter the real world and leave Barbieland. That is, she chooses a social order where male-female relationships are more complex, where she may experience pain and discomfort, over what some would believe to be a utopia for women.

America Ferrera’s speech in the movie is another that may be taken as evidence of its feminist message. To be sure, many of the things she says in the speech have been stated by feminists. But nothing in the speech really disparages men. Part of it speaks to the unique issues that women face (though some of them are admittedly dated). More importantly, however, it is not clear that Ferrera’s character serves to endorse a particular worldview. What her speech culminates in is a restoration of the superficial Barbieland order (which Robbie’s character chooses to leave) and a profit generation idea for Mattel. Ferrera seeks to have Barbies with imperfections to set more realistic standards for women, which we find out does not really threaten the status quo she opposes. In fact, Mattel quickly embraces her idea as one that will bring it ample profits.

This was not a long scene in the movie, but one that I think is pertinent to our culture. Right now, feminism is an aesthetic to be sold. It is embraced by corporate boards not because they are genuinely oriented toward improving the wellbeing of women everywhere, but because what sells now is the aesthetic of resistance. We can disavow the system as unjust while making record profits, feeling good because we have paid lip service to the injustice of the system. This is precisely what well-meaning Ferrera inspires. What she says will resonate with women who try hard to be perfect and experience struggles women face. But as a device in the film, its impact in the real world is to sell more products. This is how “conscious” or “social justice” capitalism operates. While selling products traditionally appealed to peoples’ desire for status, today’s product sales often appeal to peoples’ desire for moral status. Someone signals how moral their worldview is - and how they are - by how they consume. Ferrera’s character ushers Mattel into this new era of capitalist consumption.

One other theme some have picked up on is Ken’s somewhat comical attempt to institute patriarchy in Barbieland. Upon entering the real world, Ken feels more respect from his peers than he feels in Barbieland. He realizes that Barbieland does not need to be the way that it is, and, upon learning about “patriarchy”, decides to institute it there. He establishes it quickly to the enjoyment of the Kens and to the dismay of Robbie’s Barbie. But it is just as superficial in the inverse. The Kens do not make genuine connections with the Barbies or with each other. Their activities are the same type of superficial activities as those of the Barbies, but simply gendered differently. It falls rather quickly after the Barbies turn the Kens against each other by making them jealous of each other, making the Kens look aloof and unintelligent.

But the Barbies’ plans also reveal something about women that modern feminism is often unable to acknowledge: as the weaker sex, women use emotional and sexual manipulation to achieve their aims. Women know that men desire them sexually and that - like women - are prone to jealousy when pursuing these desires. The Barbies do not earn their land back earnestly or by defeating the patriarchy by moral appeal, but by feminine emotional manipulation. At the end of the day, they do not come out as the paragon of virtue, but as women who have used their abilities to pursue their interests. Like socially conscious capitalism, they may also lie to themselves and argue it is in pursuit of a moral aim to disguise the fact that it is a pursuit of personal interest.

(I do not say that to disparage women, by the way. Rather, I am pointing out how women have been relegated to fight for themselves for centuries when in unideal social positions or when physically less powerful than men.)

While there is much to be derived from the film, the fundamental message I got from it was not pro- or anti-feminist. Rather, it depicted a land that was strictly run by either men or women, and that this land was profoundly superficial. While those in charge may have enjoyed those benefits, this fantasy land lacked the profound connection and emotion that we have in a world where men and women interact in far more complex ways. The film shows us that those feelings are worth it, and its protagonist ultimately chooses this world over one strictly ruled by women, and where she is worshipped by men.

It also reveals the nature of liberal capitalism, where feminism is fundamentally a commodity: the material advancement of women is not achieved by switching the power order of a superficial fantasy land. Nor is it achieved by simply changing the appearance of some of the dolls girls are compelled to consume. It ends by everyone simply feeling good about themselves, which accurately reflects human moral pursuits in the Western world today.