Barbie directed by Greta Gerwig tells the story of discovering one’s identity. In the movie the Barbie played by Margot Robbie comes to life and enters the real world, but Gerwig adds to that by giving Barbie a prior life of her own as a doll. Robbie’s character who’s called Stereotypical Barbie, lives in Barbieland along with all the other Barbies. Whether it’s an Astronaut Barbie, Doctor Barbie, President Barbie , or the Barbies of all different ethnicities, they are all named Barbie, all live in doll houses, and all tell each other the exact same thing every morning, “Hi Barbie!”

Stereotypical Barbie has a stereotypical partner, Ken played by Ryan Gosling. Barbie invites Ken to a girls’ night bash at her house, the best party ever. In the middle of their activities, Barbie embarrassingly blurts out her own sudden wish of death. When Barbie started to notice the troubling and disturbing defects in her actions, she began to be confused. Barbie takes a trip to a troubled outcast in Barbieland named Weird Barbie played by Kate Mckinnon to find out what is going on. Weird Barbie decided that the cause of her actions is that a human played with her too hard. In order to get to the root cause of her troubling defects , Barbie has to take a trip to the human World and find her owner.

Traveling between Barbieland and the human world involves Barbie’s convertible. Ken joins Barbie on her journey, and the two eventually land on a beach in Los Angeles. In L.A., Barbie runs into human-world experiences such as catcalling, old age and anxiety. Barbie finds her way into Mattel headquarters, where the C.E.O played by Will Farrell wants to trap Barbie and keep her in a display box, Barbie escapes, but as Barbie is on the run, Ken( who has been reading up in the school library about patriarchy) heads back to Barbieland and tells the other Kens the information that he learned in the human world. When Barbie returns home she finds it taken over and turned into a “manosphere,”  full of Kens that took over the whole community to have them believe that men rule the world. Barbie has to plot to return what is now called “Kendom”  to its original form as a feminist paradise.

This Barbie movie is different from the before seen Barbie movies that started debuting in 2001. The movie is a balance of entertainment and life messages. It’s the “hard play” of the owner that gives Stereotypical Barbie the perspective to see what is wrong with Barbieland, the inspiration to take action to reclaim it for herself and the other Barbies. Sterotypical Ken does end up vowing to return Barbieland and to introduce the rest of the Kens to its principles. The actions of Barbie’s human has taught Barbie the concept of freedom as she discovers her identity.

Actors: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gossling, Will Farrell, and Arianna Greenblatt.

Duration: 1h 54m

Publication:2023