Barbenheimer Week Continues!
Aug. 20th, 2023 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cjlasky7II. Barbie: (Not in the) Original Packaging
I am not a "doll" guy. I didn't play with dolls when I was--excuse me... I didn't play with action figures when I was a kid. No G.I. Joes or Major Matt Masons; my thing was comic books, which consumed most of my imagination and limited budget.
So I didn't go into the theater as a Barbie stan; I couldn't geek out over the dreamhouse designs or accessories or the Barbie camper van (which did look adorable, actually). I was there mostly as a Greta Gerwig fan; after Lady Bird and her update of Little Women, I wanted to see if she had the teeth to rip into a satire of a pop culture landmark.
The movie delivered... but it took awhile.
After the 2001 "dawn of time" parody (which, sadly, was overexposed on the internet), the movie opens in Barbieland, where Stereotypical Barbie (a luminous Margot Robbie) begins her perfect day (which is like every other day). Even for a Barbie novice--who couldn't time stamp a dream house design if his life depended on it--the set design was eye popping, the kind of technicolor playground you found in great 1950s musicals.
Stereotypical Barbie (let's call her Barbie Prime) greets her fellow Barbies, a breathtakingly diverse sampling of empowered womanhood--including Issa Rae as President Barbie (hell yeah!). But even though the Barbies are all shapes, sizes, colors and occupations, they all seem a little... plastic. Granted, this is a conscious decision by Gerwig; the Barbies are meant to be empty vessels, to be animated by the fantasies of their human owners. But it hurts the movie that none of the other Barbies--with the notable exception of Kate McKinnon's Weird Barbie--ever develop an interesting personality. (In contrast, the Lego Movie was filled to the brim with weird, funny and memorable supporting characters.)
Anyway, Barbie Prime suddenly suffers a horrifying existential crisis (complete with cellulite!), and journeys to the Real World to find out what's bothering her human owner. Ken Prime (Ryan Gosling) tags along, of course, because--designed solely for the female gaze--he tends to fade into the background whenever Barbie Prime's attention is elsewhere. This is where things start to get interesting. Barbie tracks down who she thinks is her owner: Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), a sullen teenager who unloads on Barbie all the negatives feminists have associated with Barbie for years: unrealistic body images, unattainable perfection, and just plain making girls "feel bad about themselves." She caps it off by calling Barbie a "fascist," which hurts and confuses Barbie. ("But I don't even control the means of production!")
No, she doesn't. Men do. And while Barbie is dealing with her personal crisis, Ken discovers the patriarchy--and he is delighted. He travels back to Barbieland and recreates it as a douchebro paradise (with a fetching horse motif), subjugating the other Barbies. Gosling is phenomenal here: dressed in a faux mink coat (opened to expose his abs) that perfectly offsets his peroxide coif, he playacts the part of the overconfident stud--he's both ridiculous and awesome at the same time. (His big solo number, "I'm Just Ken," is a brilliantly choreographed mini-musical in itself.)
But I don't want to short change Margot Robbie. Gosling has the more flamboyant role, but Robbie does excellent work detailing Barbie's character arc from a passive vessel for her owner's dreams to an independent, thinking being. She has great chemistry with her real human owner (played to a frazzled crisp by America Ferrara) and hilarious anti-chemistry with Ken. At the end, when she tells her mother/creator (Rhea Perlman) she wants to be a fully realized human being (with all the pain and problems that entails), the scene wouldn't hit as hard if Robbie hadn't taken us on that journey. (She also does some great physical comedy: in one scene, when Barbie sinks into despair, Robbie collapses to the ground exactly like a broken doll.)
So, to sum up: not quite living up to "masterpiece" status, but an explosion of visual imagination with some wildly funny sequences. (The toy commercial for Clinically Depressed Barbie is the best sketch Saturday Night Live never did.) Gerwig makes her points about the tightrope act of American womanhood while keeping the proceedings fast moving and light.
And, if nothing else, Gerwig does humanity a public service: after this movie, serenading with an acoustic guitar will no longer be a "surefire" seduction move.
Random notes:
-- Other than McKinnon, the best supporting character is Michael Cera's Allan. As a "friend of Ken", Allan is even more of a non-entity than the secondary Kens. But, paradoxically, his frustration with his insignificance gives him more personality than any other Ken.
-- Will Ferrell basically reprises his role from the LEGO Movie as the CEO of Mattel--but it doesn't work twice. He's too broad and goofy when he should be a little menacing. (Maybe Gerwig's corporate sponsor wouldn't let their CEO be an outright villain.)
