Barbie
Welcome to Greta and Mattel’s Play Corner
In a scene near the end of the first act Barbie (Margot Robbie), having wound up in the real world to fix the tear between reality and Barbieland, has been escorted to Mattel headquarters by shady black-clad gentlemen in shady black armored cars. At this point, having suffered a setback of her own, Barbie doesn’t really know what to do next, so she goes along in the hopes that her creators can fix the problem.
She’s escorted to the top floor to meet the management headed by CEO (no name given) played by Will Ferrell. CEO is a kind of evil, but harmless, even dorky creature. He’s aware of the power he holds over little girls’ imaginations (even relishing in it), as well as his responsibility towards the bottom line of the company, and simultaneously he convinces himself that he’s doing it for female empowerment. In other words: he’s a caricature of a corporate shill, blissfully ignoring his male privilege (let’s call him CEO Ken).
As Barbie arrives at the top floor, CEO Ken (along with CFO Ken and COO Ken) convinces her to get back into a giant box (the one in mint condition that Barbies usually come in) to fix the tear in reality. That way, they promise, she can go back to Barbieland and everything’ll go back to normal. She agrees, but before she steps into the box, she has one last request: she wants to meet the female CEO of Mattel, the woman who runs the show.
This seemingly innocent request makes CEO Ken inexplicably angry. Mattel is a company that’s built for and by women, he proclaims. After all, they have “gender neutral bathrooms up the wazoo”, and they did have two (or so) female CEOs, one in the nineties and another one!1 The scene is obviously played for laughs, with CEO Ken being the butt of the joke. But then this phrase explodes out of his middle-aged mouth: “Now, get back in the box, you Jezebel!”, followed by: “What? You’re not allowed to say Jezebel anymore?”
Jezebel? What?
Obviously, Jezebel is supposed to be a jocular stand-in for the word bitch, and I, and others at the theater, definitely chuckled. But (if I may overthink for a moment2) Jezebel is also the woman whose name is synonymous with pure evil, wanton sexual depravity and heresy. The woman who is also undergoing a kind of redemption3 as the victim of biblical misogyny.
Thanks to my obsessive brain, this scene stuck with me longer than most scenes in the movie. The blatant invocation of the worst woman in the Bible, spoken in a moment of misdirected male rage and entitlement, made me wonder. Is this movie supposed to redeem Barbie? Redeem her from all the feminist criticisms hurled her way pretty much since her inception (modeled after a German sex doll no less)? The unrealistic body standards, the consumerist lifestyle, the blonde hyper-sexualized femininity – reexamined and recontextualized in this pink overly stylized movie?
Let’s see.
This marks the end of the somewhat spoiler-free section of the review. In short, yeah, the movie is entertaining and quite funny. The actors are spot-on, and the grand set design alone is worth a watch. I’d definitely recommend watching this movie for the spectacle, the humor, and the warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you don’t have to think about something too hard!
✨ SPOILERS AHEAD ✨ ✨ SPOILERS AHEAD ✨ ✨ SPOILERS AHEAD ✨
✨ Part 1: Pretend Existentialism ✨
The movie begins with a shot-for-shot recreation of the Dawn of Men sequence from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, wherein Helen Mirren narrates the first arrival of Barbie on the girls’ toy scene, previously dominated by baby dolls and pretend motherhood. While the girls rip off their aprons and ferociously smash their plastic babies into the barren post-war ground, Mirren continues to narrate the evolution of Barbie. If Barbie could be anything4, she says, have a career, her own money and everything she wanted, you could, too. Thus, Barbie solved all the problems posited by the patriarchy and catapulted women into a new and empowered future.
“At least, that’s what the Barbies believe. Who am I to burst their bubble? ”
If anyone could burst my bubble anytime, it’s Helen Mirren
To highlight life in Barbieland, we meet Stereotypical Barbie, as she goes about her perfect day. She wakes up, showers, eats breakfast, and of course changes cute outfits in-between scenes. On her pretend drive through town, she cheerily greets every Barbie she sees. We meet (President) Barbie (Issa Rae), (Lawyer) Barbie5 (Sharon Rooney6), (Writer) Barbie (Alexandra Shipp) during her Nobel Prize ceremony, and so many more Barbies along with their incredible achievements and careers.
