Barbie (2023) Review and Analysis

The night after I saw Barbie (2023) in theaters, I scoured the internet for an actual analysis of the movie’s themes and social commentary. I had read tons and tons of Twitter analyses and I needed a longer form analysis. I came across the YouTube channel Screen Crushed, who mentioned that Barbie is a coming-of-age story similar to Greta Gerwig’s previous works. It was enlightening. I am a person that needs to put my thoughts on paper to make sense of them, thus my three-page Google Doc was born at 3 a.m. while I waited for the Portugal/Vietnam World Cup game to start. 

I thought it would be a paragraph summarizing the same points I read and heard, but it turned into three pages. The original is an incoherent mess and what you’re reading right now is a much more logical and coherent analysis. Greta Gerwig uses a transformative feminist tale about Barbie to criticize society’s propensity for putting people in boxes. Pun intended. 

This is your official spoiler alert! Read at your own risk. 

Synopsis

Barbie Land is a matriarchal society where the Barbies (or women) hold the important positions and the Kens (men) are dependent on the Barbies for their self-worth. This is very bluntly stated by the narrator who states Ken’s whole day is dependent on whether or not Barbie notices him. 

The beginning of the film displays how Barbie Land operates as a society being played by children. Barbie floats from floor to floor because that’s how kids moved their own Barbies to different floors. There’s no water in her shower or juice in her cup and Ken is essentially a side character. Barbie’s girl-centered brand flips the script for little girls and encourages them to be anything they want to be. Gerwig blows this up on screen for a very blunt commentary on how women are treated in patriarchal societies. 

Barbie is in this false feminist utopia where she believes she has brought equality to the real world and freed women from all oppression and that everything operates as perfectly as it does in Barbie Land. Then, Barbie experiences some imperfect changes like flat feet, falling off her roof, and thoughts of death. This sends Barbie on a journey to the real world, accompanied by Ken, where she realizes that it is not what she thought at all. 

Barbie and Ken start their individual journeys to find their purpose. 

Barbie and Ken’s Journey

Ken becomes unsettled with his role in Barbie Land. His life centers around “just beach” and Barbie. In the real world, Ken learns of the patriarchy and is invigorated by the respect he gets from men. Ken brings the patriarchy to Barbie Land and brainwashes the Barbies. 

Barbie, on the other hand, is distressed by the shattering realization that she did not heal the real world and provide full liberation to women. This is demonstrated by the large number of men in the real world, the catcalling construction worker scene, schoolgirls calling her a fascist, and Mattel’s fully male staff except for one woman, the secretary. This is where Gerwig directly criticizes Barbie, Mattel, and the Barbie brand. Barbie is not a feminist icon. She’s not intersectional or representative of all women. Sure, she can inspire you to be anything, but Barbie was still created as a skinny, blonde, blue-eyed white woman. Barbie is still an idealized version of what a gendered society wants a woman to be. Gerwig takes direct criticism at Mattel for profiting off of selling fake feminism in a box to young girls. 

Eventually Mattel released the first Black doll, a friend of Barbie’s named Christie, which was introduced in 1968. Then the first Black Barbie was introduced in 1980 by Kitty Black Perkins. Mattel has made strides to become a more inclusive doll company, which Gerwig includes in the movie. Still, the director is making a very obvious point that your feminism needs to be inclusive of all. 

The Conflict

Barbie brings the Mattel secretary, Gloria, and her daughter, Sasha, to Barbie Land in hopes of fixing her flat feet. Upon their return, they discover “Kendom” instead. The Barbies come together to stop the Kens from legalizing the patriarchy, resolving the Kens’ issues with living in Barbie Land. The whole conflict and resolution is an obvious analogy about fighting for gender equality. Barbie explains to Ken that he doesn’t have to be dependent on her for his identity, and that being “just Ken” is “Kenough”. 

Barbie, on her own journey, comes face to face with her own role in society. Barbie’s journey to the real world to fix her flat feet becomes a transformation into her true self. After discovering that the real world doesn’t praise her and she doesn’t have any talents as stereotypical Barbie, she becomes distraught about not being pretty and what her role in life actually is. 

The Resolution

Gloria’s rant about society’s expectations of women and a conversation with Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel and creator of Barbie, help her realize her humanity. Ruth explains that Barbie is an idea, and that while ideas live forever, humans have one destination. Barbie finds her purpose when she decides she wants to be the creator of ideas instead of the idea. The idea is an everlasting perfect idealized cognition of the mind. It is not reality to live in a world where all women are white, thin, long-legged, blonde, blue-eyed perfection. Women and men are not perfect. They are humans that make mistakes and go through challenges. Even though Barbie was made to be perfect, humans are not perfect.

Barbie completes her transformation by the end of the movie when we see her arriving for her appointment at the gynecologist. I didn’t catch this at first, and originally thought it was just a simple nod toward feminism. However, her gynecology appointment symbolizes that Barbie is now a real human. As we all know, Barbies and Kens are not anatomically correct. In one scene, Barbie makes it very clear when she blatantly states she doesn’t have a vagina to the cat-calling construction workers in the real world. 

Barbie realizes what human experience truly is, and opts to become a human instead of an ideal.

The Conclusion

Gerwig invites the audience to look past their gender and see the ways in which a gendered society has been a detriment to society. Ultimately, a society focused on labels will only continue to alienate those who don’t fit. This point is illustrated by characters like Weird Barbie, Midge, Allan, and the other discontinued Barbies. Mattel trying to return Barbie to Barbie Land in a box earlier is symbolic of this point. 

Barbie is about being a human. Gerwig’s coming of age story hopes to enlighten audiences of their own humanity. You are just enough as you are. You are more than the labels that society puts on you. The movie’s message seems very obvious, but the themes reflect the complex nature of humanity.