Fond Memories of Barbie
With fond memories of the hours of playing with my Barbie (guaranteed the best dressed Barbie in Montgomery, Alabama), I bounced into the theater expecting the same toasty feelings I had of those experiences. Wrong!
Sure, we see perfect Barbie (Margot Robbie) in her pink clothes, house, and car; on the beach with her perfect blonde, tanned beach boy Ken (Ryan Gosling). Barbieland is every color of the rainbow until black shows up in the form of her sudden existential crisis!
Barbie’s Spiral of Depression
Barbie goes into a spiral of depression when she tries to put on her high heels and her feet fall flat. No longer perfect, she gets expelled from Barbieland. She is devastated to learn a little girl in California hated her Barbie and all of its Barbie-ness so much she tore it up and made it unlovely.
So now, she and stow-away Ken get in her adorable little pink car and head off to the real world in search of the person who hated her so much. She and Ken enjoy skating at Venice beach and loving life until Barbie goes in search of the source of her angst.
A Masculine World of Mattel
Mattel is a towering, super masculine building with an all-male board of directors. The CEO (Will Ferrell) and his board are all black-suited chauvinists. This freaks her out. Running out of the building she meets Gloria (America Ferrera), the source of her black thoughts.
Undoing and Resetting Barbie’s Outlook
Barbie and Gloria head back to Barbieland to undo and reset Barbie’s outlook on life. To their horror, Ken and the other surfer dudes have turned the pretty pink world into their own sexist male haven. A big fracas ensues until they get everybody copacetic and back to being loving, kind, accepting, and hopeful.
Political Controversy and Personal Reflections
This is a bare bone synopsis because there are a lot of tetchy issues along the way. I can see why this could be construed as political and controversial. I watched a young father striding back up the aisle with his little girls struggling alongside. As he passed my seat, I could hear him saying, “I hate this sexist crap”! It gave me a clue as to why this got Rated PG-13. I wasn’t exactly having any fun either.
It reminded me how, as a working crew member, on the television crew for The Republican National Convention in 1996, a few of us were given “Republican Barbie” dolls as mementos. She was all decked out in a demure red Republican suit with a red, white & blue tie. Mine was blonde and Caucasian. The other choice was a young Black doll. I find great irony in it now.
Mind Uncharted Explore. Discover. Learn.