Every job of importance, from garbage disposal to the supreme court, is performed by Barbies supporting their sisters with cheers and a heartwarming “Hi, Barbie!” everywhere. Barbieland is a collaborative paradise (albeit within the frame of the real world and its hierarchical structures).
(Main Character) Barbie arrives at the beach greeting even more Barbies, including (Mermaid) Barbie (Dua Lipa), but what’s this? Who’s vying for her attention? Why, it’s (Beach) Ken (Ryan Gosling) and all the other Kens, whose job is … beach, and they’re damn good at it, too. (Beach) Ken tries to impress Barbie by shredding some waves but fails miserably as he collides with the plastic water. Before Dr. Barbie can heal his wounded pride, (Tourist) Ken (Simu Liu), (Beach) Ken’s most bitter rival, tries to taunt him into an epic beach-off, but is stopped by Barbie.
Anyway, how about a huge blow-out party with all the Barbies and a choreography to bespoke music? Barbie’s got you. As the Barbies dance and the Kens try to get their attention, we know that it’s the best night ever, we all wanted this night, indeed every night, to be just like this – forever. By the way, have you ever thought about dying?
This one question not only derails the party but is also a harbinger of terrible change in (Main Character) Barbie’s life. As early as next day she starts “malfunctioning”. Her heels fall flat on the ground, the pretend water in her pretend shower is cold, and she falls off of her roof instead of gracefully gliding into her car as usual. After a good 30 seconds of barfing noises at the sight of her flat feet7, the Barbies tell Barbie to go to Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), a Barbie that has been played with too hard, has mangled hair and is always in the splits.
At Weird Barbie’s weird house, Barbie asks Weird Barbie to fix her so that she can go back to her perfect life. Unfortunately, it’s too late. The girl who’s been playing with her is sad, and her emotions somehow opened a rift between the real world and Barbieland and are now affecting (Stereotypical) Barbie’s emotional state as well. After some hesitation, Barbie agrees to go to the real world, after the actual threat is revealed – whole body cellulite!8
(It is, indeed, later revealed that the horrible things which made Barbie malfunction are perpetual thoughts of death and a life with whole-body cellulite9.)
Barbie goes to the real world accompanied by Ken, who was taunted by Ken to go with her. After arriving at Venice Beach, they both feel a clear shift in perception. While Barbie feels the unwanted attention from men with definite violent undercurrents, including sleazy comments, Ken is delighted by all the free and positive attention as well as the basic respect people seem to have for him. After some hijinks, Barbie sends Ken away so that she can think and figure out where she can find the girl she came to console.
She closes her eyes, breathes deeply and reaches out. Her mind is flooded with memories of a mother-daughter relationship that seems to have gone sour as soon as the kid hit puberty. With the help of the memories Barbie is able to find out where the girl goes to school. When she opens her eyes, however, everything feels different. She looks around and sees beauty – in small interactions, in a family going for a stroll, and in an old woman sitting next to her on the bench (Ann Roth10). Barbie looks at the woman, and at the height of her first burst of human emotions she accepts ageing and death, as she tells the woman how beautiful she is, to which she replies, “Don’t I know it!”. Beautiful scene, movie over, let’s go cry in the bathroom!
Unfortunately, Ken comes back with incredible news of his own: the real world is run by men with the help of a thing called patriarchy, which is great and has horses and stuff. Barbie doesn’t get to hear the great news11, however, as they have to depart to the school she saw in her vision.
Which brings us to the Jezebel scene. Barbie has just been shut down by Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), who blatantly told her that Barbie has not saved womankind from anything and has even added to their plight by propagating unrealistic body standards, a wildly consumerist lifestyle, a very narrow white thin definition of femininity, and basically called her a bimbo (haven’t we been reclaiming this word for the last decade?). By the way, these concerns remain largely unexamined within the movie, except for when they’re uttered by a precocious teen, which dismisses them outright.
