In light of the new Barbie feature film created by the two-time Oscar Nominee (out of only four films, by the way), Greta Gerwig, it seems the earth’s colours have transcended from blue and green to pink and brown!
The film features Margot Robbie as the evergreen, iconic doll and Ryan Gosling as her “arm candy, Prince Charming or the guy-in-waiting [sic].”. The phrasing used by the doll himself on the Barbimedia.com website that’s copy-righted by Mattel, the creators themselves. The very first poster release dating back to April has both Barbie and Ken lounging on a ‘B’ written in the classic Barbie font. It also has a phrase that says, “She’s everything, He’s just Ken.” This raised quite an uproar amongst audiences, leading to the Twitter meme dump.
Ken’s entire personality can be boiled down to two words – “Barbie’s Boyfriend”. In other iterations of Barbie, like “Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse”, Ken is known to have a “Barbie tingle”. Meaning he could always sense when the glam-tastic doll needed him! This quality is bashed by most people on the internet because it paints him to be a “beta-male” who devotes his entire life to a woman. Wait a minute, that sounds familiar… You don’t mean someone like Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter (the films, ugh!), Bella Swan from Twilight, Padmé Amidala from Star Wars, or even Rachel Green from F.R.I.E.N.D.S, do you?
We have been accepting women in powerful positions giving all their life’s work up for a man – for romance. God forbid, a man does that for a woman.
The most intriguing thing about the Barbie-Ken dynamic is that Barbie was the money-maker; she had her own mansion, car, and an incredibly long list of careers while Ken waited for Barbie to need his assistance. In the earliest Barbie era, this made a crucial impact on the classic gender roles which were reversed.
Barbie taught girls that they could be anything they wanted. Although the boys of the time weren’t all keen on Barbie, she had a lesson for them too – they could be anything they wanted. Anyone could be a home’s money-maker or a home’s sustenance, regardless of gender.
“Anything is possible, we’re unstoppable.”
– Barbie Theme Song: Fifth Harmony
There is no shame in wanting to look pretty as long as one is doing it for themselves. One can define their own ‘masculinity’ or ‘femininity’. Caring about your significant other doesn’t make you a woman or any less of a man.
It’s 2023. Women are more than wives and it’s high-time men learn to be husbands.