I walked into the movie theater not expecting much, but walking out after changed the way I thought about both my life and the lives of others. The newly released Barbie Movie has proven to have a very meaningful impact on the world and how we view women’s roles in society. The film depicts the struggles that “Stereotypical Barbie,” played by Margot Robbie, faces as she travels to the “real world” to fix her humanistic feelings caused by her human counterpart.
“I’m just tired from watching myself and every single other woman tie themselves into knots so that people will like us!” Gloria, the mother in the Barbie movie, said.
The film introduces many struggles that women face on a daily basis. There are plenty of mixed reviews about the movie and whether the message was conveyed well. I personally enjoyed the movies attempt at bringing awareness to what women tend to go through, however I do believe it was not portrayed as well as it could have been.
“Over the years Barbie became pretty controversial with criticism that she projected a narrow and impossible standard of beauty,” Debroah Roberts, a news reporter on GMA, said.
While watching Barbie I realized that I found myself paying more attention to Barbie’s perfect life rather than enjoying the film’s colorful story. I felt the Barbie movie’s blatant disapproval of having cellulite, a common skin condition in women, made me a bit worried about whether or not it was wrong to have it. Considering Barbie is such a huge icon in little girls, I believe they could have worded or played off the situation differently.
“Stepping onto that set, that was part of the beauty, that there was just so much representation, there was so much of everyone.” Issa Rae, the actress behind “President Barbie”, said.
Although the movie focused a bit on that, I did enjoy the film showing a diversity of Barbie’s. Including a Barbie in a wheelchair and President Barbie being an African American woman. Each Barbie and Ken showed a wide range in careers. Ranging from sanitation to doctors even to a pilot.
“We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they have come,” Ruth Handler, the creator of the doll Barbie, said.
My favorite theme in the movie was the special relationship between a mother and daughter and how it was restored in the film as they help Barbie fix Barbie Land. I feel these scenes were very heartfelt and touching because its something most people long for. The script really made me emotional because of how well written and powerful the delivery was.
“I’m just Ken, anywhere else I’d be a ten,” Ryan Gosling, the actor behind Ken, said.
One thing that was mentioned quite a lot throughout the movie was the system of Patriarchy. Patriarchy is the system in which men were held to a higher power. Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, was fascinated with the respect he gained in the human world, and he wanted to find a way to implement it back into Barbie Land. He ended up accidentally taking over too much of what the Barbie’s had worked for. He even has a whole musical number where he relents about his lack of importance in Barbie Land.
“My whole philosophy was that through the doll, a little girl could be anything she wanted to be,” Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, said.
Over all this movie was a good representation of how it feels to be a women in todays world. We were given the history of Barbie and it is quite different than how it is perceived today. Ruth Handler intended for Barbie to be an inspiration to young girls and to live on forever as a role model. Although that is something she achieved, she had become something way more than just a doll to be played with.
