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By Chloe Miles

The Barbie movie, directed by Greta Gerwig, has taken the world by storm, already grossing $1.38 billion, even though it was released around three months ago in theaters, on July 21. Columnist Monica Hesse of The Washington Post explains, “The movie made more because it showed us more. Women doing more, wanting more, being more.” Starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, the movie critiques the hierarchy between traditional male and female gender roles and women’s place in society.  

Gerwig successfully addresses inequality between men and women through light-hearted and tasteful humor that does not feel like a lecture. Elle Domson (‘25) notes, “I enjoyed it because it was happy and upbeat and referenced a lot of necessary topics.” Domson continues, “It was a perfect balance of ‘this is important to society and this is fun and this is pink.’” Gerwig clearly and concisely conveys that women’s role in society needs to be reexamined by using jokes and satire to reach the hearts of the watcher. Upper School English teacher Dr. Will Dunlap says, “When I watched it, it was sort of just like pure enjoyment in a way that I rarely get from a film.” Barbie was the perfect character to evaluate these messages because she is an icon that millions can identify with.

Image courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Having grown up playing with Barbies, I was quite excited to see the movie but was ultimately confused about what it was going to be about. To me, Barbie was a beautiful character whom I looked up to. As a young girl, I played with Barbie, wishing for thin legs and a tiny waist, hoping that one day I would be as beautiful as her. I loved my dolls, but, looking back, I believe they instilled a toxic view of femininity in my young mind. To me, the movie reinvented Barbie, and I left the theater believing that Barbie was more of a mindset, or a set of ideologies, rather than symbols of unattainable beauty.  

The Barbies in Barbie Land live blissfully, believing they have solved all the problems of feminism so that women can live in equality with men. While venturing into the real world to find herself, Barbie realizes that that could not be farther from the truth. She is immediately harassed by men and learns that she has caused more harm than good. Shasha, played by Ariana Greenblatt, explains to Barbie that her character has set unrealistic expectations for young girls: you must be tall and fit but not too muscular, be dressed to impress at all times, and always be positive and approachable. After watching the film, Braden Felts (‘24) wondered, “Is that the proper idea of what womanhood is?” No, it is not. 

It is quite evident to Barbie that, in the real world, men dominate society. They hold the highest positions of power in the government, run construction sites, and have created the patriarchy. Ken brings these foreign ideologies back to Barbie Land and institutes his own patriarchy. The Kens objectify the Barbies, making them their servants and cheerleaders. To Jillian Fratkin (’27), the blatant objectification of the Barbies by the Kens was a “wake-up call” to the routine objectification of women. Through humor and satirical jokes, the Kens portrayed the dehumanization of women in the real world. The Barbies were wholly dependent on the Kens to live, though they could thrive purposefully. 

Throughout history, women have often been categorized as the weaker sex. Traditional gender roles dictated that women were to stay at home, take care of the children, and do the chores. There have been many feminist movements in history, such as women’s suffrage in 1919, which garnered women’s right to vote; the flapper era in the Roaring ’20s, which pushed for sexual liberation; or the #MeToo movement in 2017, which fought sexual violence. Yet women are still not given the respect that they deserve. This is evident in the movie when Barbie is rollerblading in the real world and is getting catcalled by onlookers, something that never happens in her Barbie Land. When she is present in the meeting room with the Mattel businessmen, including the Mattel CEO played by Will Ferrell, they talk down to her like she is an inferior. Cabel Berkeyheiser (‘27) voices, “Men need to think of women more as an equal, rather than under them or rather just an object; more of a person.” 

The message of the film is more than evident when the roles are reversed. Before Barbie and Ken’s adventure, Dr. Dunlap explains that, in Barbie Land, “Ken is essentially a nothing burger. He doesn’t even really serve a purpose in the Barbie world except to be admired by Barbie.” This is precisely how some women are treated in the real world, and it takes putting a man in the exact same situation for society to realize that it is objectively wrong to treat people like they are materialistic goods, whether it be a woman or a man. 

Though Barbie may not have lived up to the expectations of some, the concepts depicted go far beyond Barbie Land. They apply to our culture. With this film, Barbie has been reinvented into a figure that celebrates the positives and negatives of womanhood. Though once Barbie represented the ideal embodiment of a woman, she now more represents the potential of all young girls to be who they want to be, whether it be a mother, doctor, or lawyer. Alice Oakey (‘24) explains, “I liked Barbie because she was a flawed character. At the end of the day, even though she found out being a woman was hard, she still chose to be one.” Every one of us is flawed, but we still have the potential to be great. Barbie encourages us to accept our differences, and especially to celebrate them, which brings us closer together as women.

Alternate take: Charlie Miller also wrote about Barbie.