However, credit where credit is due: the criticism of Barbie being less of an idea and more of a product is lightly touched upon in a very visually satisfying way. The production design of the Mattel headquarters has the same plasticky artificiality as Barbieland and shows a world where a bunch of man-children pretend-play with big ideas and money in phallically shaped buildings without any notion of the real world they’re influencing12. Unfortunately, this very vanilla criticism doesn’t go beyond showing the upper management of Mattel as a bunch of adorkable corporate Kens.
They couldn’t hurt a fly
In a very funny Benny Hill-inspired chase sequence, Barbie escapes the Corporate Kens and gets scooped up by Gloria (America Ferrera), the CEO’s executive assistant, Sasha’s mom and (gasp) the “girl”13 who was actually playing with (Main Character) Barbie. Bored in her job, sad because she’s losing touch with her daughter and overall unsatisfied of what she’s become, Gloria started dreaming of a simpler time – a time when play was equally as important as work and other responsibilities. Unfortunately, her real-world troubles crept into her blissful playing time, and so (Perpetual Thoughts of Death and Full-Body Cellulite) Barbie as well as the rift between the two worlds was created.
As soon as Gloria and Barbie reunite, Barbie knows what to do. She needs to take Sasha and Gloria to Barbieland to show them how a society run by women actually works. After all, this is what Barbie was supposed to do in the first place, right?
✨✨ History Excurse ✨✨
Barbie was first marketed as a teen model – a young woman about town, who had a ton of different outfits, her own money and no dependents. From her inception, she herself wasn’t dependent on outside male validation and was neither forced to nurture male egos nor any children. Which means that her relationships with her siblings, friends and cousins, as well as Ken, were based on actual sympathy rather than restrictive norms. In short, yes, Barbie was a relief from the constraining gender roles of the 1950s.
However, Women were on the cusp of liberation in the 1960s anyway, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique came out in 1963, sparking second-wave feminism (and everything good and bad that came with it). Ruth Handler, co-founder and president of Mattel, who is credited with inventing Barbie, saw that women were changing in the post-war years and understood this political climate far better than her husband or any man could. She knew that Barbie would sell, not because she would inspire young minds, but because she actually looked at young girls as a viable demographic to sell to14.
However, Women were on the cusp of liberation in the 1960s anyway, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique came out in 1963, sparking second-wave feminism (and everything good and bad that came with it). Ruth Handler, co-founder and president of Mattel, who is credited with inventing Barbie, saw that women were changing in the post-war years and understood this political climate far better than her husband or any man could. She knew that Barbie would sell, not because she would inspire young minds, but because she actually looked at young girls as a viable demographic to sell to[14].
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
Instead of acknowledging the fact that Barbie is a consumerist product that sometimes manages to inspires people, and how dangerously intertwined capitalism and culture actually are, the movie staunchly (stubbornly even) positions itself in favor of Barbie always having been an Idea (capital letter “I”) for the greater good15. Even though Ruth Handler appears twice in the movie as an adorable old lady ghost played by Rhea Perlman (an adorable old lady), both appearances paint her as a benevolent God, helping her creation to finally find herself, and less as a person with financial as well as creative ambitions. In the grand scheme of things, she’s also just a figment of imagination in this particular installment of Greta’s play corner. She is: (Simplified Beyond Recognition Ghost of Ruth Handler) Barbie16.
Adorable
✨ Part 2: Pretend Patriarchy ✨
Barbie, Gloria and Sasha make it back to Barbieland, followed by the (Upper Management) Kens, only to discover that Ken has returned there earlier (Biff style) and has instituted his own version of patriarchy with what he’s learned from the real world (brewskis, horses and submissive women Barbies).
