The Impossibilities of Being & Making BARBIE (Patreon)

It is absurd that this film exists.

I mean that in a good way, of course, because I really kind of loved it. But it’s not that I think that BARBIE nails every moment and comes together in a great symphony of triumph. In fact, the movie is downright messy (and will get into why in a bit, along with why it doesn’t necessarily hurt the film). But I mean that “it is absurd that it exists” in the way of audacity. Because this is a 145 million dollar live-action film based on the famous Mattel doll, one that comes from an acclaimed, Oscar-nominated writer / director, and it is a work that still seems largely uncompromised. Because this is a film that is GOING FOR IT. And it is going for A LOT OF THINGS. Granted, it does get stuck between a lot of THOSE THINGS. But the fact that it gets stuck between a lot of these competing things is largely THE POINT. From there it gets a little recursive, but that means there’s a whole lot to talk about here. But the first and more important thing about BARBIE is that it does its main job really well.

Because it is damn funny.

And it is consistently funny. While I’ve absolutely adored the work of Greta Gerwig, so far she has made films that are also quite funny, but grounded in the realism of youthful psychology and the found forms of empathy that start our journeys to adulthood. But here she is veering into the more untested waters of pure absurdist comedy and satire. And to that charge, it largely succeeds. The film is goofy, playful, and eager to entertain. Better yet, all of the actors strive for their exaggerated plastic realities with reckless abandon. None more so than Ryan Gosling, whose performance as “Stereotypical Ken” is genuinely worthy of an Oscar Nomination (not that the award distinction matters, but I mean that completely). His drop dead seriousness and full commitment to Ken’s primordial wants, needs, and constant bargaining represents the best of what the movie does.

But in looking at the various reactions to the film from friends and peers, I find that the film is both getting a lot of love for what it does well, but there are degrees of embrace regarding a bevy of moments / statements within it. Some of this inherently has to do with the viewer's perspective. But some of this also has to do with the core engineering of the film’s approach. Which all revolve around a series of pointed questions: Why do some jokes land better than others? Why do some characters work better than others? Why do certain didactic moments hit harder or softer than others? While the film is good at identifying problems, does it need to do more? And most of all, what is Barbie really saying in the end?

Well, that’s what these essays are all about. So let’s go full [spoilers mode] and talk about the ins and outs of this fun and wild film.

On Jokes - I’ve talked about this recently in reference to a few comedies I’ve seen, but the thing about movie comedy is that it’s not really like sketch comedy. Because the overall baseline “reality” of your story is actually the most important thing to landing jokes. The audience needs to know what’s “real” because you need to know where THE TENSION is in order to give the cathartic punchline (I wrote about this subject more in depth here). But in comedy, it’s always easy to just pop that bubble with the easy layups. To point at what’s happening and say “isn’t this so stupid!? Ha!” and while it usually gets a laugh, the problem is that it takes the air out of the reality of the movie. And the audience needs to believe it (McKay’s old movies are very good at that balance). Because what is so much more funny is when you take the absurd thing even more seriously. When you don’t point at the joke, but as Brenna Lee Mulligan calls it, you “marry the joke” and take it to its absolute deepest reality. And what’s so interesting about Barbie is it does a lot of both in equal measure. It is, at times, constantly popping its bubbles and being like “eh don’t worry about it” and moving along with the gusto of the lark. And don’t get me wrong, some of these things get laughs. But they also contribute to the overall sense of unwieldiness that you can feel in the film. For instance Ferrel’s character is *constantly* popping his own reality and going back and forth with his own characterization. It contributes to that feeling of “wait, where am I? How much should I lean into this or care about that?” But at other times, and not just with sincere warm scenes at the end, the film digs deep and marries that joke as hard as can be, which is arguably when it is most successful. And you can see this dynamic play out structurally with a few characters, too…

On Characters - What is it about watching characters that make them instantly compelling on screen? There’s technically a few ways of answering this. But traditionally, you give a character a clear want and watch them start failing until they really learn something. For this, you will note that part of the reason that Gosling works so well in the film is that he gets the fun traditional story. In the beginning, he's the only character who seems to really want something (Barbie’s gaze) and he constantly plays the failing goober in pursuit of this, along with showing the way it crushes his ego. And he does so with the full on “marrying the joke” sensation (put it like this, in Ken’s brain, he’s in a romantic drama). From there, all of Ken’s bargains, discoveries, and patriarchy-embracing are all natural, understood elements that drive him as the eventual adversary, all before learning the grand lesson that he doesn’t need her gaze (nor the masculine compensations to make up for it). He learns that he is “Kenough.” And all of it works like gangbusters because it’s very, very easy to track on an emotional level. But compare it to the other central aspects?

