Issue 08: Barbie Movie – Success or Near Miss?
A Male Ally’s Take
Brian Henderson, co-founder of The Women’s Foundation Male Allies initiative in Hong Kong, on how the Barbie movie helped to mainstream feminism but missed an opportunity to break the binary perspective of gender issues or offer up solutions.
By Brian Henderson
The Barbie movie was hugely successful, not just as the first film by a female director to gross over $1billion, but in the way it brought feminism into the mainstream in an entertaining and thought provoking way. Male or female, you could love it or hate it, but it was pretty hard to ignore. The greatest strength of the film for me was how it posed so many questions on so many levels. It’s biggest misses were the very binary way the issues and characters were portrayed and the failure to explore even partial answers to the issues raised.
The opening Barbie-land utopia was all very lovely and cutesy. But it did present the concept of the perfect woman / home as the ultimate dream, even though Barbie could also be an astronaut, a president or a lawyer who has ‘no difficulty holding both logic and feeling at the same time. And it does not diminish my powers, it expands them.’ – yes!
The almost invisible accessory that Ken was, and his fragile ego and neediness (“Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him”), was a wonderful and amusing ‘flip the script’. This whole absurdist, surreal opening scene really stereotyped social expectations of women – either perfect like Barbie or needy like Ken? Surely not?
Barbie and Ken’s encounters with the real world abruptly made it clear that real life is much more complex. I couldn’t help but cringe through the cat-calling, male gaze, roller-blading scene, and the way Barbie’s discomfort passed Ken by completely. No male ally points there! Nor for the ‘pale, male and stale’ Mattel Board who’s inept leader’s only memorable line was “No one rests until this doll is back in the box.” Universal eye-roll!
Gloria was brilliant at bursting the ‘perfect Barbie’ myth and surfacing patriarchal oppression – “We have to always be extraordinary but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.” And my Male Ally favourite – “You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining.” The rules of the game are indeed confusing, contradictory and unfair, making it almost impossible for women to succeed and stay sane.
But because this spotlight on patriarchy was too close to the bone, and we have to get men in the cinema too after all, the patriarchy had to be reduced to a joke by Ken – “when I found out patriarchy wasn’t about horses, I lost interest anyway.” Really? That may have been intended to show Ken’s vulnerability, but to me it seemed to dilute the challenge to men to really rethink ‘toxic masculinity’, if for nothing else than to address the harm it does to men.
Amidst all the surrealism and polemics, the central, solid rock of reality was Alan. Neither a Ken nor a Barbie – non-binary in that sense. Not taking sides; not getting carried away in flights of fancy or extremism. Trying to find a middle way of peace, love and understanding. Invisible, unheard, ineffectual, but adorable in a harmless–as–long–as-ignorable, sort of way. Ouch, and welcome to my world! We need many more Alans!
Why didn’t we see Barbies on the Mattel Board to resolve the issues in a non–back–in–the–box way? Why did we crush poor unemployable Ken so brutally? Why was the final line about the gynaecologist so confusing – was it a celebration of female sexuality and sexual empowerment? (I hope so); or a suggestion that all women should care about is reproduction (I hope not)?
These for me were some of the near–misses. But overall, Barbie achieved her objective of taking the gender conversation mainstream in an engaging, humorous way. There’s only so deep you can go while keeping a diverse audience entertained, so hats off to Greta Gerwig for a tour de force, thank you!
Brian Henderson is the founder of Whole Business Wellness, helping organisations build skills and cultures that support mental fitness and high performance. He is also a co- founder of The Women’s Foundation Male Allies initiative in Hong Kong and TWF Board Member.
