Barbie the movie - REVIEW! (spoilers)

*Possible spoilers* Although it's hard to say that for a formulaic and predictable plot device which relies on the tried and true The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe or The Wizard of Oz type affair - i.e. a portal fantasy with a quest like narrative - in this instance if one is being generous one could suggest this is a reversal: transposing oneself from a fantasy into a reality... so perhaps echoes of Ariel from The Little Mermaid especially at the ending, would be more apt. 

But whereas Ariel has immense complexity of character, Barbie is a two dimensional sweet bimbo and that's what's ultimately so disappointing. I'd read about how outraged right wing stiffs in America had lambasted the film and how (male) critics had complained that “the patriarchy” was used repeatedly and unironically. This only encouraged me to see it and see how Barbie, a feminist icon, for yes that is what I see her as, would undo the most misogynist notion of all: that her beautiful blonde, hair coiffed heavy makeup tight clothed and high heeled persona, doesn't in any way indicate that this woman is not also a highly intelligent and thinking individual and not simply an object for the delectation of men.

Instead, we see a film purporting to dismantle these notions yet in effect entrenching them further. This I find more harmful than an overtly derogatory film. Especially when aimed at a young mind. For instance, Barbie is horrified at getting cellulite and flat feet. Apparently a joke - but is it actually? I mean, aside from one token overweight Barbie, who happens to be the most authoritative and bossy, and no overweight men and just one token dweeb who is the only unattractive male in a sea of attractive Kens, are they not hoisted by their own petard? The fact that at the end she has to forsake pink and heels and instead adopt a brown earthy get up replete with Arizona Birkenstocks was to me the final capitulation to the patriarchy and its strict dichotomy. Clever and to be taken seriously = no pink and no heels! Humble yourself and don’t play on overt symbols of femininity if you want us to respect you and not treat you like meat. That was the message I got and I also didn’t like (and as a teen I suspect I’d have hated it even more…) the way that at the beginning we are submerged into this fun and fluff - for make no mistake, the choreography, the set, the costumes and the makeup are all A+, but then suddenly we are being given a hectoring sermon. It’s not even that I disagreed with any of it as I didn’t, but it was clear that the film was contradicting itself. That old adage: show don’t tell. And what it was showing wasn't aligning at all. In fact was I missing something or was the final 'joke' about Barbie's first act of emancipation going to her gynecologist, a reference to her now becoming a real life sexual being and casting her as a fully functional sex symbol now, not merely a doll or a fantasy. Certainly viewed via a male gaze this is what would be understood by this crescendo.

 

There were so many points which could have been made. I liked hearing about the history of Barbie and the political reflection one can see through the decades. Indeed arguably the most interesting part of the film was the end credits when a roll call of past Barbies was presented. There was not enough about the sadness of Ken; yes this undermines the doctrine but young male suicide is a leading cause of death and it's only recently that attempts to get men to show feelings and talk about it have been made. The unrequited love angle was also a chance to make Barbie asexual or lesbian. Yes it was hinted at, but if you're going to be criticised as “woke”which the director knew was inevitable, why not be bold about it?

It was an interesting idea that finding the little girl who was playing with her, in fact led to a grown up mother. But it also highlighted how flawed the premise was. Unless they were implying only an adult level of sadness can penetrate into the er, membrane. As I can personally attest that as a little girl (one of my formative memories dare I admit) I once went to my room and tumbled out all my accumulated pound coins from endless weeks of saving up, and also tore off all the heads of my beloved Barbies. This demonstration for me represented the truest rendition of hopelessness and grief. I'm fairly sure that my experience was echoed many times through various miserable little girls from the 50s and to the present day, so I'm not sure why it was only now heard by Barbie. But flimsy pretext to one side, it was a surprise that this seemed to suggest a little girl could be an adult. More on the theme of how an adult might get comfort from a childhood toy may have opened up themes which weren't covered. 

The myth of sisterhood and how women are often the first enemy of feminism was touched upon but not expanded and the film again said one thing but presented another. After all, during Nazi times when women were given awards for having lots of babies and were encouraged to throw out all notions of feminism and revert to being a housewife and mother, female support for Hitler was sky high. And when looking at patriarchal religion and oppression of women, in particular how they are to dress and behave, you will often find no more enthusiastic proponent than the woman herself. Many women even aside from religious brainwashing, allow themselves to think of men controlling them as simply being seen as being 'prized' rather than controlled. The idea that Barbieland was just as divisive as the real world was not elucidated. The notion that pretending that competition and gender and all sorts of other perceived advantages don't exist wasn't debated. Instead we have an insipid conclusion.

Barbie is likeable, but she and all the other Barbies are very simple and change their minds at the merest suggestion. The aforementioned lecture which changes their mind, one can't help feeling all it would take is one more lecture, this time from a Ken, and they'd agree with that too. The Kens weren't even given this much, they were simply hammy jokes and the unrequited love element which could have humanised them instead was just sketched in and not taken seriously as a theme. 

