Emma Clifton on the new Barbie movie and why, in a field of comic book movies and fast car franchises, women should be allowed to indulge their inner child too.
When the teaser trailer for the upcoming Barbie movie was released, it highlighted two important things: one, this was going to be silly. And two, it was going to be taken seriously. Can both things exist at the same time? Yes, they can. As women fight the good fight to be taken seriously in the workplace (still!), or achieve pay equality (still!), or achieve body autonomy (still!), there are a lot of Very Important Stories that need to be told. But do you know what we also need? The space to be silly. To like whole-hearted, happy stories AND to have that silliness respected in the world of pop culture as well.
Barbie is everywhere – it’s like some latent part of our adult brains is waking up, our long-hidden inner child has finally been given permission to like the sparkly things in a sea of elegant neutrals and sensible choices. So much of womanhood has been under attack for so long – removing the right to safe abortion, the viciousness with which our female leaders have been treated, the constant attacks on transwomen, the way drag has been vilified. It feels like we’re constantly having to defend our corners of the world, to still fight to be taken seriously. And yes, this may feel like a long leap from a movie about a doll – would we have got a Barbie movie if Hillary Clinton had become President? Am I overthinking this? – but the fact that Barbie is the most anticipated movie of the year in 2023 feels like it means something.
This is a movie for people who grew up playing with dolls, who have yet to see their doll of choice given the spotlight it deserves. Why is this important? Well, have you tried going to the movies recently and watching something that ISN’T based on a comic book, or the fever dream of a 10-year-old boy? We are on the third Spiderman of my lifetime, and the eighth Batman. There have been four GI Joe movies. There are 10 Fast and Furious movies – which, let’s face it, are basically toy cars for big boys. And that’s fine – we all have to find ways to escape to easier times, to turn off our adult brains for two hours. If you’re someone that grew up playing with Barbies, then your turn has finally come. There are generations of Barbie fans who didn’t realise they were missing this until they saw the trailer. Because despite the fact that the doll has been around for over 60 years, this is the first live action Barbie movie in history.
For comparison, there have been 14 non-animated Batman movies since the character was created in the 1930s. And you might say, well, Batman is a superhero. But Batman is only ever Batman or Bruce Wayne, whereas the various personas of Barbie demonstrate one hell of a CV. Barbie can be President, she can go to space, she can be 12 different types of chef, she can play the saxophone, piano, violin, and lute. She’s a photographer, a rapper, a jazz singer, an Avon representative, a Chief Sustainability Officer (a 2022 release, of course), a yoga teacher, an Air Force pilot, a detective, a palaeontologist, a boxer, a dolphin trainer and a spy. You take the plots of Jurassic World, Top Gun Maverick, The Martian and Rocky, and a Barbie doll could have played the main role. This is a character with RANGE.
Finally, in the capable hands of Academy Award-nominated writer and director Greta Gerwig, the silly but serious world of Barbie is getting the respect it deserves – just watch this Architectural Digest video where the creative team discuss, with utmost seriousness, ‘how the pinks interact’ and that ‘there are no elements’ in Barbie Land.
From a feminist perspective, Barbie has always been controversial – her first two careers were business executive and fashion model, which, sure, okay – and her body is basically tits on a stick. But just like tricking children into eating vegetables by hiding them in a smoothie, there were sneaky little feminist messages tucked into the Barbie world.
Barbie was invented in 1959 by a woman called Ruth Handler. Ruth was tired of her young daughter only having baby dolls to play with because she felt that this was putting her daughter into the role of caregiver even from childhood. There was nothing maternal about Ruth’s invention of Barbie – she was independent, she was here to have fun and work outside the house. In fact, as the New York Times points out, the first versions of Barbie’s Dream House didn’t even have a kitchen, to really reinforce this image.
Ruth wanted to create a doll that would help young girls use their imagination, to believe they could be anything they wanted to be. When we were young, the whole point of Barbies was creative expression, with different outfits, cars, shoes, DIY haircuts and makeovers, inventing our own worlds and scenarios. A fluffy little intro in the world of being a grown-up and the options that exist. And even though we have now put away childish things, there is something about Barbie that takes generations of women back to their childhood. There’s a reason why this shot alone created a gasp of recognition in many of our hearts.
Thanks to a combination of the team involved, the brilliant marketing and shared nostalgia, the Barbie movie has become the most anticipated movie of the year, not to mention the incredible outfits stylist Andrew Mukamal has created for the red carpets, recreating Barbie’s most iconic looks.
Imagine the generations of grown-ups who have waited to see a Barbie movie that correctly portrays the combination of what that doll meant to us – childhood and imagination wrapped into a career-centric future of fast cars, Dream Houses and sparkly outfits. Yes, it’s silly. But is it sillier than a 10-part franchise dedicated to racing cars fast (and furiously?) Or sillier than a movie series where the female characters are called Pussy Galore, Holly Goodhead, Dr Christmas Jones and Strawberry Fields? No, it’s not. We can only hope that Barbie leads to an entire multiverse of film adaptations, because I for one would really love to see a movie about a Barbie rapper, or palaeontologist. Barbie the Chief Sustainability Officer, tackling climate change? Why not.
