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Warning: Contains spoilers
In the war between Barbie and Oppenheimer, I didn't hesitate to book my tickets to the plastic-and-fantastic world of Barbie. I needed a break from the usual hullabaloo of life, so I decided to watch a cute movie about the bright doll who was a companion to many like me in their growing-up years.
But Barbie was nothing like I imagined it to be.
It had everything I was running away from: inner conflict, dark thoughts, and the nagging feeling that I wasn't good enough. However, the movie didn't make me sad about it or sugarcoat it in any way. Instead, Greta Gerwig created a world in which our deepest fears and anxieties are transformed into a savage satire that makes you laugh and think at the same time.
I sat with a theatre full of pink-clad men and women in solidarity with the film's theme. Some men came with their partners or female friends, others came alone, and still others came in small groups, most of them wearing pink.
These are the men who cheered when feminism triumphed over patriarchy and laughed at Gerwig's astute satire. These are the kind of men the world needs more of.
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What the Barbie movie is about
The movie begins with a brief glimpse into Barbie's day in matriarchal Barbieland. The film depicts Barbies from all walks of life, from doctors to a president to Nobel Prize winners, but is centred on the stereotypical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie. She wakes up minus the stale morning breath, puts on her heels, bathes and has her breakfast. Because there is no water in Barbieland, Robbie mimics everything, from bathing to drinking milk and eating.
The men in this world, or 'Kens,' are simply there. Kens, like dolls, are just an extension of Barbies and don't do much on their own.
The stereotypical Barbie’s world is turned upside down when she starts talking about death. Her feet are no longer pointed, she has morning breath and also cellulite, which scares her to death. It turns out that her death-related thoughts have caused a schism in the continuum between the real world and Barbieland. She needs to go back to reality, find the little girl who owns her, and figure out what's causing these anomalies.
Barbie travels to the real world with Ken (Gosling), who has a huge crush on her, but she considers him nothing more than a friend.
Barbies had always assumed that their invention was intended to boost women's self-esteem. This bubble, however, bursts for Robbie's character when she rollerblades her way into the real world with Ken, while being lecherously ogled at by men. Ken, on the other hand, finally experiences the power that men gain from patriarchy. He loves it all, as expected.
As it turns out, the root of the problem is not a small girl but a middle-aged woman and the mother of a teenager who has been drawing sketches of a Barbie with an existential crisis. While Barbie works to repair the rift between the two universes, Ken attends a patriarchy crash course and returns to Barbieland with his newfound knowledge.
Meanwhile, Barbie flees Mattel, the Barbie empire's mothership, and narrowly avoids being trapped in a box, while being pursued by the hilarious Will Ferell (the fictionalised version of the company's boss).
Back in Barbieland with her new friends, (the mother-daughter duo), Barbie notices that Ken and his minions have turned her matriarchal world on its head. All of the Barbies are content to be subservient to the Kens, resulting in a full-fledged battle of the sexes.
Just when you begin to suspect that Barbie is ignoring gender equality by ignoring its men, the film addresses the issue in a tasteful but half-baked manner. Feminism has never placed women above men. It's always about men and women being treated equally. But Barbie's world has always been about women, never about its Kens.
Perhaps it's time to change that in Barbieland, whereas the real world does the opposite by boosting women in a male-dominated world.
Barbie, Ken and patriarchy
Robbie excels as the stiff-bodied Barbie who, aside from when she starts crying, always has a smile on her face. Even as the stereotypical Barbie, she is not a blonde bimbo whose only concern is to look pretty and perfect.
Likewise, Gosling as Ken steals the show in a film about women’s empowerment and pretty Barbies. His unrequited love for Barbie does not turn toxic. Instead, he participates in his own journey of self-discovery.
He is the reason that every man should watch Barbie. In Ryan Gosling's Ken, you see a confident man who is content to let women rule the world and is willing to accept and work on his flaws in order to discover who he truly is (since he has had kenough of being Barbie's shadow) and build his own place in the world. In him, we see a man who strives for gender equality.
As I walked out of the theatre in a sea of pink, I couldn't help but think how Barbie and Oppenheimer share some themes. Okay, so maybe I didn't get my mini-vacation from existential dread, but c'est la vie.
I guess it's safe to say that I'm a Barbie girl in an Oppenheimer world.