Introducing: (Stealing a Time Machine, Going Back to the Past and Giving the Almanac to Your Younger Self, so that He Can Get Rich and Become Donald Trump) Ken. Accessories include: Sports Almanac, Time Machine, A Cane to Abuse People With and an Attitude. Out Now! Only Free.99
In his newly formed Kendom (Biff) Ken has brainwashed all the previously amazing Barbies into serving him and the other Kens, while being their “long-term long-distance low-commitment casual girlfriends”. He’s also destroyed Barbie’s dream house and turned it into his Mojo Dojo Casa House, which is awesome and has a mini fridge for his brewskis.
The patriarchy Ken propagates is, of course, played for laughs most of the time, as the Kens frolic about Kendom kensplaining movies, cars, sports and money to unsuspecting Barbies. However, again, the movie is actually quite close to making a point.
The Kens feel disenfranchised and trapped both in their dependence on the Barbies’ attention and their absolute lack of actual contribution to the world they’re living in. This results in a Barbieland version of arrested emotional development and a lack of a distinct sense of self. So, they sink ever further into a morass of loneliness, petty rivalries with other Kens and emotional immaturity, which results in them not being able to form any viable emotional connections. Instead of dealing with these emotions, they blame the Barbies for their misfortune and, as a result, subjugate them, vandalize their property and take over Barbieland by force.
These are the effects of the patriarchy on men. Greta identifies and shows them with terrifying clarity. How awesome is it then that she’s created a framework, a world fully built on play and fanciful thoughts, to playfully show us how these effects could be ameliorated – not a solution, but a suggestion of how, for example, women and men could collaborate to get out of this mess together; or how the Kens can bond in a meaningful way to understand that they need each other and not some fake subjugated girlfriend to form a strong sense of self; or anything really…..
✨ Part 3: White Feminism and The Speech ✨
After seeing what Ken has done to Barbieland, Barbie falls (literally) into a deep crisis and sends Gloria and Sasha away. Later she's scooped up by (Weird) Barbie and some allies, who didn’t fall for Ken’s version of patriarchy. Sasha, however, can’t leave Barbieland in disarray, and together with discontinued doll Alan (Michael Cerra), who is one of a kind and therefore even more lonely than the average Ken, they return to (Weird) Barbie’s house, where all of the misfits have gathered.
Gloria asks Barbie what’s wrong, and Barbie (by now almost human) breaks down, lamenting that she’s neither pretty, nor smart, nor interesting enough (the narrator chimes in again at this point, to lampshade Margot Robbie’s beauty).
As heartbreaking as it may seem to see Margot Robbie say that she’s not beautiful enough, Barbie’s statement doesn’t make sense. For whom is she not beautiful/smart/interesting enough? Barbieland appreciates her as she is, Kendom is a joke and no one cares about the Kens anyway, and she’s not human yet, so the real world is also not a concern.
This is not an existential crisis; it’s a prompt for The Speech.
After hearing the absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way Barbie utter those words, Gloria turns into (Gloria Steinem) Barbie and delivers the emotional climax of the movie (America Ferrera is a great actress and she does great in this scene, no shade)17.
After hearing the absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way Barbie utter those words, Gloria turns into (Gloria Steinem) Barbie and delivers the emotional climax of the movie (America Ferrera is a great actress and she does great in this scene, no shade)[17].
“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we’re always doing it wrong.
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining.
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. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.”
We have to talk about this.
Gloria’s speech is the emotional core of the movie, it is well delivered and just feels right. The impossible standards, the contradictory requirements, just the pure insanity of being a woman – finally someone said it. Finally, you, Gloria, set the record straight:
“By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance of being a woman under the patriarchy, you robbed it of its power. ”
But, really?
What about the systemic oppression of marginalized women, the everyday threat of sexual violence, the systemic attack on women’s bodily autonomy? What about the fact that men hold most positions of power, regardless of how good it feels to ✨slay✨? What about the pay gap, unpaid care work, emotional labor, the frickin’ thigh gap …. the orgasm gap, for Christ’s sake!
What about the actual patriarchy?
