Barbie
2024-08-20Yesterday I had a displeasure to watch Barbie the movie while eating ultra spicy noodles. Even though, I was unable to fully process my surroundings while fighting for life with my lethal food, I still was able to form the following opinion.
The plot
The movie begins with showing us how the perfect Barbie world looks like. We see Ken, who is constantly ignored. Howver, the world begins to crumble - Barbie suddenly gets thoughts of death, straight feet, etc. She goes to Crazy Barbie, which tells the main Barbie to go off to the real world to find and help the girl which played with the main Barbie and felt sad at that time.
Barbie does just that and Ken follows. Ken discovers patriarchy and dominance of men in the real world and is amazed, while Barbie cries over real world’s people suffering. Ken brings new found ideas to the Barbie world. Barbie meets the woman who played with her along with daugther. Then Barbie, womand and her daughter escape Mattel, which wants to send Barbie back to her world, just to go to the Barbie world anyway.
Barbie is shocked with how patriarchy brought by Ken changed her world. She cries, but then Crazy Barbie finds her. So the main Barbie, the women who played with her and woman’s daugher discover that brainwashed Barbies can be cured with woman’s rant about current state of the real world.
They cure all the Barbies, make Kens become their boyfriends and then Barbies abandon Kens. Kens start fighting with themselves and Barbies roll back to previous Barbie world state.
The opinion
Movie is mostly filled with cheap jokes (some were actually funny), Ryan Gosling flexing muscles and advertisements. It tried to make itself reflective (although it clearly is a parody) on topics such as consumerism and patriarchy. It underlined how unequal men and women are in todays world. It also indirectly addressed girls, that they should not care about their appearance as much.
I do approve making the world a more equal place, however I have been met with situations in which women discriminantion is being fixed by discriminating men instead… I belive in eliminating discrimination and giving people as much freedom as possible to let the strongest win in the end.
Nonetheless, it was ironic to see it packed with so much ads - Brewski beer, Chevrolet cars, Duolingo, of course the Barbie doll and probably more which I forget to recall.
It ended with Barbie telling Ken, she does not love him and should go find who he really is. Overall the plot was generic and the main message (you can be whoever you want, especially if you are a woman) was pretty generic. I do not recommend and rate it 2/10.