Barbie!

[Prrambulate]

Who’s watching this? I think it’s going to have a massive opening week in the UK.

I’m so intrigued. At once a very subversive film, penned by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach; on another level, a film so heavily marketed that it seems to have entered the cultural mainstream. I wonder how it will straddle those tensions.

It was ok, a simplistic nod to feminism, but not the worst thing for a tween girl to watch. The end let it down.
Much preferred Oppenheimer

@burnoutbabe OSCAR WINNING costume designer.
I would say that is someone special.
Not “just a costume designer”.

Barbie is dream world. Think of it like Sweden but it doesn't exist, an imagination. America F made Barbie come to life. The drawing and feeling made it real. That is why she makes the speech, it was more for her self-affirmation while thinking of her job and playing with Barbie.

Ken always takes over for a bit when little brothers run a rampage with them. They become soldiers, fighters and action men.

But it would make more sense if she had designed barbie's outfit for Mattel or something relevant?

As it is it's no different to say Steven Spielberg being on the bench. No relevance to this particular movie that I could see (bar the director likes her)

I'd have been more excited if say that recent astronaut or the covid doctor appeared, both of whom got a barbie designed for them.

I'm going to have to go against the grain here because I thought it was bloody awful! It was really boring and I found the supposedly feminist rant quite silly, negative and unnecessary. I'd ask what part people found sad but I appreciate it's impossible to answer without spoilers.

I agree. I was expecting it to be great but infact found it silly, boring and dull too.

What I found sad was the reality part of the movie. What ken was discovering in the real world and the fact that he assumed he should be given all those jobs for just being a man after discovering patriarchy. Yes he was denied them but we all saw what was in the board room. The irony.

The podcast joke was funny and sad in itself.

And yes Barbie's first real world experience is not far off most female experiences of the world.

Saw it this evening and loved it. Would never have guessed the last line!

I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was very funny and the audience I was with all thought it was funny too so that might have made it funnier.

Of course, it's really sad in reality. It's all very well saying it's a simplistic type of feminism, or has some plot holes- but I'm trying to think of very mainstream movies that feature feminism (which are also enjoyed by young men, the young man next to me laughed a lot and told his female friend/partner 'I loved it!' at the end of the movie, seemed genuine enough). I haven't thought of many. Not that are so mainstream. Or written by women. Or who have speeches in them about feminism. Hardly any movies even pass the Bechedel test!

The whole movie is a giant advert, and so that's another thing, but it's still a funny witty one.

My mum wouldn't let me have a Barbie because she was too thin and because of the perpetual high-heeled foot shape.

America F’s rant made me quite emotional as it expressed stuff which, as a woman, I’ve felt viscerally but not articulated. It was the highlight of the movie for me, as was the mum/daughter relationship. I genuinely didn’t expect to enjoy the film nearly as much as I did.

I’m smiling at a lot of the (often male) reviewers who insist it was totally RG/Ken’s movie - hopefully they are fully aware of the irony. Plus, even better, the Daily mail had a moan about its feminist agenda. Let’s go Barbie and crush that patriarchy.

The woman on the bench thing just felt a bit weird and shoe horned in. Barbie was new in real world - would she really suddenly see age as beautiful? And the randomness of the woman, I thought she was going to be Barbie as an old woman tbh.

Why did the Barbies allow the Kens to take over? There was some line about patriarchy being like smallpox - the Barbies hadn’t encountered it before so had no resistance to it, which made no sense.

So much misunderstanding.

1. Woman on bench was very relevant. Oscar winning costume designer, friend of the film producer, stellar in her field.

1. Matriarchy and patriarchy are both toxic. While the latter oppresses women by turning them into accessories for men / servants, the former oppressed men in the film by turning men into nobodies with nothing to do. I know lots of men would feel oppressed if they had nothing to do and no role to play. Perhaps that's a difference between some men and women.

My daughter pointed out to me that when the women were in charge the men were just there, largely irrelevant and left to their own devices. However when the men took over they expected the women to wait on them and be there for their amusement. The toxicity of the patriarchy as opposed to the benign matriarchy.

