Since Barbie came out and the first reviews started pouring in, we’ve been trying to avoid reading anything about the film in the hope that we can provide as unprimed a view of the film as possible.
There are a lot of things to like about Barbie as a film. At its centre is ‘Stereotypical Barbie’ (Margot Robbie), who faces an existential crisis after she starts to malfunction and needs to travel from Barbieland to the real world, in a narrative structure that appears to borrow from recent superhero blockbuster themes of multiverses, alternative realities and time/space travel.
The existential crisis that Barbie experiences relates to both her experience of negative feelings (such as thoughts about death) as well as physical symptoms of ‘unattractiveness’ – flat feet and getting cellulite. Barbie sets out into the real world with an assumption that she will be hailed as a saviour and a mascot for women’s empowerment, which is a narrative that has been cultivated in Barbieland. At first glance this makes sense, as on the surface level Barbieland is perfect. The women in Barbieland run it expertly, having all kinds of highly skilled jobs. What is more, there is a real sense of sisterhood at the core of the culture that eclipses women only having a purpose as a man’s wife/partner/sister/mother (as is so often the case in our culture and indeed the real world in the film). That Barbieland is however far from perfect quickly becomes apparent, not only through the disgust levelled at Stereotypical Barbie for getting flat feet, but also through the shunning and exclusion of ‘Weird Barbie’ (Kate McKinnon) from mainstream Barbieland. However, as a fully functioning Barbie, life had seemed perfect beforehand.
Barbie sets off on her own to make friends with the human at the root of her malfunctioning, and thus Barbie is essentially a road trip full of new experiences, personal development and what it means to be human.
That about covers Barbie’s story. So what about Ken, Barbie’s unwanted sidekick during her road trip?
Before we get onto Ken the character and his behaviour in the film, it should be noted that the obvious age difference (nine years) between Gosling and Robbie was really striking. Robbie looks fresh, youthful and in a sense believable as Stereotypical Barbie, whilst Gosling simply looks a little bit middle-aged and wrinkly and much less stereotypically good-looking. It is a shame that Hollywood yet again had to cast a female lead next to a much older man (another example is the 19+ year age difference between Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh in the recently released Oppenheimer). All of us, but particularly female Barbie fans, really deserved a Ken that was younger, fresher and more in line with the plastic model that Ken was based on.
Just as not everything is perfect in Barbieland or in Stereotypical Barbie’s life, the same can be said for Ken. He pines for Stereotypical Barbie and to be acknowledged by her, and his story from the start seems to be ‘she [Barbie] will be mine, no matter how’. It is easy to forget as Ken progresses towards embracing patriarchy and the oppression and objectification of women, and turning Barbieland and everything in it into a sort of macho paradise, that right from the start of the film Ken’s actions are not respectful of Barbie. In one of the earlier scenes in Barbieland, Ken leans in to kiss Barbie and also tries to convince her to let him stay over, despite her having a girl’s night at her house. Later in the film, as Barbie sets off on her adventure, Ken hides in the car and despite Barbie telling him she does not want him to come, he convinces her by saying that he’d made a double dare with another Ken, at which point Barbie relents and lets him come along. There is definitely a coercive controlling edge to Ken from the start.
Jackson Katz, who reviewed the film in Ms. Magazine, saw this as a role reversal where Ken is reduced to an object:
“Many times during the film, Ryan Gosling’s Ken expresses sadness and disappointment that Barbie doesn’t see or value him. He is reduced, quite literally, to the status of an object. This role reversal is one of the story’s signature devices; the satire works because men’s objectification of women is such a pervasive feature of Western society”.
Jackson Katz, What Boys and Men Can Learn from Ken (Ms. Magazine, 1 August 2023)
Whilst we agree with many of the points in Katz’ review, we see things quite differently on this particular point. In our eyes, Ken simply doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that Barbie is obviously not (as) interested in him generally and does not want him to come along, and pushes to get what he wants. Ken is not being objectified here, but rather being denied what he sees as his right to being desired by Barbie.
In a brief Instagram review, the UK-based David Challen made the following comment about the film:
“An incisive depiction by Greta Gerwig of reality where a small group of men who often dominate society leaves individual men finding themselves isolated and in competition with one another. The movie narrative does well to draw attention to the emotional toll of social isolation on men underscoring the consequences of this isolation, which can lead to mental health issues, self-harm and violence”.
David Challen (Instagram, 2 August 2023)
Whilst it is certainly true that the film highlights how the men, in their competitive fight for dominance, use violence against both the Barbies and each other, in the end we feel that this is a somewhat positive view of the film’s depiction of the effects of patriarchy on men. Even after the battle between the Kens in the film, the Kens are unable to reflect on their behaviour and soften. Instead, Gosling’s Ken throws what is best described as a childish tantrum as he can’t get Barbie. Yes, the men in the film show emotion, but they are still very limited in what they are capable of emotionally. We see this not as a negative, but as an honest portrayal of men that unfortunately isn’t particularly hopeful. Instead, it left us somewhat deflated at the state of men and our lacking ability to act and behave as grown-up, emotionally mature humans.
