So, disclaimer: I’m not the hugest fan of Greta Gerwig (…as a director. As an actor I like her a whole lot). I actually did like Lady Bird a lot, but I had high hopes for Little Women, and was let down. Her characters felt self-conscious, and the movie was too long for my taste. (I feel a little apologetic since I know that film was popular. I just loved the older one with Winona Ryder so much more, and this fell far short.) That said, when I decided NOT to see the Barbie movie I didn’t actually know that Gerwig had directed it. It just didn’t appeal to me. But then a couple of friends were going, and invited me, and I thought, why not? I’ll see what all the hype is about.

My reaction: After falling asleep and missing the center third of the film, waking up and finding I didn’t really miss anything and could follow along to the end, I thought, “Yeah, whatever.” But truthfully, I wanted more! It wasn’t just whatever. I felt annoyed. Feminism is so dear. Raising women up above tropes, archetypes, and false idols is something I love. But often hollywood says they are doing this when actually they are doing the opposite. They take negative tropes and false idols they claim to want to draw light to, and while claiming to do so, they use the very things they are pretending to evolve beyond, as titillations, and make millions off of them. They do it over and over. Let’s make a movie to draw attention to drug addiction and we’ll make the drug dealers and users super attractive, interesting, magnetic and dynamic, leaving the viewer wondering if they just got sold the idea that drug use is kind of cool, or…? Let’s make a movie about guys who screw people out of millions of dollars to shed light on their incredible greed and the system that supports it, while casting uber handsome actors to play them, and super hot women to disrobe and sleep with them on camera, all the while claiming to “tell a story” while leaving out the really unattractive parts. The viewer then watches, and leaves thinking…hmm, I think I actually wish I were that morally bankrupt and could do all that “cool” stuff, or do I…? This is the nature of Hollywood: We will tell “conscious” stories, while using the unsavory parts to make money. Barbie felt the same to me. Barbie, the tall, white, blonde doll with long legs, perfect skin, and feet that are naturally shaped like high heels, hasn’t changed or evolved for the story. She is exactly as I left her in my toy chest. In fact she is even more striking because she is an actual human woman actress now. (The funniest part of the movie for me was when Barbie explains to the construction workers that her and Ken don’t actually have genitals. I laughed out loud. Kudos for the consistency.) The thing is, tall, leggy blondes sell movie tickets. Shallow tropes sell, because we are used to them. Goslings oiled chest sells. But couldn’t we have done something more creative with our gazillion dollars? Couldn’t we have made an entirely different story? A new doll? One who looks like a regular person, calling herself Barbie? Maybe she has depth, and helps others, and, I don’t know, is like, regular? That would be cool. And creative. Did we need to pay attention to the old Barbie that was so boring and disconnected and proven to have proportions impossible for any human woman? Couldn’t we have just left her alone, at the bottom of the toy chest? Let’s get interesting, people! This felt like another disconnected hollywood story that had no application to the real world, slyly using the tropes it was claiming to ironically expose, to make money. I for one am glad I didn’t get dressed up and seek any kind of reflection of my journey in this shallow film.