Although we see a variety of races, body types and gender identities in Barbieland, their experiences with the aforementioned patriarchy are not mentioned or highlighted in any kind (if they have any lines of dialogue at all). Our main character, however, is (Stereotypical) Barbie, with the stereotype being: white, cis, thin and able. By giving this particular main character most of the screen time and dialogue lines, Gerwig opts for a simplified non-intersectional approach, saying that all women are the same and face the same diffuse oppression. Her kind of patriarchal oppression is highly individual, more of a set of contradictory guidelines than an actual threat.
In short – the movie is about how patriarchy makes one feel, not what it actually does.
Having white privilege doesn’t mean that Barbie’s life is without hardship, as we see in the short time she spends in the real world. As soon as she arrives, she is immediately sexually harassed and intimidated18. She has uncomfortable gender roles and expectations hoisted upon her and should she choose to become human, she’ll experience a barrage of double standards.
However, her and Ken’s white privilege comes in handy, after a man at the beach sexually assaults Barbie and she instinctively punches him in the face. She (and Ken) get arrested presumably for assault and immediately let go, but not before Barbie is verbally and very openly harassed by the cops processing them. Following that, they decide to get some less revealing clothes and get arrested again, this time for stealing. But again, they’re immediately let go, despite not having any money or lawyers. Both incidences of criminal behaviour result from men harassing Barbie, and although it’s an uncomfortable situation, nothing else of consequence happens to her (or Ken).
It’s both hard and very easy to imagine what would’ve happened if (Writer) Barbie or (President) Barbie had chosen to go the real world instead. Their experiences would’ve vastly differed from what (Stereotypical) Barbie encountered, as Black women are much more likely19 to be sexually assaulted and criminalized.
Another great example of Barbie’s (and Ken’s) easy accessibility in the world comes soon after, when she goes to Sasha’s school in this outfit:
She proceeds to wander about the school (Ken even goes into the library), until she finds Sasha and her friends in the cafeteria. Having acquired her target, Barbie approaches them, while no-one bats an eye at a weirdly happy lady in a weird outfit, and talks to them proclaiming that she’s Barbie.
Again, it’s not hard to imagine what could’ve happened, if (Doctor) Barbie, played by trans actress Hari Nef, had been in Barbie’s stead. As the current inhuman campaign against trans individuals seeks to take away20 their human rights as we speak, with trans women in particular being called groomers and rapists21, this scene would’ve played a lot more differently and (I imagine) violently.
White (cis, thin, etc.) privilege is baked into the very fabric of the movie - the choices Barbie (and Ken) are allowed to make and the places they’re allowed to visit without repercussions are proof of that. As soon as a woman diverges from the “norm”, however, patriarchy and the subsequent oppression become even more of a threat to physical and mental health, additionally to the “cognitive dissonance of being a woman under patriarchy”.
Actually, we only have to look as far as Mattel’s own back yard for further examples of this terrible dichotomy: In 2020 a report22 from China Labor Watch, Action Aid France and Solidar Suisse came out and revealed the horrific conditions the female workers who make Barbie in Mattel factories have to face, including rampant sexual harassment. Although Mattel has been alerted to these issues several times, they chose not to act on them.
Mattel is not interested in making a movie about how the practices of patriarchal structures actually affect women. A truly feminist film would be incredibly bad for business, you see. What they’re interested in is a veneer of feminism and wokeness, which they’ve easily achieved just by hiring indie-darling Greta Gerwig.
Patriarchy is not the same for everyone, oppression is not some diffuse concept and, unfortunately, you cannot rob either of their power just by stating how it makes one particular group of women feel.
✨ Conclusion: I’m a Barbie Girl, in a Barbie World? ✨
After the speech, (Writer) Barbie, whom the others abducted to try to deprogram her (questionable), snaps back to reality, because of the aforementioned “giving voice to the cognitive dissonance……..” (bla bla). And so, the (Guerilla) Barbies formulate a heist plan, which they narrate while standing over a map of Barbieland (let’s get heisty!).
They distract the Kens with the already deprogrammed Barbies by making them kensplain stuff, while forcing the brain-washed Barbies into a pink van23, subjecting them to snippets of dissonant double standards for women until they get woke. It doesn’t take long, as there are like seven Barbies in total. The crown jewel of their plan is then to play the Kens against each other by showing affection to their rivals.