Margot Robbie has the far, far more difficult job in the film because Stereotypical Barbie starts as much more of a passenger figure who doesn’t know who they are / what they want and largely reacting to the circumstances (along with how they are literally being controlled by someone in the real world). Don’t get me wrong, Robbie PLAYS THE HELL OUT OF THIS. But she is one whose entire psychology is both “vacant enough not to think about it” and also a non-person reacting to having dark / existential feelings for the first time. The reason the film does this of course is because it makes her a vehicle for larger discussion and how people project onto Barbie and get the thematic point of all of it through and through. BUT it’s still that essential gulf of when it’s harder to grasp onto a character as a general audience. It’s not until we get to the end which is the first time she’s asked “what do you want?” And really all she knows is that she doesn’t want the blank existence, so she will go to become a human being. To be clear, I love a lot of these ending scenes and it’s why the movie sticks the landing. It’s just that’s a difficult thing because it's the kind of arc that’s ending at the start, really. And while I get why the movie is approaching it that way, it has to battle the reason why more traditional arcs like Ken’s tend to strike deeper. But I think the deeper part of Barbie’s character problem is the way it doesn’t quite sync up with her real world counterpart…

In terms of pure narrative function, America Ferrera and her daughter are the biggest problem in the film. Firstly because the “bait and switch” narrative attempt doesn’t work AT ALL. For one, the initial scene of misdirect where we think it’s the daughter doesn’t play right because we too clearly see the hidden mother saving the barbie doll. And THEN it tips the hand completely the second we see America doing the art. So, there’s no misdirect. Only directing right for it. I get what they’re trying to do, of course. They want you spending this time with America Ferrera’s character so that there’s some meaningful build to the big “you’re my person / Barbie!” Which should either be a gangbuster reveal OR some kind of deeper catharsis for the characters, but it’s weirdly neither because it’s just a muddling of the two different intentions. Either you can misdirect and have that info come out after (which I argue would work better if you want to dramatize America’s adult life more, but we’ll get back to that). OR you can build that want of connection with her for the start.

But the whole thing just becomes a weird step before they go to this further adventure mother daughter relationship, which is also stuck in between so many competing goals, mostly to foster the discussion about generational cynicism. But while America and her daughter seemingly have three different problems at the start, it doesn’t quite come to any big realizations that fuel their healing, she just kind of softens along with the trip / secretly likes the art. Same goes for the relationship between America and Barbie herself, because it just sort of becomes about SOCIETY. I just feel like these relationships should be the gateway to everything, but it’s sort of putting everything else it wants to say first - and a lot of that is over the place and not centralized on one idea enough. The obvious point of comparison is, say, The Lego Movie, which is the movie that’s kind of served as the inspiration for all these new toy-based films, largely because it highlighted the way toys could just become a vehicle for talking about other things. But the emotional key with that particular film is that it’s ultimately only trying to say one thing about creativity / order and centralizes it on that one core relationship with his dad - and everything you’ve seen to that point becomes an extension of it.

But the interesting thing about Barbie is you sense the pressure for it to be about EVERYTHING - and it really does kind of try to be about everything - but it’s also ultimately about the pressure to be everything, too. I would argue this works both to its detriment and success, and often there are differences in the moment to moment tackling of each issue. Which brings us to a larger discussion…

On Didacticism - You always see people (but mostly a certain type of film dude) talk about how films shouldn’t be didactic. I get the instinct, but I usually just bat that away immediately because it's usually a different conversation about drama. Because it’s okay to be clear in movies. It is good even. It is what allows you to say something that connects with the people watching. It is even okay to have characters say things as the mouthpiece that you believe. But what usually is the big variation on the success of these moments is whether or not those mouthpiece moments are grounded in the story of the character you have seen. Like if a character is giving a big speech that sums up the hell they have been through? That is if it is a part of the dramatized action and catharsis? Then it feels more “true” within the frames of the narrative. Which brings us to the big speech America Ferrera gives in the film, which sort of works as the emancipation for the brainwashed barbies.

It’s the kind of speech that I already see people online are talking about, specifically because it so succinctly captures the endless frustrations of being women and being pigeonholed as wrong no matter what they do. Thus, it speaks so clearly to the lived-in frustrations of the audience. I want to make it clear that on one level, this completely works! But the essential “narrative” problem is that we haven’t really seen any of that in America’s story. Meaning it hasn’t dramatized it. And honestly we haven’t seen much of her at all outside of the daughter story (mostly because trapped in push-pull of whether it wants to be a reveal or not). Which means she is more of a mouthpiece for a thing outside the film. Yes, it can be cathartic for the viewer, But you want it to be cathartic for the character, too. And that’s part of the essential thing, so much of what Barbie is about is the real world outside text and the text within it. Meaning it is almost less about this particular world, but everything we all KNOW is brought to Barbie in reality. But that just leads to important questions: Do you REALLY have to dramatize something so inherent to people’s reality? Wouldn’t it be teeth-gnashing to have to experience it in a movie that’s trying to constantly entertain with humor? I don’t think I can answer that, just to say it's part of the central climax and engine of the movie and mileage may vary. Perhaps it’s even part of the daring nature of the movie. I just know it’s part of what makes the divergent reactions from people. As does another central point of the film’s construction…

