Belated Rantings About The Barbie Movie: Weird Anti-Intellectualism Around “Fun” Stuff

Essay/Film Review

[**Full spoilers ]

I absolutely did not intend to write about this damn Barbie movie when I left the theater.

I just wanted to treat my 10 year-old niece to a lowkey afternoon of too-salty popcorn and an air conditioned respite from the damp July heat. 

I wanted to zone out for what I half-hoped/half-assumed would be 2 hours of Toy Story-esque double entendres and bubbly set design. 

Even when the film was over and I rolled my eyes at the weird pacing, somewhat cringey jokes, and girlboss neoliberal feminism; even on the walk home, as I muttered to myself about its attempts at political pacification and how I thought Issa Rae had more lines (to which my niece responded "huh?")— I generally forgot about the whole mess.

After all, Barbie’s iconography was never crucial to me as a site of childhood nostalgia, nor turmoil. I’d grown up a chubby black girl, inherently locked out of the Anglo-beauty ideals for which white feminists held the brand responsible.

Besides, I generally assumed that most of my obvious political critiques about the movie were already shared by others on the left, and there was nothing fresh to say.

It seemed terribly obvious Mattel was trying to solve their feminist publicity problem and dwindling sales. I suppose I thought we'd all have a collective chuckle, and brace for cultural impact.

But in the responses to Barbie critiques something fascinating was happening on the left: corporate media's attempts at weaponizing progressive messaging seemed to be working; with a darling female director and  just enough "We Hear You" rhetoric to hit some conscious nerve. That even amid an overtly politicized film, the legitimacy to which we could condemn those politics was somehow revoked. 

It also did not help that conservatives rebuked Barbie’s Woke Agenda which seemed to push everyone else into a reactionary tizzy, shielding the film from further criticism. 

People were defensive as HELL. 

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPR7Ly2AX/

Read here.

The responses to Barbie criticism can essentially be outlined into four main camps of thought: 

1. "It's just a fun movie about a child's toy, it's not that serious/worth all this analysis!" 

But this take begs the more pertinent questions: Why are consumers required to interpret Barbie as “just for fun”, when the media institutions who made it have taken it very seriously? Why would they so closely micromanage the film's brand (parting ways with three different writers for creative differences), promulgate such strategic politics, insert subliminal Warners Bros logos, or spend $150 million on marketing (more than production costs), for what is just a film about a “child’s toy?” 

Propaganda is still propaganda even when it is pink. 

And Barbie is blindingly pink; shoehorning satirized  “wokeness” wherever it can. Like the introduction to Sasha, an angsty teen girl who unleashes a heavy-handed diatribe against Barbie, barking of ”sexualized capitalism” (whatever that means?) and calling her “fascist” from a high school cafeteria (you know, like any 15 year-old so often does). Or even a fictional Mattel “poking fun” at the hypocrisy of their all-male executive board, depicted as clumsy goons who can't even figure out how to get through a turnstile gate.

Video here

Things Mattel did not poke fun at: the company’s history of hostile, exploitative labor practices for the real life women working in their factories. Rather than highlight corporate corruption, the film positions the lack of female leadership (at the helm of corporate corruption) as the “real” problem. It hurls words like capitalism, yet never critiques its effects. This constant misdirection of criticism epitomizes Barbie and “woke” film/television in general. A cinematic sleight of hand exchanging one straw man argument for another.

This is also why rationing political critique for more “serious” topics is dangerous and ineffective. We are most vulnerable whenever we believe we are only being entertained. And cultural production is still the craftiest way to distract, misinform, manage rage, and do what Huey Newton once described of power: “.. define phenomena and make it act in a desired manner.” 

In the theater, we can be sold the illusion of a “radically” left American climate, even as reality moves further into fascist dystopia. We can be assuaged with political correctness as the oligarchy which controls our daily lives moves on stealthily; gutting affirmative action, building Cop City, censoring books, rolling back child labor laws, and repealing women’s right to a safe legal abortion. 

Through just the right pop cultural subterfuge we can be made to believe that progress has already happened on the micro level; or at the very least, that the media is no longer an arm of Power, but on the same side as the masses, fighting some amorphous social ill. We can leave the experience feeling “heard” and inspired, less indignant and riotous, yet without effective tools for resistance. 

I’m interested in how Barbie fits squarely onto the contemporary bandwagon of liberal “inclusivity” in the post-Me Too and BLM movements. There is, of course, a historical link between social uprisings and  pop culture’s attempts at diluting it through a new narrative. After George Floyd protests, the next two years highlighted  race-conscious films like Judas: The Black Messiah, Passing, Underground Railroad, Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain, Harder They Fall, Wakanda Forever, Hair Tales, and countless TV episodes that tackled police violence. Netflix even introduced a Black Lives Matter category and other streaming services followed suit. 

