What Was I Made For? Barbie's Complicated Question Gets Underwhelming Answers
Plus, Michelle Wolf on America's female leadership legacy, an entry-level Scotch, and a truly existential pop culture classic
In the opening scene of Barbie – captured in the film’s teaser trailer – the voice of Helen Mirren explains that since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls. But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls until… <enter Barbie>
She changed the game of doll playing. Instead of being pigeonholed into a caretaker role, Barbie’s owner could use her as a megaphone for her inner dialogue and a proxy for her personality and impulses. Barbie is an extension of the user, which is why there were always way more damaged Barbies in your bin than pristine Barbies. Few of us had the patience or grace to maintain the version that was delivered to us in the box, which is why every single one of my Barbies looked like Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie character – including the Happy Holidays Barbie in the green velvet dress that I prayed for every single day during the season of Advent ‘91, as well as Malibu Barbie, who once commanded Ken to “SHUT UP AND KISS ME” before thrashing him around in the pool.
In the film, Barbie being an extension of her user is the catalyst for her existential crisis. Upon suddenly discovering that life isn’t actually perfect and that cellulite and Birkenstocks exist, she’s thrust into the Real World to eradicate the evil spell. Although she’s charged with finding her little girl owner, it turns out that it’s actually the girl’s mother, Gloria (played by America Ferrera), who has been secretly leeching her depression and anxiety onto the Barbie as a coping mechanism for life’s pressures – namely raising an angsty teenage girl – thus setting off a dimension-flipping phenomenon where Barbie and Ken experience reverse gender dynamics.
Ken, who as a man has been systematically sidelined and ignored in the matriarchal Barbie Land, is delighted by his myopic, John Wayne-esque view of the Real World patriarchy. Barbie, on the other hand, is immediately overwhelmed by the complexity of newly discovered human emotions and, for the first time, is keenly aware of what it feels to be self-conscious after being immediately ogled by men as she rollerblades through town.
There are two distinct tones in this movie: aggressively campy and emotionally earnest. It’s hard to pull off both simultaneously and this is one of my biggest criticisms of the film – it doesn’t, and therefore becomes a chaotic swirl of conflict that vacillates between heart-tugging nuance and bombastic absurdity. Each approach has an intended storytelling function, but unfortunately the latter undermines the former.
Barbie’s existential crisis forces her to confront her own mortality, acknowledge her flaws, assess how she connects to the flawed people around her, and, most importantly, sort through her confusion about her inherent purpose in this world. It’s a messy road to enlightenment, the ultimate destination being a place where one can delineate between the person they actually are and the person they thought they were supposed to be. Barbie begins this process by mentally transporting to somber vignettes of Gloria straining to connect with her daughter and seemingly folding inward in sadness and desperation.
As a mother of a teenage girl, I’m constantly chipping away at my own generational issues while trying to maintain our connection in her post-Barbie existence. Am I being the kind of self-assured role model she needs? Am I modeling authenticity? Am I nurturing her independence? Am I teaching her how to draw healthy boundaries? Will I be alive to see her thrive as an adult? These are undoubtedly the inner battles that Gloria was grappling with as she secretly clung to her daughter’s doll collection and set into motion Barbie’s inner turmoil.
Yet, just as quickly as we become invested in her plastic proxy’s complicated and compelling journey to self-actualization, we’re thrust into a cartoonish, binary battle of the sexes where the once powerful women of Barbie Land have been immediately brainwashed by the patriarchy and act as beer-slinging servants to Ken and his minions. Not sure what a dolt like Ken did to snatch Barbie Land away from women in total executive and judicial power, but it happens extremely quickly. Of course, the only way for women to be liberated from this oppression is to use their girlish wiles to distract the men long enough to break the spell by dispensing feminist rallying cries. (The film expresses it as “giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, in order to rob it of its power.”) Now I’m not saying that gender politics and a woman’s journey to self-realization aren’t intertwined, but to reduce women’s complicated inner conflicts to a diluted brand of locker room sexism feels short-sighted.