“Now that they think they have power over you, they’ll start wondering whether they have enough power over each other.”
It works, of course, and culminates in a grand epic awesome beach-off between the warring factions of Kens led by (Beach) Ken and (Tourist) Ken respectively. It’s also a musical number, with a dance and everything. It’s amazing!
In his song, (Beach) Ken laments his fate of being Just Ken. Is it his “fate to live and die a life of blonde fragility”, he croons? What would it take for her to “see the man behind the tan” and fight for him? In the course of the musical number, however, Ken becomes increasingly aware of his predicament, and the song pivots into a grand dance number, with all the Kens realizing that they’re actually “enough and they’re great at doing stuff”, and ends with them holding hands – emotional connection achieved, feel the kenergy!
“My name’s Ken and so am I, put that manly hand in mine. So, hey world, check me out, yeah, I’m just Ken!”
Meanwhile, the Barbies storm the capitol and reinstate the Barbieland constitution, thus ending Kendom and saving themselves from patriarchy and taking back their dream houses.
And if this was the end of the patriarchy story line, I would’ve been incredibly happy (mostly because the song made me inexplicably happy to begin with).
The Kens did the work and, mirroring the Barbies’ examination of their congnitive dissonance under the patriarchy, rejected the pure performance of masculinity in favor of their need for genuine emotional connection and self-actualization – awesome!
Now, they can go to the Barbies, apologize and rebuild Barbieland as a land of equal opportunity for everyone (except Barbies with cellulite or flat feet ✨barf✨).
Upon their return from battle and their super awesome song, however, Ken doesn’t take the destruction of his kingdom and Mojo Dojo Casa House very well, and, although the song should’ve done the heavy lifting, Barbie has to apologize to him for having boundaries24.
After she does all the emotional labor for Ken and reiterates that he has to find a sense of self outside of Beach and Barbie, the (Corporate) Kens finally catch up with the plot and are ready to close the rift and return everything to its former glory. (President) Barbie, however, doesn’t want to return everything to how it was, instead giving the Kens their first seats as minor judges.
“In a couple of years, the Kens will have the same amount power in Barbieland as women have in the real world.”
Why? Why does Barbieland has to function like the real world? Why can’t we use the opportunity and at least try to find a solution to the obvious problems that plague the us?
Well, that’s obviously not why the Barbie movie was made.
Much like Barbie herself, it’s a pink, beautiful and smart summer blockbuster and just like Ruth Handler, Mattel and Greta Gerwig have found a lucrative demographic to cater it to – us. The perpetually online, the hyper aware, the helpless in the face of a burning world.
They identified that they can regurgitate to us the same consumption friendly “girl power feminism” from any Barbie commercial since the 80-ies, but with a sprinkle of commodified feminist language. It’s no coincidence or surprise that everyone, who saw this movie already has the readily available internet socio- and psycho babble vocabulary to talk about it.
In the end, by holding on to the existing patriarchal structures of the real world, the concept of the “flattering top”25, cellulite jokes or by not giving enough dialogue to any of the diverse cast, the Barbie movie doesn’t move anything, doesn’t go beyond what we already know.
It’s just a consumerist product made for our generation.
Stare into the void
Meanwhile, Barbie is ready to become human. The ghost of Ruth Handler appears and takes her to the void, where she makes sure that Barbie understands what life and death actually mean. She takes Barbie’s hands and shows her what humanity is about (take notes, there’ll be an exam): A Billy Eilish song starts playing and Barbie closes her eyes. She sees memories shot on the crappiest camera you can find. Women laughing, children giggling, adorable old ladies smiling, laughing, giggling, smiling, laughing, giggling…..
She opens her eyes, a tear rolls down her perfectly symmetrical face, she smiles.
So, what is an icon to do when she finally becomes human? How can she make meaning, instead of being an object of imagination? What does it mean for her to be a woman?
Do we meet her at a university educating herself? Do we get a glimpse of her being a community leader? Do we see her volunteering at a women’s shelter?
