Maddy Mussen’s recent article discusses the upcoming Barbie movie which aims to challenge traditional stereotypes associated with the iconic doll. The film, she argues, seeks to promote feminist ideals and empower young girls, highlighting the importance of self-acceptance and embracing one’s individuality.
Maddy Mussen / Standard.co.uk
When it was first announced that there would be a Barbie movie, way back in 2016, there wasn’t much hype. Nor hope that it would be anything particularly revolutionary or subversive. Amy Schumer was attached to the project at the time and it was tipped to be a “fish out of water story” reminiscent of nostalgic films like Splash, Enchanted and Big.
Sure, it had some wafts of feminism: Schumer apparently wanted her Barbie to be an “ambitious inventor”, but the studio suggested her invention be a “high heel made out of Jell-O” and even sent the comic actress a pair of Manolo Blahniks to celebrate the collaboration. “The idea that that’s just what every woman must want, right there, I should have gone, ‘You’ve got the wrong gal,’” Schumer said, when discussing the ins and outs of the live-action project she subsequently pulled out of.
Nearly two years passed. Then, when Barbie seemed all but dead in the water, Greta Gerwig (director of Ladybird and Little Women) signed on to direct, and people sat up and started paying attention. Gerwig’s directorial work has become widely beloved and known for its feminist slant: in her 2019 adaptation of Little Women, for example, she made an active choice to reform the character of Amy from an infamously spoiled brat to a well rounded woman with thoughts and feelings of her own, as well as a fully fledged understanding of the socioeconomic institution of marriage.
But the character of Barbie carries a little more weight than Amy March, despite clocking in at approximately 7.25 ounces (and being a proportional paradox). Amy March may have been annoying and a little overly-boy-oriented, but Barbie is perhaps one of the biggest anti-feminist symbols of all time – or at least she used to be. In recent years, there’s been concious effort to improve the diversity of Barbie’s offering, from ethnicity to body type. Today the doll is available in both disabled and plus sized forms, as well as a variety of aspirational occupations. So the concern wasn’t necessarily Mattel, Barbie’s parent company, but rather the film industry. You know, the same industry that insisted on Jell-O shoe inventions.
A lot has changed since 2016, when Schumer was first linked to the project. The world turned upside down, Harvey Weinstein went to jail and feminist slanted films became regular Oscar frontrunners (and box office hits) instead of sidelined pet projects. In other words: the world is ready for feminist Barbie.
And it looks like we’re getting it. The whopping cast selection that was revealed last month meant we could glean some information on the direction of the plot, with its myriad of different Barbie characters, all with varying, distinctly impressive, professions. Issa Rae is President Barbie, Hari Nef is Doctor Barbie, Emma Mackey is a Barbie with a Nobel Prize in physics, Dua Lipa is… a mermaid Barbie. All of the male characters in Barbie World, however, are simply called “Ken”. Ryan Gosling’s promo picture even refers to him as “Just Ken.”
It doesn’t take a Barbie with a Pulitzer prize to work out what is going on here. It’s literally in the film’s tagline: Barbie is everything and he’s just Ken.
Then, yesterday, Robbie’s interview for her American Vogue covershoot dropped, and we got more insight on the Barbie movie’s actual substance than ever before. There were a few key details hinting further towards the film’s feminist slant – firstly, Barbie is routinely spoken about in Biblical terms.
“Barbie was invented first,” Gerwig told Vogue as part of Robbie’s interview article. “Ken was invented after Barbie, to burnish Barbie’s position in our eyes and in the world. That kind of creation myth is the opposite of the creation myth in Genesis.”
You can read the full article here.