The biggest problem is that they didn't take the chance for any commentary on social media and fake filters and how that may have originated or alternatively have been avoided if playing with Barbies was still the main pastime of youngsters - who let's face it, are far more likely to be looking at an interactive screen than playing endlessly with a plastic doll. But ultimately this has to be a Mattel advert, and maybe they didn't want to go down that route! 

I will not forgive them for making Barbie apologise for being a fashion icon. Chanel and Birkenstock are strange bedfellows yet these are the brands we saw. Ultimately one was the past and one the future. I would have preferred if Barbie had at least combined the two and become a maverick hybrid thereof. Instead she had to pick one. And in an echo of the 'weird Barbie' who forces her to pick the Birkenstock, here too, there isn't a real choice, or indeed a real point. 

Maybe we'll be seeing an 'ordinary Barbie' as promised, a brown jacketed Birkenstock sandal one. But if you don't look like Margot Robbie, will the outfit still work... because it would if it were a pink dress. A pink dress lets everyone shine. We all wore pink at the cinema. A frumpy outfit, well it's a lot harder to look good in that if you're not 'ordinary  Barbie'. In fact it's probably the easiest way to get someone to feel inadequate. That is, the opposite of empowered.

Overall a disappointment 6/10  

Age old Question of Ageing women in Beauty

Ageing in women has always been the last bastion of prejudice. Perhaps as in the Klimptian way (if I may use such a term) - there are only three stages one is permitted. A child still connected to its young thin and beautiful mother, then there's the aforementioned beautiful mother, dutifully loving and cradling the child with wispy gauze encircling her limbs; aside and apart from them stands or rather hunches, a shameful grey figure with gnarly veined feet and wiry hair which she obediently and carefully uses to hide her no doubt horrible and wrinkled visage. Her bloated belly and sagging breasts are however still affronting our vision but the radiance and confidence of the younger two figures seem fairly safe in their (let's use that term again) Klimptian blue bubble aura whilst the old woman is in her red bubble aura, albeit her ashamed head accidentally bows and intrudes into the blue one as if foreshadowing some inevitable threat which indeed is clear. The message is: you'll be me! And then what! 

Klimt is actually one of my favourite artists so I am not attempting to prove my youth credentials by way of "cancelling" him for being misogynist. Particularly when this vision is still the same as ever and any attempt to correct it is met with anger at it in fact entrenching it. I am referring to the response of Sports Illustrated featuring a suspiciously smooth and glowing octogenarian, Martha Stewart:

In interviews she graciously concedes that she 'had a light spray tan, something she'd never done', a bit like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner insisting they are horrified and bewildered by plastic surgery. We can speculate and we can, er, use our eyes, but it's true, we are not owed any explanation and I don't know why people think we are. I think it's safe to accept that if we all had unbridled funds, we too could give mother nature a good fight back. I don't know much about Martha Stewart but reading her interview (NYT) it's clear that this fight isn't only about the external, it's also about not being that hunched and apologetic grey figure accidentally seeping into a young world and contaminating it. When asked if she stood by her joke that she was waiting for friends to die so she can get a chance at their husbands, she drily replies: "I don’t take it back. But, well … the husbands do tend to go first. And, really, I prefer younger men."

Of course Sports Illustrated had the previous year already featured another older candidate in her bathing suit, though by comparison a sprightly 69 years old. Maye Musk. However she has short hair which immediately acts as a bulwark against suggestions of impersonating a young fertile (that word had to come up sooner or later) blonde. Her hair is short and white and her demeanor is dignified and without the girlish tousled locks and languid pose. Foliage acts as a slight apology attempting to contain this aberration of nature.

Madonna has become the poster child (so to speak) for women who refuse to accept ageing and in their silly insistence merely look ridiculous and push back feminism. I disagree. In the 50s, actresses, take Marilyn Monroe, were initially given the ingenue roles but by the time of her death at 36 it was only mother roles and she had changed her wardrobe completely. Well if advances in science mean this can be reversed then surely that's to be welcomed, not treated with anger. Now clearly, some people's inherent facial bone structure, or the time they start surgery (hint- the younger the better) or the surgeon they choose and various other factors, determines how pleasing it is to our eyes and judgment. So if the issue is that us mere mortals caught within a cost of living crisis can't do it then that's a different argument. But if Madonna wants to not see wrinkles then that's her decision. The backlash she gets is very cruel - and mocking a woman for being defiant is very misogynist, just like calling women who speak up and complain, Karens. It's a way to put women back in their correct bubble aura and get them to hide their ugly old faces. And the cancel format itself is very medieval and depressing. Once you make a mistake, that mistake will never be forgiven. The identity boxes and pronouns are similarly very strict. Women within this dogmatic logic are also contained and mocked. It's sad that the trend is not towards a more pliant route of people expressing themselves with a freedom to change at will and not because of their age or gender. Perhaps Sports Illustrated, an unlikely champion, will be at the helm of such a change. To my mind, I'd rather see women looking confident in their swimsuits than clunky makeup campaigns trying to sell products or using face creams called 'menopause cream'. Those are an insult to one's intelligence and a bait and switch rather than an attempt to change an ingrained pattern.