No, silly. She’s a woman now. We meet her at a gynecologist appointment, of course.
↩ 1. If you’re interested: Jill Barad was CEO from 1997-2000 and Margo Geordianis from 2018-2020
↩ 2. Sike! I don’t need permission for that!
↩ 3. Michael Satchell (Jan. 25, 2008). Jezebel was a Killer and Prostitute, but She had Her Good Side: The reigning icon of womanly evil. U.S. News and World Report (last accessed: Aug. 08, 2023)
↩ 4. “You Can Be Anything” is a trademarked statement held by Mattel since 1984. In 2015 it became the official Barbie slogan. (Natalie Yeung (Jul.21, 2023). The Barbie “You can Be Anything” Slogan. Profolus (last accessed: Aug. 3, 2023))
↩ 5. Curvy Barbie was added to the Barbie line-up in 2016 among other body-shapes like “petite” and “tall”
↩ 6. Kudos on the incredible casting choice!
↩ 7. Huh, for a society that has embraced disabled Barbie, they sure are not kind to disabilities that they deem gross or unusual
↩ 8. Huh, for a society that has embraced Fat Barbie, they sure are quick to jump on the fear-mongering wagon of cellulite, a thing that has been specifically invented by men to make women hate their bodies and spend an inordinate amount of time and money fixing it.
↩ 9. Kelsey Miller (May 14, 2018). Cellulite Isn’t Real. This Is How It Was Invented. Refinery29 (last accessed: Aug. 3, 2023)
↩ 10. Oscar-winning costume designer and overall bad-ass
↩ 11. Because she doesn’t prioritize his thoughts and feelings (sic!)
↩ 12. That’s some Succession level commentary right here.
↩ 13. (This video has nothing to do with my review, I just really like it.) Rowan Ellis (Aug. 1, 2023). the perpetual infantilisation of millenial women. Rowas Ellis - YouTube Channel (last accessed: Aug. 03, 2023)
↩ 14. After all, Mattel was the first ever toy company to broadcast commercials directly to children through their ties to the Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club.
↩ 15. Look, honey! Greta’s playing revisionist history. How cute!
↩ 16. BTW, I’d love an older Barbie edition! I’d kill for feminist icon Jane Fonda Barbie, laid back Lily Tomlin Barbie … ANGELA LANSBURY BARBIE!!!!
↩ 17. Buckle up, it’s a long one!
↩ 18. Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics. Rainn (last accessed: Aug. 03, 2023)
↩ 19. National Black Women’s Justice Institute (Orginal Post: Apr. 2021, Updated: Apr. 11, 2021). Black Women, Sexual Assault and Criminalization. (last accessed: Aug. 04, 2023)
↩ 20. hrc.org Resources (Last updated: Jul. 25, 2023). Map: Attacks on Gender Affirming Care by State. Human Rights Campaign Foundation (last accessed: Aug. 03, 2023)
↩ 21. Henry Berg-Brousseau (Aug. 10, 2022). NEW REPORT: Anti-LGBTQ+ Grooming Narrative Surged More Than 400% on Social Media Following Florida's "Don't Say Gay or Trans" Law As Social Platforms Enabled Extremist Politicians and their Allies to Peddle Inflamatory, Discriminatory Rhetoric. Human Rights Campaign Foundation (last accessed: Aug. 05, 2023)
↩ 22. ActionAid France, China Labor Watch, Solidar Suisse (Dec 05, 2020). China: NFO report reveals Barbie-making female workers in Mattel Group’s factories are exposed to risks of sexual harassment. Business & Human Rights Resource Center (last accessed: Aug. 04, 2023)
↩ 23. Is this a reference to A Clockwork Orange?
↩ 24. You know who doesn’t apologize for brainwashing her friends, destroying her house and trying to take over the country?
↩ 25. Gray Chapman (Nov. 28, 2016). What Do We Really Mean When We Say Something Is “Flattering”?: Often, the word “flattering” simply boils down to camouflaging your body’s flaws. Racked (last accessed: Aug. 03, 2023)