Avoided watching this for a long time as I knew it was gonna make me mad, but got tired of explaining to people why I hadn't seen it so, here we go.

If you can't make it perfect you can make it better.

Just a bit of table setting before we get to The Movie:

- In 2018, Mattel was floundering and hired Ynon Kreiz as their new CEO. His big plan was to turn the company from toys to media, setting up a division to start aggressively pursuing non-toy ventures (they also fired 22% of employees).
- As part of this "restructuring," Mattel began flying out Hollywood stars and directors to their showroom to have them pick out a toy for a movie. They currently have 14 films announced and 45 ready to go into production.
- Gerwig's Barbie was first out of the gate, with a budget of $150 million and grossing, let me check here...$1.441 BILLION DOLLARS. Mattel's stock price jumped 21% in the ensuing euphoria.

I feel it's necessary to put all of this into raw numbers because Barbie the toy and movie are a product, designed explicitly to enrich a multinational company whose hits include massive environmental damage from plastic, financial conspiracy and tax evasion, and the less tangible but very real harm Barbie the idea has had on women across the world for decades. A lot of people have been trying to discard criticisms of the movie by attempting to separate its ideas from its real world counterpart, but we and Barbie live in material reality and there is no way to meaningfully separate the art from the product. No ethical consumption, etc etc, but we're talking about toys and entertainment. Nobody would die with consuming Barbie.

So what the fuck is this movie? Mostly, very very boring. We are witness to a montage of Barbieland where we learn about Barbie's perfect reality that is then tainted as she starts to experience ego resurrection (and cellulite, apparently the worst thing that can happen to a woman so please buy the barbie anti-cellulite cream). She then travels to the real world, meets Mattel and the true Barbie believer mom who was playing with her, foils the Kens' attempt to create patriarchy, and eventually undergoes the instrumentality project and becomes a real woman complete with vagina (it's giving accidental TERF vibes, because what is a human but their geneticals). There's a musical number, some slapstick, a lot of Tumblr monologues, and licensed music. Pretty standard if slightly more colorful modern blockbuster fair that I'm shocked made any impact. I kept waiting for all the weird and funny stuff I was told about and left with zero laughs and a profound need to rewatch Kamikaze Girls and Speed Racer just to feel something.

But Barbie isn't just a plastic comedy, it has ideas, themes even. This is the big pinkwashing event after all, so let's quickly work through some of the white liberal feminism that has been getting so much buzz:

The Origins of Patriarchy
Aside from Barbie existentialism, the primary arc is about Ken "creating" patriarchy in Barbieland because he feels depressed and powerless. Putting aside for a moment how this whole arc (and Gerwig's own statements) seem to be arguing that reverse sexism is real, the idea that "patriarchy is something people made up to deal with how uncomfortable it to be human" is a profoundly wrong and dangerous conception of how patriarchy emerged or operates. Patriarchy is societal control mediated through gendered labor, and is relatively recent in terms of human existence. It did not emerge because men felt sad and neglected, it was the consolidation of power under new economic systems that newly benefited the sorts of jobs men historically held. To refashion it as something so intangible it can be instituted overnight and takes the form of a badly organized cult is doing a deep disservice to the history of feminist text and basic audience literacy. After walking through a world that horrifies Barbie, she comes to the conclusion that "by giving voice to the cognitive dissonance of being a woman under patriarchy you rob it of its power," which I guess must mean all those women suppressed by patriarchy just don't know it? If every woman in the world saw America Ferrera's Tumblr post Ted Talk about the impossibility of being a woman, would patriarchy end?

It's hard to be the boss
When we first meet the Mattel execs, they are talking earnestly about how they sell "female agency" and "dreams made of sparkles." We are meant to view them as naive, goofy, but ultimately harmless as they flail around trying to catch Barbie and eventually the CEO breaks down about how hard it is to be a leader. There is a lot of lampshading over the real power the CEO obviously holds - the movie is self aware enough to at least pay lip service to businesses being predicated on, ya know, making money - but it at no point challenges their authority and power, merely slaps them on the wrist for not having a girlboss in charge as Will Feral stammers and screams. As outlined above, Mattel is not stupid, and they do not care about enriching the lives of girls anymore than they care about saving the environment. They exist to make money and will pursue any avenues available to them (the Barbie movie being the most recent). To attempt to recast them as misguided but altruistic businessmen is demented, but of course what else could this movie possibly do? Even if Barbie was a skewering anticapitalist epic, Mattel still keeps that billion dollars. You cannot destroy the system from inside, no amount of girlbosses can redeem capitalism, not even if you really really really believe in Barbie.

Legally Blonde 3: Elle takes SCOTUS
At the end of the movie, president Barbie says that things shouldn't all go back to normal. Now weird Barbie and the Kens are no longer subjugated classes, they get to be middle class too! The fundamental message of Barbie is that liberal US society is mostly fine, it just has the wrong people in charge. But the presidency? The supreme court? These are, in the eyes of Barbie, just and valuable governmental systems that I guess have just been committing genocide and stripping away the rights of the most vulnerable members of society because we let some stinky men inside. #Istandwithher

Moms stand still
At the end of the movie, the ghost of Barbie creator Ruth Handler shows up to guide Barbie into the next adventure. She shows Barbie's the wonders of womanhood (mostly, having children), saying that she thinks of her as a daughter and imparting the maxim that "mothers stand still so that their daughters can see how far they've come." Elsewhere, we repeatedly make fun of a pregnant Barbie as being "too weird to think about." The Barbie movie has a lot to say about moms but very little of it good or empowering. It knows it can't just discard moms entirely, so America Ferrera has a little speech about how it's ok to want to be a mother, but also your life ends when you become a mom and pregnant women should be neither seen nor heard. You stand still, you live for your child, you cease to be your own person. Ferrera's arc is reconnecting with her daughter vis a vis Barbie, which is fine on its own but situated within the larger politics of the film feels like she is arriving at her predestined dead end. It's a deeply reactionary notion of motherhood that ultimately boils down to a procreation imperative, and you should just enjoy it because it's easier that way.

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There's a lot more to unpack in this extremely weird, politically inert film, but I'm tired and many smarter people have already done so. I'm still baffled that something this hollow could have inspired so much ferver (I've heard people say they left crying), that a movie with this little visual substance is being hailed as a triumph of modern set design, or that the admittedly fun but vacuous performances could in any way be considered Oscar worthy (whatever that means at this point). Less surprising is that Mattel is running out of merch, that I'm constantly seeing people with Barbie shirts, stickers, and assorted paraphernalia, or that it's inspired a cottage industry of "let people enjoy things" defenders. It's good propaganda that has and will continue to make Mattel a lot of money. Who cares if it's a neoliberal girlboss nightmare dressed up for prom, stop thinking so hard and enjoy the music!

I did like when the teenager called Barbie a facist.

Content warnings: sexual harassment