Just as we were about to publish our take on Barbie, another Instagram review surfaced courtesy of a UK-based organisation called Beyond Equality. The Instagram post featured the headline ‘I am Kenough: How Barbieacknowledges men and encourages all of us to re-imagine masculinity’, taking inspiration from a recent LA Timesarticle. What seems staggering to us in these commentaries is the notion that men suffer under patriarchy to the same extent that women do. Sure, Ken isn’t particularly happy in Barbieland but his ‘invisibility’ to Barbie is not equal to the sexual objectification and harassment Barbie suffers in the real world. Also, the Barbies are not subjecting the Kens in Barbieland to mass brainwashing to be used as sexualised servants for their own gain. The oppression of women in the real world and the Barbies under Kenland rule cannot be equalled to the minor inconveniences Ken suffers in Barbieland and this is where some reviewers are getting it wrong. They are not comparing like for like. Sure, not all men are enjoying the benefits of patriarchy to the full extent, but to equate their ‘suffering’ to that of women is a gross overstatement.
One thing that really stood out was that when Barbie and Ken arrive in the real world, they very much do so with the minds of children. They do not know what to expect as Barbieland is relatively harmonious, there are few problems and their world is full of powerful women. Arriving in the real world for them feels almost akin to going through puberty, becoming more self-aware and aware of others. For Barbie this is unsettling, upsetting and painful as she is verbally and physically sexually harassed by a number of men. Ken on the other hand feels liberated as he is finally getting some attention. Barbie’s reaction to the misogyny that women in our societies are exposed to on a daily basis is one of the highlights of this film, as it has a real sense of authenticity. Barbie’s crushing first experience of women’s objectification and sexualisation and the upset, discomfort and fear in her face give a rare glimpse into women’s lives as the world, personified by Ken’s experience of what is happening, keeps moving on undisturbed.
After a while Barbie and Ken split, both going on separate journeys. Whilst Barbie immerses herself into the real world through observation, talking to women and of course tracking down the two women who are at the root of her malfunction, Ken goes about learning about the patriarchy differently. He observes men and men’s behaviour and adverts from a distance, he goes to a library to read books and then, having learnt about the patriarchy and what ‘being a man’ means in the real world, he goes out and tries to get his slice of the cake. Realising that this isn’t as easy as it appears from observations he has made, he returns to Barbieland to get what he wants and needs.
In the meantime, Barbie befriends Gloria (America Ferrara) and her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), who are at the root of her malfunctioning, and takes them to Barbieland, only to find out that Ken has converted it into a Patriarchy. Ken attempts to overthrow Barbieland and establish ‘Kenland’ after brainwashing all the other Barbies into oppression and submission. What ensues is a struggle to preserve Barbieland in which the women succeed by working together whilst the men, consumed by their egos, eventually lose out.
Another favourite scene has to be the campfire concert by the Kens. Here they are singing a song that perfectly encapsulates their goal of oppressing the Barbies.
“I wanna push you around
‘Push’ by Matchbox Twenty (1996)
Well I will, well I will
I wanna push you down
Well I will, well I will
I wanna take you for granted”
The scene is so great because it encapsulates not just general sexist and misogynistic attitudes in our society but also how these are often expressed and celebrated in music. In a sense, it expresses Ken’s entire ‘she [Barbie] will be mine, no matter how’ journey. This journey, which is threaded into Barbie’s story, comes to the fore near the end after Barbieland is reclaimed. Ken has a final, emotionally manipulative ‘I’m nothing without you’ breakdown in front of Barbie. Barbie, however, following her experience in the real world and her journey, stands strong and firm. She responds in kindness, rejecting Ken’s advances but also helping him see he needs to work out who he is, just as she has.
Barbie’s creator Ruth (Rhea Perlman) reappears, having also travelled to Barbieland, and has a deep conversation with Barbie, who decides that she no longer wants to live in Barbieland but wants to become fully human, with the last scenes showing Barbie living in the real world with Gloria and Sasha.
Beyond the specific content of the film, there are a number of things we particularly liked about what Barbie is doing. The film is obviously bringing the word ‘patriarchy’, which is usually used by feminists, pro-feminist men and academics, to a wider audience and introducing a lot of young women and girls to this concept. Also, Stereotypical Barbie is neither unintelligent nor weak; she has personality, is kind, humane, intelligent and able to defend herself physically when she is sexually assaulted. Lastly, it was good to see that the film was very sex-based. Men are men and women are women – well, kind of. Those who do a bit more research or follow celebrity culture will know that the film included a trans-identifying man playing the role of the female character ‘Dr. Barbie’. Whilst this of course is embracing the idea of gender identity more generally, we were nonetheless pleased that the film did not include the idea of gender identity more specifically. It would have been very easy to add gender identity into the mix, so we are pleased the film instead focused on sisterhood, what it means to be human and the oppression by men of women through a structure called the patriarchy.
