When I was a kid, Aqua's "Barbie Girl" was the jam. I remember dancing to it like crazy in first grade or something. Not having the slightest clue what it meant. An age of innocence, yet as I grew, I always wondered about the "undress me everywhere" lyric. I mean, didn't you?
Anyway, I wrote a couple of days ago about going to see Barbie, the desperately amped-up latest offering from Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach. Remember when the movie industry had these big names, and you went to see a movie from them, and were just guaranteed a success? Who are those names today? I'd count Nolan, but Oppenheimer's still got me biased. As for the rest, I struggle to think of a director whose work is a hit-after-hit scenario.
Going into the theater, I'd heard "Barbie" talked up (or down, if you will) as this uber-politicized, extremely progressive liberal propaganda. Bizarrely, I walked away liking it, which makes me wonder if it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, or if I am going soft in my old age.
It starts out abysmal, with every shade of candy pink you can imagine, and Barbie living her best life in Barbie Land, where basically girls run the world and Kens are all dumb jocks. Admittedly, a lot of hate aimed at the guys here, but true enough, in the official Barbie lore, Ken is nothing without Barbie. He has no personality of his own, so maybe the Kens' ludicrous behavior is less about taking a swing at masculinity, and more just being true to the lore? I hope so, at least.
Naturally, there's a reversal of roles in Barbie Land, after Ken becomes exposed to the real-world patriarchy and instantly falls in love with a world where men rule the world. And from there, it's basically the women trying to wrestle back power from dumb jocks.
Surprisingly, it's got more than a few comedic moments that actually had me laughing out loud, which is rare for me, especially with modern comedy.
Sitting through the movie, I got the impression of listening to a story we all know is not quite true, but we've all somehow agreed to believe. For some reason. That was the pervading feeling in the movie theater. We're sat here, and we're supposed to agree that the patriarchy is shit, right? Men are bad, and being a woman is oh so difficult and terrible, which gives us the right to throw shit at the men.
I came away thinking sure, I had fun. I'm a girl. As a guy, I don't think I would've enjoyed it as much. Not because "Barbie" uncovers harsh truths about being a privileged white male. Rather, it wishes it would, but that's all it is, a desire that falls short. What the movie does do is reaffirm the narrative (as stated above, women rule and should be throwing shit at evil, misogynist men). It does end on a sweet message of unity, although personally, I felt more could've been done to dismantle this gender divide that's already raging in our society.
I agree being a woman is hard. But I don't think being a bully is gonna make it easier. I don't think telling men to shut up and feel bad about themselves is gonna make being a woman easier, either. It makes no sense from a psychological perspective, because that's not healthy conversation.
If you're having a healthy relationship with someone, repeatedly yelling at them "Here are all the things that bug me" is only going to weaken your relationship. It won't make them respect and cherish and change everything that's messed up about your life together. It will only lead to accumulated frustration and resentment.
Eventually, the other person will always blow up, tired of hearing all the ways in which they're wrong and you're right.
It just seems to me, in this gender-equal world, we should be focusing more on healthy discourse. Here's what's wrong with you. And here's what's wrong with me. Now how do we work it out together? That's a healthy relationship.
Sadly, there is a brief moment where Barbie might've taken a turn towards a genuinely thought-provoking piece about society, and how the two genders interact in the 21st century. From my seat, it feels as if the creators either toe that line then get scared, or don't quite have the tools to handle that kind of movie. Frankly, I'm not familiar with Gerwig's work, but of what I've seen of Baumbach's that seems to be a recurring theme -- aspiring to a faux-intellectual movie.
Back to Barbie, all the above is from the political perspective. If you don't read so much into it, it is quite a fun movie, or at least it was for me. It's also about what you want to see in it. If you go convinced it's liberal crap, it's gonna sound like liberal crap. If you go willing to let some propaganda slide, it'll come off as a regular fun night.
(and I'm no fan of letting propaganda slide for the sake of entertainment. I just think everyone needs an easy, fun night every once in a while.)
Does it compare to Oppenheimer? Not even in the same radius. Their similarities begin and end with the premiere date. But as I previously noted, the whole "Barbenheimer" thing is and always has been a marketing strategy. Treat it as such.
