What is Barbie?

Recently due to Barbenheimer, Barbie has gained quite traction. Movie watchers preferred Greta Gerwig's Barbie over Nolan's Oppenheimer. Why is that? Why do even men end up preferring watching a movie about a girl's play toy, over a movie about a man who is a real influencer in the field of science? He actually became a god, metaphorically, with the invention of atomic weaponry.

On the surface, Barbie is a hero's journey about a woman called Barbie, who has an existential crisis.

I don't wanna break down the script, but Barbie is not a movie about how the world sees women. It's a movie about how women see themselves. While most movies men enjoy are wish fulfilment of being the leading man, which they are not in real life. Barbie shed some light on similar topics for women, or it tried to.

Greta's Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, tries to appeal to both male and female gaze. Barbie's innocence makes her a typical Venus, or 'born sexy yesterday' trope as we call it in the film industry. She's put on a pedestal for her virtues, but objectified and called a bimbo in the real world because of what she misrepresented.

"Barbie, you can be anything."

Sounds so innocent, yet there's a dark secret. "Thing", nobody gives it much of a thought. But Barbie today is an influencer. She represents the exceptionalism that society demands from women.

Much similar to Adam and Eve's story, it's a Barbie and Ken's story, while men were tricked into loving the movie for Ken, the real question is Barbie's problem with patriarchy.

Sure Barbie showcases herself as the opposite of patriarchy, but somewhere in the corporate ladder, she is the patriarchy. She represents the modern consumer culture. Whether it is Barbieland or Kendom, bad name, I know, they both get the wrong idea about feminism and patriarchy. Honestly speaking, both of these concepts are just bullshit.

During the final acts, Greta comments on how it was a journey of Barbie finding her individuality all along; but the movie on its own doesn't take itself seriously. During an important scene, the narrator comments about the casting choices. Men in Mattel act like Bimbos with no brains, while Barbie is resourceful. There are jokes about if it sells it's good, even though the CEO hates it. These tiny out-of-the-place moments don't make Barbie a bad movie.

Barbie is an unconventional movie, it's self-aware. It shares so many stories all at once. A mother-daughter, lover boy with a broken heart. By the way, I don't feel sorry for Ken, he deserved it.

The movie signals the audience to not base their identity on the media they consume, or the person they love.

I always fancied myself to be a light-hearted MCU fan, until I got into much darker themes with superheroes like the Flash and Batman, but I also enjoy K-Drama and romantic animes. Butterflies and flowers fascinate me. But most importantly there was a time when I loved someone, "I'm just Ken, when I see love she saw nothing." That was my story. I was bad at love, it broke me. Taught me 'Love isn't enough.'

To be human comes with pain, we control nothing but how we respond to it. I reacted badly and therefore I lost her for good. We both are okay. I hope.

As much as Barbie is a movie about women's empowerment, it is a movie about the mistreatment of men. As young boys, they are taught to be tough, materialistic and manly, I don't even know what that means at this point. We are told to adopt the strong male lead persona from our fantasies because that is what other men think attracts women.

In a culture of red flags and green flags, it's innocent girls and boys like Barbie and Ken who can't love themselves for who they are. We're abandoned, as we cannot be loved forever, they grow up.

The question now remains, if not what is Barbie? But why not Ken?