Congrats to producer Margot Robbie for backing female filmmakers Emerald Fennell on Saltburn and Greta Gerwig on Barbie. And kudos to these writer/directors who are also mothers. It’s no easy feat to be successful in either capacity yet they manage to thrive.
This week, their movies received five British Academy Film Award nominations each. And since Barbie earned a whopping $1.4 billion in 2023, Robbie and Gerwig accepted the first Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award from the revamped Golden Globes earlier this month.
Yet with the Barbie brand’s built-in fans and a staggering $150 million marketing budget for the $145 million production, one would have to try to make the movie bomb. Nevertheless, Gerwig did her best by bringing in her now-husband, Kicking and Screaming (1995) filmmaker Noah Baumbach, kicking and screaming. As a result, the Barbie movie is about Ken.
You go girl?
Fortunately, the Golden Globes had the good sense to reward Best Original Song to Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for their beautiful Barbie ballad “What Was I Made For?” over Andrew Wyatt and Mark Ronson’s “I’m Just Ken” novelty song. Ryan Gosling gained a lot of attention for said musical number (which goes on for more than ten long minutes in the movie), but it’s Robbie’s onscreen charm and nuanced performance that propels the whimsical-looking film through nearly two hours of scattered scenes and heavy-handed themes.
What should have been a breezy pop culture parody in the affectionately self-referential vein of The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) is a misguided comedy that shows contempt and ignorance for its subject. At least, the Saturday Night Live sketches which featured Amy Poehler’s Barbie to Britney Spears’s Skipper in 2002 and Paris Hilton’s Barbie in 2005 offered a humorous appreciation for the doll.
The film features a human tween named Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) who blames Stereotypical Barbie (Robbie) for “sexualized capitalism” and “unrealistic physical ideals.” But since costume designer Jacqueline Durran didn’t pad Robbie’s bra to match Barbie’s 39-18-33 measurements, this claim doesn’t make sense. Plus, Gerwig’s body-diverse Barbie Land is inhabited by Wheelchair Vet Barbie (Grace Harvey), plus-size Barbies (Nicola Coughlan, Sharon Rooney), and a trans Barbie (Hari Nef). The only shape excluded from the “all-inclusive” group is the classic Barbie figure.
Still, Sasha says Barbie set the feminist movement back 50 years by “destroying girls’ innate sense of worth.” Why? Because of her appearance? How intolerant and body shaming is that? One need not look like Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) to be a feminist. Indeed, there are more than 100 real life-inspired Barbie dolls including Susan B. Anthony, Helen Keller, Frida Kahlo, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Goodall, Tina Turner, and Misty Copeland.
By the end of Sasha’s tirade, she accuses Barbie of “killing the planet with rampant consumerism.” This is rich considering there’s a Chevrolet commercial in the middle of the movie. And it’s during this product-placement car chase that Sasha declares, “Men hate women and women hate women. It’s the one thing we can all agree on.”
Rather than writing lines of malcontent, Gerwig and Baumbach should have focused more on Mattel’s product line. Some of the film’s biggest laughs come from the Growing Up Skipper (Hannah Khalique-Brown), Sugar Daddy (Rob Brydon) and Earring Magic Ken (Tom Stourton) cameos.
It’s a shame Barbie’s African American friend Christie is relegated to the end credits. Had she or Barbie’s groovy pal PJ, Australian ex-boyfriend Blaine, and many international acquaintances been incorporated into the story, the film would have been more authentic and nostalgic. Instead, fans get a bunch of Kens who look nothing like the actual dolls. None have plastic hair or don astronaut, doctor, ice skater, and spy costumes to reflect his 40 careers.
Gosling plays a version of Malibu Ken. Presumably, that’s why he talks about the beach and “beaching the other Kens off” ad nauseam. But the dichotomous screenplay also has him pining for one Barbie, ignoring the common 9-Barbies-to-3-Kens ratio. In other words, when Stereotypical Barbie rejects Ken, a couple of other Barbies should be waiting around the next Dream House for him — unless they belong to the LGBTQ+ community as Barbie Land’s rainbow entrance suggests.
Contrary to the filmmakers’ “Just Ken” conceit, Kenneth Sean “Ken” Carson Jr. does have a last name and a backstory. The same goes for Barbara Millicent “Barbie” Roberts and her best friend Midge Hadley (Fennell) who dates, marries and starts a family with Allan Sherwood (played by a miscast Michael Cera). Unfortunately, none of this is covered in the movie. Instead, a seemingly single and pregnant Midge briefly appears in the background and Allan’s straightness is changed for a gag that doesn’t land.
Yet when Cera says, “I’m Allan, I’m Ken’s buddy, all his clothes fit me,” it’s funny because it’s true, and was a benefit used to sell the doll when he was introduced in 1964. Back then, Allan was a soda jerk — a joke that practically writes itself. But Gerwig and Baumbach miss it in their hubristic quest to reinvent a brand that has always been about empowering girls.
From 1966 to 1976, Mattel countered concerns over Barbie’s exaggerated figure with her cousin Francie, a British brunette whose physical proportions are more realistic (even her nearly-flat feet were made for kitten heels). Surely, a film that references 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968 and The Godfather from 1973 could have included a doll from the same era. In fact, Emma Mackey, who plays Physicist Barbie, is better suited as Francie. Alas, Gerwig overlooks this casting opportunity because it doesn’t fit into her film’s narrow narrative.
The plot’s treatise on the battle of the sexes falsely portrays all Mattel executives as white men. In reality, the company was co-founded by Barbie creator Ruth Handler, who served as its president for 30 years. Granted, amid old chauvinism tropes, the script does include a topical exchange when Ken asks a Corporate Man in present-day Los Angeles why he can’t automatically get a high-paying job without qualifications.
Ken: Isn’t being a man enough?
Corporate Man: Actually right now it’s kind of the opposite.
Ken: You guys are clearly not doing patriarchy very well.
Corporate Man: No, we’re actually doing it very well. We just hide it better now.
There’s also a touted monologue America Ferrera delivers that reads like a knockoff of Laura Dern’s speech, sans the wit, from Baumbach’s Marriage Story (2019). She begins by stating, “It is literally impossible to be a woman.” Ironically, Ferrera is one of the few people in this film who plays an adult human female. For her, unlike a Barbie doll, it is literally impossible to be anything but a woman.