I had a lot of Barbies when I was a little girl. A LOT. I loved Barbie. My mother gave them to me as rewards- for getting good grades, being particularly brave, helping out during a tough time. I had Pilot Barbie, Doctor Barbie, probably Accountant Barbie. I did not have Astronaut Barbie, a fact that haunts me to this day. But I did have a Barbie car and Barbie Dream House and more than one Skipper. My Barbies were smart, stylish, powerful. They were everything I wanted to be when I grew up. And one day, I looked around, and realized that I had achieved it. My friends and I were fun professional women who mentored little girls with weird names. Barbie was always a symbol of what was possible.
Ken, not so much.
Ken was a victim. My brother’s G.I. Joe’s would kidnap him and flush his head down the toilet and General Rainbow Brite and her My Little Pony army would have to go into battle to retrieve his broken body with Jem and the Holograms playing them into battle like soldiers heading towards Valhalla. Eventually he would be recovered, sans head, and Doctor Barbie would patch him up as best she could and then put on a big party to celebrate yet another victory.
In my childhood, Barbie was just more proof that girls were awesome, boys were relatively unnecessary, and I was going to be President or otherwise rule the world.
So I was pretty excited when they announced the Barbie movie.
And then I was un-excited when they announced that it would be written by Greta Gerwig. Greta writes what I like to call “movies focused grouped by white twitter feminists”. Her movies make a certain kind of white woman feel like she is being really deep and political without having to be deep or political at all. Her movies gave us Timothee Chalamet. Her movies are not good.
But, I thought, THIS IS BARBIE. You can’t fuck this up. Surely we all learned when they let JJ make New Star Trek. Surely she would do her level best to make a truly great movie. Sure! Make it feminist and new fashioned and give it a message. But do it well!
Friends, she did not do it well.
Here’s how you know a writer didn’t know what to do with their screenplay- rather than writing characters and plot and dialogue that depict the story that you want to tell and leave the viewers walking away understanding the message you just have one of your main characters give a 15 minute speech in the middle of the movie explaining everything and then spend the next 30 minutes beating the audience over the head with first grade level exposition just to make sure that any of the kids who snuck into the PG-13 movie really really really understand that the patriarchy is bad and being a woman is hard. Hold on, I think I hear another speech coming.
Did this movie have Simu Liu? Yes. Is that enough reason to watch? Honestly, probably.
But, Simu aside, this movie is just an absolute letdown. I haven’t even told you about the 10 minute tweenager’s angry speech explaining to the audience exactly everything that everyone who never actually played with Barbie hates about her.
The fashion- great. The lovely cameo that I will not spoil for you- wonderful. The movie- 2 stars. 2.5- you always get at least half a point for Simu.
We are so much smarter than blockbuster summer films think we are.
Here’s hoping Oppenheimer is better.
Bummer 😞