Why I Was So Moved By “Barbie”

(Disclaimer: spoilers) 

When I saw the trailer for “Barbie” in June, I was expecting a trivial, nonsensical, romance-oriented plot backdropped by an extravagantly-pink utopia. While all things pink did play a big part in the movie, “Barbie” did not succumb to any of my other concerns. I saw it during opening week with my closest childhood friends and was struck by how thoughtfully it balanced humor and play with introspection and solemnity – I was entranced by Margot Robbie’s giant-blowout-party-with-planned-choreography, I laughed at Ryan Gosling’s hilariously-self-conscious portrayal of Ken, I wondered if Kate McKinnon was actually holding the splits like that, and I also cried. Multiple times. “Barbie” is an insightful meditation on a simple sentiment: life is weird. Beautiful, sad, and weird. 

From my seat, I saw representations of queerness and in-between spaces, camaraderie and generational unity, self-doubt and resistance to change, and several other themes that materialized in plastic pastel houses and on artificial sunny beaches. I saw Barbie travel from Barbieland to the Real World, and I saw a dynamic character face several difficult truths of growing up as a girl over the course of just a few days. Before the theater lights dimmed, I also saw mothers, daughters and grandmothers dressed in pink outfits and soft smiles that told me each of them was returning to a tender part of her childhood, even if it hadn’t been too long since she’d lived there. I felt each past version of myself resting her head on my shoulder or lacing her fingers through mine or combing through the ends of my hair. I watched through many sets of eyes.

I was just as moved the fourth time I saw “Barbie” as I was the first. I had completed the last day at my summer internship an hour before and was sitting toward the back, still wearing pin-striped pants and a sweater vest, eating a bag of Twizzlers and sipping strawberry Sprite out of a paper cup. Five months ago I thought I had bombed the interview. Eight months ago I turned twenty and wondered how adolescence had already been lost on me. In a few days I’d be going back to college. Just like Barbie, I felt hesitant to move toward the next chapters of my life, but as I looked back on childhood, I feared I’d lose my footing in the old terrains and mosaics of familiarity that used to hold me.

I had never been to this theater before; it felt sacred and seemly.

What I like most about this movie is that its ending doesn’t involve Barbie and Ken falling in love. “What about Barbie?” Sasha, played by Ariana Greenblatt, demands the Mattel executives after the Kens observe a collective identity restoration and Barbieland is rid of patriarchal practices. “What does she get?”

The CEO (Will Farrell) scoffs and scans the crowd nonchalantly, gesturing toward the doll. “That’s easy!” he exclaims. “She’s in love with Ken!”

“That is not her ending,” Sasha counters, and Barbie confirms, “I’m not in love with Ken.” Instead of simplifying her story into a narrative bound to a partner, Barbie sets off alone to become human permanently. Through the guidance of the creator of Barbie played by Rhea Perlman, Barbie realizes that being human isn’t something she needs to ask permission for, but rather, “something [she] just discovers [she] is.” Being human exists in sipping tea and connecting with strangers and checking into appointments – in moments exceptional and ordinary, uncomfortable and rewarding. 

I walked through the small crowds gathering at the concession stands straight into the sunlit parking lot alone that afternoon, past girls with pink barrettes, past the sagacious ticket agent in a pink cowgirl hat. It felt so good to be dewy-eyed on a warm day at summer’s end. I didn’t go to the bathroom to rid my undereyes of mascara flakes. I stood in front of the theater marking the halfway point between my childhood house and my college town and felt okay not knowing: how to harbor home or happiness or self just yet. 

Every time I hear the first chord of Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” I feel the same ache in my chest that was presented on screen in all its gracelessness and glory. It’s an unnamed sensation that illuminates hopefulness, most importantly, in time. “I don’t know how to feel,” she confesses, “but someday, I might.” 

Someday, I might.

• barbie
• life
• mental health
• movie review