Okay, so how do you talk about serious subjects in this day and age and get away with it? Apparently, the answer is it go pink. Bubble gun pink!
Mattel has toyed (bum dumz) with the idea of making a Barbie movie before, but it never panned out. Largely because it’s a weird thing to make a movie out of a toy and have it be interesting. When children play with toys, they invent their own realities. But what do adults do? Adults, as it turns out, do what Greta Gerwig did. They co-write and direct a subliminally clever movie that’s all Barbie all the time, but also hits on all the modern hot topics. Specifically, it hammers on gender equality. You know, that tragically still-non-existent thing. Barbies in their Barbieland had thought they took care of the gender equality but turns out they didn’t. When one of them gains sentience/awareness of the real world and ventures into it, she gets a proper shock to the system. And then with her pretty doll eyes wide open, she sets out to reform and reeducate the rest of the Barbies and save them from the patriarchy that her man/doll/bf dragged in from the real world when he dragged along on her adventure. That’s what makes the story pop, really. Barbie alone would be tots adorbs and all that, but it’s Gosling’s toy boy with perfect muscles and no clue (or genitalia, though to hear him say it, he has “all the genitalia”) that brings in the hilarious dynamic and balances out the story. And then there are amazing production designs, choreographed dance numbers, and singing to make this into a proper crowd-pleaser. And somewhere along the way, Gerwig rather cleverly pushes the message. And it’s such a good, important one. The thing is, it is absolutely destined to fall on deaf ears. The roughly gazillion people who went to see the movie making it Barbillion dollars, by and large just wanted to be entertained. They may well be the same people who underpay their female employees for doing the same jobs or restrict women from having control over their own bodies. What they will take away from the glitzy spectacle of Barbie is … well, a glitzy spectacle. Good on Gerwig for trying. She certainly got rewarded for it, making her now likely one of the most popular and in-demand movie directors and yes, female movie directors, breaking all sorts of records, particularly for the latter category. It’s impressive, it’s important. She’s obviously immensely talented. There are so many clever bon mots and hilarious jokes in the script, if you’re paying attention. But ultimately, while Barbie the doll was revolutionary in her way and time, Barbie the movie isn’t. It’s very well made and wildly fun and perfectly cast and you should by all means check it out, but in the end, while the credits to the beautifully melancholy song by Billie Eilish (and Finneas), you may be reminded that while Barbieland can be saved rather easily, the world we live in may be well and truly f*cked. Or you may just get the song stuck in your head. After all, it’s what it was made for.
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