1. The rant by America really voiced what I hoped. Maybe you have to be of a certain age for it to resonate.

1. I think the underlying message was girls, you don't have to be a stereotypical Barbie, you can do so much. But somehow we need a balance between the matriarchy and the patriarchy where everyone has equal value. That's what the end part on Barbieland was about but as they pointed out, by the end of the movie it had only moved to roughly where the real world stands on that for women.

1. Some people expect an awful lot from a Barbie movie! It isn't Oppenheimer. I went expecting it to be cringe and was pleasantly surprised.

Do you know the smallpox reference? It made a lot of sense if you do.
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/smallpox-epidemic

This article is quite interesting too for looking at the cultural references in the movie:
https://time.com/6295889/barbie-movie-the-matrix-the-godfather-references/

I saw it last night, loved it.

Tiny bit annoying how much RG steals the show but MR fantastic as well. RG really hilarious and excellent.

I think age 12 and up is about right probably.

zonder I don't think it's misunderstanding, that's quite patronising really. Woman on the bench clearly didn't have the impact you think it was meant to have - people had to google/made assumptions and it wasn't even a clever if you know you know Easter Egg, just a random successful woman.

Exactly!

I recognised from the way it was shot that this woman must be "somebody important" which I assumed was important to barbie -like rhea pearlmans character.

So it was confusing that she had no actual barbie connection. It wasn't what you were led to believe.

(Or she could have made more sense as that's what barbie could be in the future-someone who ages /gets older - but they never explicitly made that connection at the end)

Do you know the smallpox reference? It made a lot of sense if you do

Yes, i knew the smallpox story. But smallpox is a disease and patriarchy is an idea. Why, when the Barbies are in control, smart enough to run the supreme court etc, would they fall for the idea of the kens being superior? Are the Barbies secretly programmed by Mattel to need the male gaze or something?? Some scenes missing here, i felt.

But the point is she is very successful in her field, a field which relates to Barbie (costumes are one of the big things about Barbie dolls) and also a great friend of the producer. Isn't Barbie partly about cheering on your girlfriends?

"But smallpox is a disease and patriarchy is an idea"
It's called symbolism and is common in books and movies.

The problem is that you don't know that while you're watching, it's something you have to look up later (if you're bothered and if you are you end up disappointed/confused by the lack of relevance) which defeats the point they're trying to make - she's so successful but nobody has heard of her and she has zero connection to Barbie. People watch that scene and it seems like it is supposed to be setting up a later "reveal" of something more significant (like the first scene where we meet Ruth but we don't know who she is until it is revealed later) but it goes nowhere - I was more annoyed that there was set up and no payout than if there hadn't been any set up at all.

If the bus stop lady had been someone significant, eg if they had got the "real Barbie" (IE Ruth Handler's daughter), or someone like Kelly Sheridan (the voice actress from the first Barbie feature film etc) to do the cameo as the random woman at the bus stop then it would be a lovely Easter egg but since the person the chose has zero connection to Barbie specifically it just feels like we were baited into it being something significant when it ended up just being a damp squib.

Dd (18) and I did the whole Barbenheimer thing on opening day as she didnt want spoilers from friends and we were going away on holiday on Sat.

Watched Oppenheimer first, then Barbie. Enjoyed both of them for obviously completely different reasons.

We loved Barbie. Some of it was a bit try-hard but it was funny and light. And much needed after the Oppenheimer ending!

@melj1213 said it better than me

"But smallpox is a disease and patriarchy is an idea"
It's called symbolism and is common in books and movies.

What I mean is that I don't think the symbolism works. Because while lack of exposure to a disease leaves you vulnerable, lack of exposure to an idea doesn't. For a group in power, lack of exposure to the idea that maybe some-one else should be in power doesn't leave the group vulnerable to this idea when it comes along. Unless we are saying the Barbies are complete airheads and therefore vulnerable to any ideas at all, but that seems at odds with the film's idea of the Barbies empowering girls to have more interesting play.

I thought the older woman at the bus stop was just Barbie's first introduction to ageing- in Barbieland, no-one ages or changes ever. I agree it might have been nice to have come back to her though.

This.

I was wondering at that moment, whether Barbie considered her beautiful or was used to say that. And I enjoyed the answer, it was softening the real world a bit