Alternately titled, “Why Barbie is essential viewing for male allies”
Heads up: There are some light spoilers ahead for the Barbie movie. Wouldn’t want to ruin the experience for you. 😉
I didn’t grow up playing with Barbies. No, I had the Fisher-Price dolls with long crotches (and they were hand-me-downs).
By the time I was eleven, my family had a little more money so my youngest sister got Barbies for every birthday. Rapunzel Barbie. Swan Lake Barbie. Nutcracker Barbie (who my dad called “Honey Nutcracker Barbie”).
By this age, I had more fun playing the Barbie CD-Rom game than playing with Barbie herself, but I snuck in moments of hair brushing and outfit choosing. She was beautiful, but unattainable for a girl who had popped out of the womb at 9 pounds 8 ounces.
I was destined to be big.
Fast forward twenty years and I rolled my eyes at the first Barbie trailers. How could this film possibly relate to me? Me, the girl who was perpetually plus-size, defiantly anti-pink, and increasingly feminist.
But—thanks to Greta Gerwig—the “Barbie” movie is the most intentional rebrand I’ve seen in toy history. Suddenly, Barbie has gone from being one type of woman (thin and blonde) to being “all these women. And all these women are Barbie.”
(Of course, this wasn’t done perfectly. We could talk about how the story still centers on “Stereotypical Barbie” and is lacking intersectionality, BUT).
As someone who is passionate about gender allyship, here are three reasons I loved the Barbie film.
1. Women were celebrated and empowered
As my friend and I left the movie, we overheard two women talking in the bathroom. “I just feel so empowered,” one said to the other.
Why?
The Barbie movie put women in all places where decisions were being made.
Barbie celebrated the versatility of women and our talents—as lawyers, construction workers, mail carriers, and political leaders.
Barbie gave voice to “the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy” and helped us feel seen.
Barbie let women live, and lead, and cry, and dance.
Barbie celebrated women as they are, outside of the societal lens that labels us second-class.
“Because Barbie can be anything, women can be anything.”
2. Men were emotional and stylish
I’ve heard some complaints that the movie degraded men by making them one-dimensional.
I have two thoughts on this.
First, it’s a satire. Learn to take a joke.
Second, it was only after Barbie had seen the extremes of both matriarchy and patriarchy that she was able to come to terms with her own identity. That she became a deeper, more empathetic, more human character.
This tells me that men and women, we need each other.
We especially need to get each other out of boxes because when women are put in boxes, men are too. Under patriarchy, men don’t get to be like Ken—emotional, stylish, exuberant.
While the patriarchal system may benefit men, it damages everyone.
For me, the scene that elicited the most anxious feelings was when Barbie was put back in her box. As the men tightened her twist ties, I recalled moments where I was told I was too bossy, that I needed to put on the brakes, that it wasn’t really my place to speak up.
Barbie doesn’t need to go back in the box.
And neither does Ken.
3. It was a two-hour mental experiment
The Barbie movie is two hours of “flip it to test it.”
If you haven’t heard of this allyship tactic, it’s a mental exercise that helps you check your bias. When you pass judgment on a woman, ask yourself if the same judgment would apply if she was a man.
If the “flipped” result feels funny, interrogate that idea. There’s likely some bias at play.
Would an all-female Supreme Court bother you if it was all-male?
Would you call his display of emotion embarrassing if he was a woman?
Would her confidence be annoying if she was a man?
The “flipped” world of Barbie felt funny to all of us because we live in a patriarchal world. I’ve never seen a female president. My doctor is a man. Professors, lawyers, CEOs, and religious leaders are largely male in our society. So to see a world where women took the lead, it was simultaneously breathtaking and unsettling.
That’s how “unconscious bias” works—you’re not aware of it until you challenge it.
Whether or not you enjoyed the film, there’s tremendous value in forcing your brain to run the “flip it to test it” experiment.
Ordinary Barbie “just has a flattering top and wants to get through the day feeling kind of okay”
I started this post writing about my size and how Barbie was unattainable and uninteresting to me because she didn’t reflect my bodily reality. The three reasons I outlined above don’t solve for that.
The film itself only nods to this—Barbie is originally afraid of cellulite and flat feet, but ultimately chooses to embrace both. And sure, there’s a plus-size Barbie in the movie, but the majority of the cast is thin and attractive.
Despite the fact that Barbie still doesn’t look like me, I loved the movie. Maybe it’s twenty more years of experience or maybe it’s the female empowerment element, but I’m okay not looking like Barbie. Her body is made of plastic and mine is made of flesh and bone. Sure, there are movie stars and models and real-life women who magically look like Stereotypical Barbie, but there are even more Ordinary Barbies in the world.
Women with flattering tops, big brains, and kind hearts.
I’m happy to be one of them.
Rachel Cottam 