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**The Joy of Being a Girl**

'Barbie' captures those thoughts that are difficult for women to
express.

I do not remember my first Barbie. I do not remember whether she was
white, or Black, or whether she was Doctor Barbie or Lawyer Barbie. What
I do remember is getting my first Barbie Dreamhouse. The possibilities
were endless within those walls, and I spent many hot California days
dressing her up and down, and expanding my imagination in ways only a
child's brain could.

Then, I remember retreating from Barbie. I remember rejecting pink,
rejecting womanhood, and rejecting society's expectations of me.
Defending all the ways I was who I am and still a girl was too much for
me to fully express.

I finally found that expression in the film adaptation of

**Barbie**. There are plenty of things to gripe about with the film. The
setup is a little too on the nose, the dance scenes are gratuitous and
not really plot-driven, and it takes a pretty surface-level view of
gender issues that reek of second-wave feminism. It does not tackle
gender nonconformity beyond a few quips about genitals, and there is
something cynical about a movie making fun of Mattel having its stamp of
approval at the same time.

What

**Barbie** does well is capture the nostalgia of a generation of women
who are navigating a world that is still actively trying to restrict
their bodily autonomy, despite all the lessons learned from recent
history. In a post-

**Roe** world,

**Barbie** dares to contend with issues of sexism, motherhood, and
patriarchy.

**Barbie** is really a movie about choice, about a girl growing up and
choosing who she wants to be. Abortion restrictions send the message
that women are strictly incubators, with no say in their life's
direction.

**Barbie** rejects this without tearing motherhood down; Barbie finds
the joy in being a girl with or without children.

**Barbie** is set in Barbie Land, where women are in charge and just
generally living their best lives without the weight of the patriarchy.
Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) begins to malfunction, thinking of
death and dealing with flat feet. She is implored by Weird Barbie (Kate
McKinnon) to repair the ripple between Stereotypical Barbie and her
owner in the real world.

Barbie is inclined to go back to her old life. This moment is full of
levity, with McKinnon bringing lightness to the choice and presenting a
Birkenstock to represent the real world. It is based on a very relatable
desire. How amazing would it be to go back in time, back to when the
idea of a woman was uninhibited by the pressures of a patriarchal
society?

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****

**Barbie** is, of course, about Barbie. But, as others have noted, a
central component to the movie is Gloria (America Ferrera), a parent in
the real world outside of Barbie Land, and the relationship between her
and her daughter, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). Sasha used to play with
Barbies, but grew tired and jaded with her existence, concurrently
pushing Gloria away. The audience learns that Gloria is the true source
of Barbie's sudden issues, as she deals with her own existential
crisis, caught between a fickle teenager and the pressures to be a
perfect mother.

**Barbie** validates growing up innocent and having it so quickly
stripped away.

The movie is full of comedy, pop music, and solid performances. The
Mattel CEO (Will Ferrell) is ridiculous and insensitive, and Ken (Ryan
Gosling) is the insecure foil to Barbie's journey. While Barbie
navigates the real world, Ken learns of the patriarchy and brings it
back to Barbie Land, brainwashing the Barbies and setting up the
movie's climax. The plot is streamlined in a traditional way, and the
cinematography is pinker than pink, anchored in soft hues and beach
vibes.

**Barbie** contends with what society thinks of the Barbie doll as a
concept. The anti-

**Barbie** backlash has been entirely predictable. There was something
ridiculous about the film's pairing with

**Oppenheimer**, anchored in a theoretically gendered competition that
didn't make sense and, indeed, only bolstered sales (200,000 people
bought tickets to both opening weekends). Meanwhile, as the directly
feminist themes ruffled the far right, on the other end of the spectrum,
some have questioned whether

**Barbie** is actually feminist, or just a corporate rendering of the
concept for a cash grab.

The labor of women has never been fully appreciated by the society it
supports. In a post-

**Roe** society, where women are losing their bodily autonomy more and
more nearly every day, where motherhood as a choice is becoming foreign
to a whole generation,

**Barbie** is a reminder that the work women put into the world keeps it
running, and that women are more than their political reduction to the
uterus.

As Gloria points out with impassioned speech, Barbie has been set up
against the same standards all women are. "It is literally impossible to
be a woman," she says. "You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but
not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other
women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But
always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the
system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be
grateful. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing
women, then I don't even know."

This is the speech that reinvigorates Barbie, and sets the film's
conclusion in motion, with Gloria reciting the speech over and over
until the Barbies are no longer brainwashed and they are able to take
back Barbie Land.

Greta Gerwig, the film's director who was previously mostly known for

**Lady Bird** (2017), captures those thoughts that many women have but
struggle to express while just trying to survive. In that way,

**Barbie** is like a breath of fresh air.

The market needed something like

**Barbie**. Something unabashedly feminist, or more accurately
unabashedly for women, is rare entertainment nowadays. The world needed
to see that the little girls who were simultaneously fed the ideals of
Barbie and the hatred for her have grown up, and that the pinkness is
being embraced.

~ RAMENDA CYRUS, JOHN LEWIS WRITING FELLOW

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