Ryan’s performance was worth the price of admission alone. I reccomend the film on that.
From a story POV, as seen by me, I saw Barbieland as a deliberate mirror to the real world, but the gender roles are flipped, everything then stems from that perspective. I never owned a Barbie so my perspective is biased to seeing the world as a metaphor, maybe it just is that way.
For starters, I think Ken is the protagonist of this film, as he is the one that goes through the journey of character growth. Where Barbie and the Barbie’s are pushing to go back to the status quo, ken and the kens are pushing to go forward (misguided as they may be). I joked when I got home that Barbie is the antagonist of her own movie. If you see Ken as the protagonist, his character growth is facing gender equality in himself and the world he finds himself in, Barbie is the narrative enemy to that. The otherway doesn’t exist however, Babrie’s existential character growth of who she is in the world is never hindered by anyone narratively except herself.
For social commentary, just as the world’s are a mirror I saw the social causes too as a mirror. The message is not good. Ken is shallow and wants change for petty reasons, both criticisms leveled at feminism. The solution the film presents to gender inequality is, “don’t push change might happen over time”, the ken’s might even get a judge one day. There is a joke that the right always critises social messages for going too far, and the left will always say it doesn’t go far enough… So I don’t say Barbie celebrates conservatives for being a limiting factor on social change, but the film does celebrate conservatives for limiting social change… This relies on me seeing Ken’s cause as the alagory to feminism, being that I saw the world as a mirror, it was natural to me.
I didn’t see the point in the CEO’s except to present corporate executives in a more sympathetic light. Allen was wasted potential, he seemed meta aware that could have been fun to explore, he was funny though.
I should say, I was willing to meet Barbie wherever it wanted to go. If it wanted to be a fun romp of “the Barbiemobile is broken, hijinks ensue in fixing it” I would have turned my brain off and went for the ride. If the film wanted to purely examine Barbie’s place in the world, but with jokes, I would have met it there and viewed it through that lens instead. The film instead has the real world social commentary of “patriarchy bad” but with jokes, so viewed it through that lens. Jokes where ok, the message was meh, Ryan was phenomenal, go see it
Totally agree on Ryan Gosling’s performance although I saw both Ken and Barbie as the protagonists when I watched it. Where they both acted as mirrors of each other until the end when they meet in the middle.
Almost like a Man (B+K) vs Self (B+K) conflict as opposed to a Man (B) vs Man (K) style conflict.
Most women who wear heels all the time do have feet problems.
I liked that the movie made some more subtle observations besides the main themes that were very in your face. When Ken was commenting about how much attention he got and that there was not no hint of violence, and Barbie responded that she did.
It was also nice that she didn’t have makeup at the end but she’s perhaps not a great example of an average person (which was pointed out for humor).
But do we see the mom with High Heel? I dont recall, but it would indeed enrich the joke instead of just pointing at it
You are right the suble violence against women theme was well done in that scene. And it work. Too bad they went a less subtle road later on. May be that the crux of my critics, they didnt trust the audience. And felt the need to spell everything out
I thought the pacing of things was fine and didn’t really feel like too many scenes overstayed their welcome. The 2001 opener I thought was pretty great. A few things did stick out a bit for me, though.
The fantastical version of reality. A spelled-out theme of the movie is how hard it is being a woman, which Mom-lady really lays out for the Barbies. It makes some sense because the Barbies clearly don’t know what real is like. The trouble is they say it instead of showing it. We don’t see Mom-lady having any particular problems specific to her being a woman in the movie’s world. The audience is supposed to nod along approvingly because she’s saying things that many real women feel, but she’s also from some surreal version of Earth where people in gaudy cowboy outfits can wander into a school and talk to the kids and steal library books and they don’t get tackled by security. We really needed some scenes with some biting misogyny to give that speech some impact.
Pitting the Kens against each other seemed convoluted. Ultimately the solution to the crisis is… voter suppression? Really?
The old film montage near the end seemed really gratuitous.
It was fun though a bit too preachy towards the end. I’d consider myself a feminist but it was getting a bit annoying at parts and a bit dated relative to contemporary views of gender studies.
The performances and production was top. Loved the Mattel representation, Will Ferrel was stealing every scene. Overall I enjoyed it though it’s quite forgettable.
The only minor complaint i have is when they showed an obscure barbie thing and the character in the movie had to say out loud: "that was a real thing."
Or when the director had to put in her commentary saying that the barbie actor was a bad example because how pretty she is. It felt so unnecessary, if it was so bad, cut it out.
I knew nothing about the movie when i watched it and even i knew or highly assumed that everything in the movie is a real barbie thing, so i didn't see the point of one of the main character pointing it out. It just felt off to me. Kinda like: don't blame us, the movie makers, it was a real thing. And i nean that specifically, not the part where they freeze framed the clothes and accessories and named them.
Like i found the barbie living in the tree house hilarious, but thanks for letting me know that it's a real thing that you could buy, and thank god that lady knew everything and anything about barbies to tell us.
Maybe it would be funnier if the Mattel guys were barbie nerds who would point out stuff like that. Idk, it didn't make the movie bad or worse, it just feels dumbed down, for no reason.
One of the songs (maybe the one over the end credits?) interpolated/sampled the main melody from Barbie Girl, it might’ve been used elsewhere in the movie too
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