Similarly, following the MeToo movement came an influx of stories on sexual assault like Bombshell, The Morning Show, She Said, Promising Young Woman, and the Surviving R. Kelly series. Just as the 1970s gave us The Mary Moore Show amid a second wave  feminist movement, or the 1990s offered  “girl power” in the time of radical riot grrrl and the legendary Anita Hill testimonies; whenever the masses reach a boiling point of collective consciousness which threatens the status quo, power will anticipate resistance, and adjust as needed. Just enough to co-opt the language and messaging to suit its own interests and extinguish unrest. 

Now, in the ever mounting tension of labor strikes, conservative tyranny, and the obliteration of Roe v Wade, we get Barbie, reminding us that as long as women “deprogram” ourselves and Stick Together, we can overthrow the patriarchy.

2. “Sure it's commercial feminism, but it's just meant to be a 101 introduction to the Barbies and the audience, which may be new to feminist concepts!" 

There’s a pervasive idea (especially among liberals but also some leftists) that accessibility and radicalism cannot coexist. That using “baby steps” to usher people into new consciousness can only be done with a diluted version of left politics. But an introduction to feminism and a misrepresentation of such are two vastly different things. If cultural products like Barbie insist on blatantly political messaging, yet refuse to clarify real power, real enemies, and real revolution, it is regressive. And to position lukewarm liberal politics as the de facto “starting place” does not open minds, but only creates a different set of misconceptions to unlearn, or ideological murkiness to wade through. 

Exhibit A: Despite being lauded for all its “inclusivity”, the story still centers a young white hegemonic beauty perspective. Blonde, blue-eyed thinness is still what makes Barbie (and Ken) stereotypical. Even in the scene where Barbie laments her feelings of ugliness, and the movie attempts to call itself out ( “note to the filmmakers, Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point”), it only presupposes her beauty as the ideal. So the presence of other Barbies (black, trans, disabled, fat, weird etc) function mostly as “diversity” without ever undermining (or even interrogating) normative beauty standards.

Exhibit B: Virtually no mention of race or white supremacy (besides that dumb small pox joke) or it’s crucial connection to patriarchy. Even if one made the argument that Barbie Land is a colorblind utopia (which doesn’t make sense given that it’s a reverse parallel universe) SURELY race would’ve come up in the Real World, right? But even amid Sasha’s woke word salads, whiteness is always mysteriously omitted.

Exhibit C: Barbie engages in its own type of anti-intellectualist ping-pong, raising a potentially radical point in one scene, only to refute it in another. These points are typically blurted out by an angsty teen, making radical terms or concepts seem absurd, immature, or uncritical. For instance, after Sasha’s “fascist” diatribe, we cut to Barbie on the curb, crying “she thinks I’m a fascist?! I don’t control the railways or the flow of commerce!” During the Mattel car chase scene, Sasha says “everyone hates women. Women hate women. Men hate women. It’s the one thing we can agree on” to which her mother Gloria immediately responds “it’s complicated, hate is a strong word.” It’s as if Sasha comes to embody a type of compulsory GenZ wokeness that is strategically proven wrong about almost everything by the end of the movie.

Exhibit D: This kind of ping-ponging also happens in the mismanagement of patriarchy. In one scene, Ken learns of real world patriarchy and seeks a “high-level, high paying job with influence” at a company. But after being told he’ll need an MBA or PhD to be hired, he asks “isn’t being a man enough?” to which the executive responds “well actually right now, it’s kind of the opposite.” Ken starts patriarchy in Barbie Land only because the Real World insists that even white men must still be “qualified” to attain power, and even more bizarrely, suggests that gender dynamics have somehow culturally reversed. 🤦🏾‍♀️

And while I’m here for jokes about toxic masculinity, I hated that Barbie depicted patriarchy as not much more than a male temper tantrum, a lack of identity within a Barbie’s world. Towards the end of the film, the fictional Ruth Handler even says that patriarchy is something humans “make up” to deal with the discomfort of death! 🤦🏾‍♀️

Never mind that these depictions fail to accurately define patriarchy or the way it functions. But I found myself asking why a “feminist” fantasy film ended with a resolution which refocused the grievances of the men. From Ken’s scolding “how does it feel?” line, to Barbie admitting that “not every night had to be girls night”; why is women’s power still a problem to be apologized for? (even though patriarchy, not “misandry”, harms men?) And isn’t the refusal to shrink for male comfort the most feminist thing a woman can do? The forced “compromise” bit where Kens no longer live in Barbie’s shadow? It’s giving pandering. And the “Ordinary Barbie” doll pitch for the Real World? Goofy and useless. 🤦🏾‍♀️