On Just Identifying Problems - There’s a long running trend of movies, particularly movies of a general liberal disposition, that are only about identifying or poking at problems without trying to give any real solutions on top of them. To be fair, I get the inclination. Especially because I don’t think there’s a prescriptive bone in this film’s body (we’ll come back to that). But it’s safe to say it's the kind of film that will poke at the capitalism behind so many of these problems, but doesn’t want to level it. But can it even really get into it? Can it pull the thread on the sweater and let it all unravel? Ostensibly in a film sponsored by a toy company? How can we keep making films about the troubles of “the real world” and wonder how the hell she’ll pay for that healthcare? I know this may seem trivial or like some other grand concern, but it’s just that we keep making all these films about systems and society and they always leads to this super-important conversations about identity and a host of horrible “isms” that plague us and yet that last part of the conversation always gets ignored in most big cinema. How can we really talk about the metaphor of Barbie’s Dreamhouse when things are a MESS right now on a systemic level where no one can afford fucking anything, let alone a house? Or does the film have to account for any of this at all? But if it’s a movie about everything, why is that always what’s left on the table? Or is that an impossible ask in studio filmmaking? It all comes back to that essential contradiction of the film. It doesn’t have to answer for any of this, specially because it doesn’t want to answer for that. But there are inevitably people who look at films about “society” like this and need that part of it honored. Especially because it wants to poke at a million things, but it did poke at this subject, too. Like so much of the film, it’s ending at the start. And it leads to this simple conundrum. Because people who make the criticisms are not (always) playing a game of gotcha. It’s a game of shared understanding. Which means the film’s “you can’t please everyone” mantra is not a catch all defense, even if it kind of IS a catch all defense. Which makes it all part of the same frustrating paradox it's criticizing… I told you it can get pretty recursive!

And more importantly, I say all these things about jokes, or characters, or identifying problems like reasons to knock it down. But I really just mean to provide a possible reason for why you may have bumped up against this or that. Meanwhile, in the end, it all works for me.

And I think there’s a simple reason why.

On What Barbie Is About - In the end, I think Barbie is just an attempt to grapple with the absurd. Because Barbie: The Doll exists. Her dreamworld exists. Mattel exists. These are all things that were made for whatever good, bad, or odd reasons and we have to look at and reckon with them. Some of them are absurd by nature. And when you really, really dig into what “Barbie” is, you only find a maze of contradictions. Trying to get “an answer / solution” from it is fruitless. And we talk so much about the universal being specific and the specific universal, but it is trying to reckon with a set of specifics that, by their very nature, don’t add up. The film knows its attempts to be everything for everyone inherently come up short. It knows the gulf between image and substance. And that’s why it’s a movie about the impossibilities of being, making, and even talking about Barbie. And thus everything it engages with is ultimately about one thing…

Finding the power in laughing at it.

This is going to seem a super strange comparison, but one of my favorite films is the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man. It’s a film that looks right into the most miserable, strange, and bleak aspects of everyday life and finds nothing but a kind of scathing laugh at the void itself. It’s also a film that eschews basically every narrative rule imaginable. But the conventional rules are off the table precisely because it's trying to be funny. Similarly, Barbie is throwing caution to the wind. Why CAN’T it jump around and touch on what it wants to touch on? Why CAN’T a film be about real world things we bring into it? Why CAN’T it find the excuse to laugh at every aspect of itself? Especially when those things are amusing? Even with America’s serious speech, the quick joke versions of the speech that follow are incredibly funny.

In short, the jokes ARE the “solutions.” Sure, you could try to distill every nuance of patriarchy or you could have lines like, “I was less interested in patriarchy when I realized it wasn’t about horses.” And no, you’re not going to get the anti-capitalist screed at the root of all this, but you will, however, get a 145 million dollar film based on a popular IP that has the audacity to end on a gynecologist joke. This is its own tiny miracle. And the only thing it really requires of you is being okay with it in the same way that it is okay with itself. It’s okay that it’s a lark. It’s okay that it marries some jokes and not others, it’s okay that it’s not answering everything, and most of all, it’s okay that it tries to build a narrative around “a doll” that doesn’t even know who or what it is. Because that's the hilarity of existence itself. And likewise, it’s absurd that the film exists in turn.

But I am so, so, so delighted that it does.

<3HULK