Ultimately, this movie gives way too much power and credit to everyday, simple-minded misogynists who, although extremely annoying, self-serving and entitled, do not have the near-absolute power over women’s agency in the way that this movie seems to insinuate. When I’m sobbing in my pillow at night, having a crushing panic attack over finances, my parents’ wellbeing, my job satisfaction, my creative hopes and dreams, and my children’s safety, I can absolutely assure you that some sexist smug asshole with a podcast prattling on about testosterone levels is the least of my concerns.
In fact, hugely powerful, well-funded systems basically get a pass here, with only a whiff of acknowledgement regarding the outsized role that our government, religious institutions, health care systems, higher education, media, and corporations have played on historically problematic social outcomes for women – save for playful, self-referential jabs at Mattel, who clearly did the calculation on PR ROI by going along with a cursory-level critique via a throwaway performance by Will Ferrell as a moronic CEO. Instead, it’s doofus caricatures of uninfluential men that seem to solely advance women’s problems here, similar to how the world’s biggest corporate polluters have convinced civilians that their individual commitments to recycling will solve global warming. Of course, one could argue that the Kens are just byproducts of these systems. Yet, with so much satirical fodder to be pulled from those institutions, you have to wonder why a film that touts itself as subversive didn’t go a little harder. (Hint: follow the money.)
There’s a saying, “Satire requires a clarity of purpose and target lest it be mistaken for and contribute to that which it intends to criticize." I felt like the purpose was clear and right – that women’s feelings and desires are deep, complicated, and deserving of a platform. Unfortunately, the target was less clear. I mean, I know who immediately jumped at the chance to burn a Barbie doll.
But just how much do the likes of Ben Shapiro affect women’s deep, complicated feelings? Certainly to an extent, especially when we’re young girls lacking the tools to navigate a smarmy “gotcha” red pill agenda. But as you grow up, there are much more powerful factors at play. This is not to let men off the hook, it’s just to say that it behooves us as elders to elevate the conversation on women’s issues so our daughters don’t get stuck in a perpetual loop of hollow bickering with misguided Ken dolls.
Because despite making strong, conventionally feminist strides in my own life – climbing the corporate ladder in male-dominated spaces, balancing work with motherhood, marrying a supportive stay-at-home father, enjoying multifaceted passions and interests, and maintaining a (mostly) well-adjusted relationship with my body – I still go to bed each night asking the same tortured question that Billie Eilish asks in the film’s signature ballad: “What was I made for?" It’s about my grander purpose as a human being and I’m still seeking the answer.
The strongest parts of this film are when Barbie digs so deeply inward that the noise of social conflict and unrealistic standards around her fade away and instead she is able for the first time to fully absorb the massive range of organic emotions emanating from humanity around her – happiness, pain, anxiety, pleasure, and excitement. As a single tear falls down her face, she says that this bittersweet experience feels “achy but good.”
Battles will always have to be fought, but the most meaningful one exists uniquely within each of us. Figuring out how to power through our existential dread in order to achieve moments of existential joy is the most gratifying part of the human journey. Despite other issues, this is what Barbie gets undeniably right.
Well, now I’ve really done it. I went and killjoyed Barbie. Now that I’ve had my woman card revoked, I might as well become obsessed with Scotch and talk about it constantly.
Problem is, I’m one of those broads who thinks Scotch tastes like a Band-Aid. Cue Monkey Shoulder, a blended malt whisky that is primarily intended for mixing but is a perfect entry point for Scotch newbies. In fact, it’s the world third best-selling brand of Scotch whisky after Johnnie Walker and The Macallan. It’s a mix of floral, spice, citrus, and honey and is a lovely sipper on the rocks or simply neat.
If you, too, are a little bit pinked-out this week, here’s a palate cleanser from Michelle Wolf, one of my favorite comics who does a great job tackling feminist commentary with more salt than sugar.
Before Barbie asked “what was I made for,” David Byrne asked “how did I get here?"
“Once in a Lifetime” has a quirky wobble between that existential dread and existential joy we were talking about, touching on a whole spectrum of human concepts ranging from the passage of time, to consumer excess, to superficial romance, to the virtues of aging. It would have been a great track to play as Barbie and Ken coasted along the ocean towards Century City.
Thanks for the review of Barbie. Now I know I’ll be spending my money on Oppenheimer this weekend! 😆