I am not a "doll" guy. I didn't play with dolls when I was--excuse me... I didn't play with action figures when I was a kid. No G.I. Joes or Major Matt Masons; my thing was comic books, which consumed most of my imagination and limited budget.
So I didn't go into the theater as a Barbie stan; I couldn't geek out over the dreamhouse designs or accessories or the Barbie camper van (which did look adorable, actually). I was there mostly as a Greta Gerwig fan; after Lady Bird and her update of Little Women, I wanted to see if she had the teeth to rip into a satire of a pop culture landmark.
The movie delivered... but it took awhile.
After the 2001 "dawn of time" parody (which, sadly, was overexposed on the internet), the movie opens in Barbieland, where Stereotypical Barbie (a luminous Margot Robbie) begins her perfect day (which is like every other day). Even for a Barbie novice--who couldn't time stamp a dream house design if his life depended on it--the set design was eye popping, the kind of technicolor playground you found in great 1950s musicals.
Stereotypical Barbie (let's call her Barbie Prime) greets her fellow Barbies, a breathtakingly diverse sampling of empowered womanhood--including Issa Rae as President Barbie (hell yeah!). But even though the Barbies are all shapes, sizes, colors and occupations, they all seem a little... plastic. Granted, this is a conscious decision by Gerwig; the Barbies are meant to be empty vessels, to be animated by the fantasies of their human owners. But it hurts the movie that none of the other Barbies--with the notable exception of Kate McKinnon's Weird Barbie--ever develop an interesting personality. (In contrast, the Lego Movie was filled to the brim with weird, funny and memorable supporting characters.)
Anyway, Barbie Prime suddenly suffers a horrifying existential crisis (complete with cellulite!), and journeys to the Real World to find out what's bothering her human owner. Ken Prime (Ryan Gosling) tags along, of course, because--designed solely for the female gaze--he tends to fade into the background whenever Barbie Prime's attention is elsewhere. This is where things start to get interesting. Barbie tracks down who she thinks is her owner: Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), a sullen teenager who unloads on Barbie all the negatives feminists have associated with Barbie for years: unrealistic body images, unattainable perfection, and just plain making girls "feel bad about themselves." She caps it off by calling Barbie a "fascist," which hurts and confuses Barbie. ("But I don't even control the means of production!")
No, she doesn't. Men do. And while Barbie is dealing with her personal crisis, Ken discovers the patriarchy--and he is delighted. He travels back to Barbieland and recreates it as a douchebro paradise (with a fetching horse motif), subjugating the other Barbies. Gosling is phenomenal here: dressed in a faux mink coat (opened to expose his abs) that perfectly offsets his peroxide coif, he playacts the part of the overconfident stud--he's both ridiculous and awesome at the same time. (His big solo number, "I'm Just Ken," is a brilliantly choreographed mini-musical in itself.)
But I don't want to short change Margot Robbie. Gosling has the more flamboyant role, but Robbie does excellent work detailing Barbie's character arc from a passive vessel for her owner's dreams to an independent, thinking being. She has great chemistry with her real human owner (played to a frazzled crisp by America Ferrara) and hilarious anti-chemistry with Ken. At the end, when she tells her mother/creator (Rhea Perlman) she wants to be a fully realized human being (with all the pain and problems that entails), the scene wouldn't hit as hard if Robbie hadn't taken us on that journey. (She also does some great physical comedy: in one scene, when Barbie sinks into despair, Robbie collapses to the ground exactly like a broken doll.)
So, to sum up: not quite living up to "masterpiece" status, but an explosion of visual imagination with some wildly funny sequences. (The toy commercial for Clinically Depressed Barbie is the best sketch Saturday Night Live never did.) Gerwig makes her points about the tightrope act of American womanhood while keeping the proceedings fast moving and light.
And, if nothing else, Gerwig does humanity a public service: after this movie, serenading with an acoustic guitar will no longer be a "surefire" seduction move.
Random notes:
-- Other than McKinnon, the best supporting character is Michael Cera's Allan. As a "friend of Ken", Allan is even more of a non-entity than the secondary Kens. But, paradoxically, his frustration with his insignificance gives him more personality than any other Ken.
-- Will Ferrell basically reprises his role from the LEGO Movie as the CEO of Mattel--but it doesn't work twice. He's too broad and goofy when he should be a little menacing. (Maybe Gerwig's corporate sponsor wouldn't let their CEO be an outright villain.)