Exhibit E: Admittedly, this is a smaller thing, that perhaps only annoyed me. But why did the film depict Ruth Handler as some mystical grandma whose “invention” of Barbie had touching mother/daughter origins, knowing damn well she ripped it off from a German call girl novelty toy? The very beginnings of Barbie derived from a messy IP dispute. 😂

Lili, the original Barbie prototype stolen by Mattel

Exhibit F: The Barbie revolt functioned as not much more than a joke machine. After un-brainwashing the other Barbies, they played into the sexist tropes of femininity as a decoy, triggering the Ken’s jealousy to turn them against each other. But women pretend to be stupid or helpless all of the time—sometimes for entertainment, sometimes for survival—without ever amassing political power. Barbie Land may be campy and absurdist, but it’s still meant to be an allegory for the dynamics of the Real World. Why not use more radical strategies that would actually work (and still get laughs?) Why not use property damage or theft, destroying all the flatscreen TVs in Mojo Dojo Casa Houses, or stealing the mini fridges? Or maybe mass strikes, letting the infrastructure of Kendom collapse without Doctor/Lawyer/Construction/Mail Carrier Barbies, since the Kens don’t actually do anything? Why not kidnap one of the Kens and pluck him for information, or make Allan play a double agent? I mean, the Barbies only maintained the constitution because the Kens were so dopey—why are all the dudes in this movie buffoons?—they literally forgot to vote. And if we’re going to laud Barbie as the “feminist movie you’ve been waiting for” the revolution should at least bring some heat.

Then there’s Gloria’s (America Ferrera) acclaimed “cognitive dissonance” monologue meant to highlight the “self-awareness” of the film. This, I think, is much of Barbie’s public allure: its tendency to pass off the simple acknowledgment of sexism as critical or subversive. But there is a difference between self-awareness and what Power actually does: eavesdrop on oppositional discourse, regurgitating tweets and rallying cries detached from their radical context. The speech was underwhelming, full of abstract double standards without any mention of systemic issues that dominate women’s lives (wage theft, labor exploitation, intimate partner/sexual violence, poverty, reproductive health, mental health.) Or even the experience of playing with white Barbie dolls as a Latina woman.

Rather than actually calling truth to power, Barbie engages more in the performance of feminism, decontextualizing much of its inherent threat. It reminds us to look closely at the ways empowerment so often disguises itself as political power. Empowerment is emotionally charged, a temporary dopamine high of empty symbolism and heartwarming performances that create the illusion of triumph. It does not spook the status quo. 

3. “What did you expect? Some radical bell hooks level intersectional analysis? Mattel helped produce the film!"

Well, not really. But Barbie is quite literally a film about feminism, and as the scale of its political output grows, so too should our scrutiny.

It’s also worth mentioning that just because we don't necessarily “expect” more, doesn't mean we have to accept what we're given. We know that revolution happens on the ground and a Barbie movie sure as hell won't save us. But it's never about any one film, so much as it is the political mechanics that act as a litmus test for fascism. Just as Power is always managing our rage, it is also diligently monitoring our tolerance for (or awareness of) its subjugation. And if we no longer critique the bad political discourse of gigantic media products simply because we’re “used to it”, we've got much bigger problems.

More importantly, the political spectacle of the film is itself a facade for Mattel's only real motive: tapping into the Barbie IP beyond toys. The movie was never meant to sell us on feminism—in fact, Mattel eschews the label—but on brand. And they've already succeeded: with the launch of 165 consumer product partnerships, and 45 more movies in development based on other Mattel toys like Polly Pocket and Hot Wheels. Barbie was a mere launch pad for expansion into TV shows, stage productions, amusement parks, and more.

4. “Including all of the political nuances would've made the movie three hours long and overshadowed the fun, comedic tone!" 

[Of course, there is always the option of not making a political film if you are unprepared to account for political nuance, but I digress….]

Predictably, a false dichotomy arose between the idea of entertainment as either radical but “preachy and academic” or palatable, but a good time. The campy absurdism of Barbie became a buffer to critical analysis, as if it is not the job of good art to balance commentary with creative liberties. As if other films have not managed to make us laugh, think, and escape at the same time.

And as the audience, we can do both too. We can keep a watchful eye on white capitalist patriarchy without adapting tunnel vision. There is still room for an optimistic feminism that sees women’s experiences beyond oppression and suffering; one which rummages for all the ways we resist within our cages. 

But we will not settle for mirages of power either.

And if we cannot fit joy and war into the same space, how will we ever get free?