Barbie (2023)

[Retinend]

I knew going in that the film would try to have its cake (be a film that attempts to critique the phenomenon and social effects) and eat it (be a moneyspinning film about a very problematic emblem of the late 20th century; to be part of its product range) too but I guess not even I could be cynical enough to see just how finely tuned this is as product and something that attempts to shut down any critique of itself.

The basics of the film are really what drives my rating (3/10?) - the narrative is plodding and predictable and all of the jokes of that sassy upbeat/aside American stripe just fell on increasingly deaf ears. Every time Will Ferrell did his constipated bit I wanted to claw my own eyes out.

Though obviously a great deal of thought went in to the way that the film looks (arguably its one strength) I just eye rolled my way through all two increasingly maddening hours. It is deeply insecure about how smart it is and needs you to know every minute with a reference.

Apparently it's the world that misunderstood Barbie and projected all kinds of problems onto it; Barbie was actually a liberation from terrible baby dolls that encoded motherhood as natural; Barbie was a figure of aspiration who had various jobs and was not secondary to a man.

Does anyone with half a brain really buy any of this? I don't mind a film that attempts to rethink things, even things we might have written off as disposable and injurious (especially those things!) - but ultimately it just washes up in this wishy-washy 'womanhood is plural, find who you really are' balderdash.

Note: saw it with four other people, one of whom said I could never understand this film as a man. Take that however you like.

Thank you - it was very cathartic to read this. A shit version of Enchanted, both campy and pretentious to equal measure.

After revealing my opinion I was also told afterwards by the women cowatching I didn't like it because I am a man. Whatever. I consider this film a massive advert for Mattel, and it's sad if it's successfully clothed itself as a manifesto for womankind.

[Retinend]

let me guess the plot

product is good, not bad like you think. because it help people be themselves and be different, not be all the same like society would want. some bad feminists thought differently in the past but we have good feminists now who see that product is good. being different and being yourself is a powerful message, very progressive. we've only recently started having media with that

Wow you actually nailed it. You really didn't watch it?

[selectivememory]

I know it's essentially a feature-length toy advert, but still, I would have appreciated a bit more subtlety in its messaging. Found it very tedious and didactic on the whole.

I liked Ryan Gosling and all the Kens, and all the stuff with him imposing his deranged vision of patriarchy on Barbieland was funny and quite a decent, if safe satire. And the film looked pretty good. Some great set and costume design at least.

I dunno, two stars maybe...  Gosling really carried the film though.

[madhair60]

i'm watching this and finding it quite irritating and hard going. the kind of arch hollywood "subversion" that's more predictable than the source material it's supposedly mocking.

[Blue Jam]

Saw this again at the weekend (National Cinema Day innit) and now think they missed a trick not casting Rob McElhenney as one of the Kens. All Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House™ needed was a mini fridge full of Fight Milk™.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Wow you actually nailed it. You really didn't watch it?

no every "good actually" piece of meme media has been this for 10 years

that structure is our generations version of a passion play

[Mister Six]

I haven't read the thread yet so this might already have been covered, but I saw this and thought it was about as good a film as you can expect from a couple of rich white liberals writing a licensed film about this particular children's toy.

Which is to say - it's very funny, but also weirdly passive and terrified of actually pushing for any change. Mattel's higher-ups remain a cabal of grey-suited men disinterested in anything other than money. Gloria doesn't appear to have found a calling suiting her creative urges, or even left Mattel. The Barbies are woken from their stupor by Gloria telling them about the horrors of living under patriarchy, but there's no indication of how it can be fought - or even that it can be fought - in the real world. At the end, Barbie supremacy is restored, but the Kens and ugly Barbies are given a few pathetic concessions by their rulers, with the promise that the Kens might one day be allowed to ascend to the same social level as oppressed women in the real world.

It's also a bit disingenuous in its gestures towards inclusiveness and satire. Lawyer Barbie is fat, but there was never a Barbie doll as fat as actress Sharon Rooney (the real-life "Curvy" Barbie just looks like a regular woman). They joke about Mattel being run by men, but those men are shown to be stewards of Barbieworld attempting to stop it being infected by patriarchy (even when the patriarchal Kendom sells more). There's a gag about Barbie's creator being taken down for tax evasion, but that same creator is presented as a godlike figure dispensing wisdom and happy endings.

So yeah, it's a funny (if meandering and lazily structured) movie, but all the talk about it being this incredible blow for feminism feels a bit overstated. I guess it's radical enough to have had some positive effects in less socially progressive societies though (an uptick in the sale of comfortable shoes for women in China has been attributed to the film).

Apparently it's the world that misunderstood Barbie and projected all kinds of problems onto it; Barbie was actually a liberation from terrible baby dolls that encoded motherhood as natural; Barbie was a figure of aspiration who had various jobs and was not secondary to a man.

Does anyone with half a brain really buy any of this?

Letting little girls play out adult roles was actually the inspiration behind the creation of the Barbie, though. Obviously the primary motivation was profit and originally she was just a "teenage model", but the idea that the Barbie toys are good because they allow girls to play out roles as doctors, astronauts etc (albeit ones with unrealistic body proportions) has been floating around for decades, in line with the development of the toys themselves.

[Mister Six]

Oh, and there wasn't enough Ncuti Gatwa.

[dead-ced-dead]

I'd agree with all that's said above. It has a very 90s view on feminism and progressivism, but it's funny enough to get away with it (for the most part).

At its best it has a similar tone to classic Simpsons (though not as good), which is no bad thing. At its worst its jokes sometimes get a groan. And when its laughs don't click it gives you a second or two to think how the world isn't working for you, but there's more than enough gut laughs.

I saw it twice and both times the advert for the Barbie binging Pride and Prejudice and doom scrolling Instagram tore the fucking roof off.

Production design is wonderful, too.

7/10.

[madhair60]

unfortunately i didn't find it funny at all so it was all that misguided crap and zero laughs. I'm staggered by the hold it seems to have got on people.

[popcorn]

unfortunately i didn't find it funny at all so it was all that misguided crap and zero laughs. I'm staggered by the hold it seems to have got on people.

Did you not even find the joke about the Kens building a wall tall instead of wide funny?

[madhair60]

i don't remember it

[popcorn]

Try to remember it.

[famethrowa]

I really hate hate HATE the tired old joke of someone surprised so badly by someone unexpectedly appearing in the back seat that they both scream at each other and crash the car. And yet this 2023 movie attempts it thrice, in an effort to make it meta?

[popcorn]

I really hate hate HATE the tired old joke of someone surprised so badly by someone unexpectedly appearing in the back seat that they both scream at each other and crash the car.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I'm afraid I don't think I'll ever watch this because it's about a children's toy, isn't it. Does anyone even get shot or blown up or anything? Rubbish.

[Glebe]

Wasn't all that impressed with this. There are a couple of funny gags but I thought it was pretty clumsy tbh. Sorry Greta Gerwig.

[George White]

I haven't seen it even though it has Hari Nef (one of the most beautiful women on Earth, who alongside Hunter Schafer, proves that trans women can be more attractive than any cis woman, I say can because I am not saying that Debbie Hayton or that Ivan Reitman lookalike in pearl earrings who lives near me are more attractive than the average cis woman).

[popcorn]

It's really great that you see a trans woman as one of the women on earth.