Barbie: An Original Avatar
Barbie: The Official Live action movie brings to life the journey, of a toy turned heroine searching for her human incarnation all along.
✨Welcome to Barbie Land✨
In case you’ve been on a digital detox for the last year, let me bring you up to speed. The Mattel x Warner Bros. x Greta Gerwig’s Barbie live-action movie, Barbie, opened to US audiences on a hot summer July weekend, touting a projected $155 million opening domestically, which Pamela McClintock for The Hollywood Reporter described as a “a threshold usually reserved for male-driven superhero fare or marquee IP such as the final Harry Potter movie.” Traveling with this film the Barbie franchise is celebrating 100+ licensing deals across just about every category you can imagine, and Mattel is owning this moment as “one of the biggest cultural moments of (Barbie’s) nearly 65-year history’.
Kicked off as early as last year, the pink-preview fashion trend paved the way to claiming this summer as Barbie’s to own. Attendees to the Barbie movie premieres across the US traveled in easy to recognize pink-packs, as Elena Giardina shared in her review for the Boston Globe, calling out how fans “reclaimed ‘girliness’ through fashion. Some pieces were designer, some were thrifted, and some were from Amazon, but all made up more than just a costume. ” She reported.
Suffice it to say, simply attending the film is a movement which has taken over almost all social media channels during the film’s opening weekend, and Barbie’s bespoke font and Pantone color will continue to dominate screens, clothing and paint swatches across the US for the foreseeable future.
✨There’s More to Barbie Than Meets The Eye✨
Make no mistake, similar to the hype experienced at doll’s original launch in the late 1950's, the movie’s impact on popular consumer culture has been massive. Heralded as a strategic brand and marketing case study in successful entertainment collaborations, the ‘Barbiecore’ aesthetic, featuring everything electric pink, had a healthy runway, dominating 2022 style trends worldwide. Lizzo’s song ‘Pink,’ featured in the movie’s soundtrack sums up the Barbiecore trend perfectly:
“ In pink, goes with everything,
Beautiful from head to toe
I’m read’ to go, you know, you know
It’s pink (Pretty pink), good enough to drink
We like other colors
But pink just looks so good on us.”
✨Barbie’s Origin Story✨
Consumer and style trends aside, after viewing the film, I was left curious why the former Mattel CEO, Ruth Handler, who plays a key role in the movie, brought Barbie to life in the first place?
Quick research uncovered how the concept of Barbie was inspired by Handler’s teenage daughter’s fascination with a doll she spotted on a family trip to Europe that: “looked like an adult woman…The curvy doll was very different from most girls’ dolls in the US, which tended to be baby dolls. Ruth quickly got to work.” Upon discovering this origin story, what became striking between the film and my own experience having played with Barbie as a child, was uncovering a role that Barbie played IRL which hasn’t been as frequently discussed. Could she be, similar to the metaverse models that digital fashion designers and stylists have begun to dress, accessories and find inspiration in, an avatar?
✨Barbie As Avatar✨
If you’re not already saturated in the gaming, Web3, digital fashion world, or the history of avatars as they relate to ancient Hinduism, here’s a cheat sheet to bring you up to speed and begin to draw the potential parallels:
- What is an Avatar?
Interestingly, there are several definitions of the word ‘avatar.’ Merriam Webster listed their primary one as “an electronic image (as in a video game) that represents and may be manipulated by a computer user.” However, the subsequent one in the same Merriam Webster dictionary entry is categorized as a “non-player character,” and calls out the Hindu derivation of the word, with a genesis linked to the Sanskrit word ‘descent,’ which describes the journey of a deity from the heavens to the earth. If you’ve seen the film, that journey is not to far off from the Barbie movie’s concept of the heroine traveling to our world, in this case clad in work-out gear by the beach in roller-blades, but with a shared goal of the ancient avatars, “for a special reason or to help people, for example in times of need.” - What do Avatars do?
Popularized by gaming culture, they have become ambassadors to a virtual world, where they are “ …used for the image that a person chooses as (their) ‘embodiment’. ” With the rise in mainstream awareness around Web3 gaming, NFTs, and blockchain integrations across retail, designers, and brands we are seeing avatars represent not only a digital presence, but act as a shape-shifter who we can modify across platforms, both virtual and IRL, to showcase the mood, tone and ‘deity’ quality that we choose for them. Don’t get me started on the potential of interoperability and the many ways these avatars can teleport from one gaming ecosystem to another, keeping either their virtual form or deciding to shift how they appear within each digital world. - How do you engage with Avatars?
With 9% of 36 to 45-year-olds reporting to have gamed for a whole day, 18% of those aged between 46 and 55 reporting to have been in this category, clearly people from a wide range of generations are spending time acting as their avatars in various ecosystems in a variety of different ways. The graphic below shares how many different ways this time can be spent, with the careful call outs about the sentiment that players are reporting to gain from a gaming experience. To play these games, each of the players must select an avatar to engage with each of these experience, this is one of the first choices you are served up with when you flip on a gaming experience, you are asked to pick an avatar. In parallel to the physical play that is often at the center of Barbie the doll’s experience, when evoking an avatar, either within a game or deity legend, there is the opportunity to choose how you appear to other ‘players.’
✨How Does Barbie Serve as an Avatar in Physical and Virtual Ways? ✨
Now that we’ve made a dent in the parallels between the physical, virtual and spiritual avatars, its’ important to unlock how Barbie functions across each of these ecosystems, especially in light of the message of her choice to remain a toy or assume a human form. To provide a more recent context to the pop culture sentiment, VOGUE reported in a piece titled ‘Video Games Are Becoming a High-Fashion Playground,’ that “…increasingly, gamers want their virtual characters to look good, even if their sole mission is to stay alive, it begs the question how very different is selecting a virtual avatar from determining which Barbie your Barbie will be today? Will she be a lawyer, a doctor, a fashionista? Once you make your selection, just like you choose which skin you want to have your avatar appear in a popular video game like Fortnite, you make a choice about the identity that you are evoking as a part of your play journey. A clear parallel is reported in a piece from Dexerto entertainment media group, on the Top 20 Fortnite skins, “these skins don’t give you any competitive advantage….they give you a way to show off your personal style or even play as your favorite movie characters.”
✨How Does Barbie Link Gaming and Entertainment in 2023?✨
Gaming platforms are on the list of Barbie collaborators, with a Forever 21 x Roblox launch which occurred in May of 2023, anticipating the groundswell of attention that would surround this summer’s launch of the film. Winnie Burke, head of fashion and beauty partnerships at Roblox shared the gamer’s sentiment at the time of their collaboration announcement with Zofia Zwieglinska of Glossy, reporting: “Millions of users on Roblox are expressing themselves on the platform and updating their avatars daily. We know from our research that they are looking for styles that are trending in the physical world and represent their favorite brands’ latest IRL collections. The community appreciates timely content and items that represent an authentic extension of the brands innovating in this space.” And there you have it. Updating their avatars daily, just as we look to our IRL Barbie dolls to project our need for interpretive, creative play, and transfer that impact to the consumer culture wheel of samsara.
✨Barbie the Avatar Faces the Music✨
So much of the birth and rebirth, the power of play to translate the many elements of the senses is related through Gerwig’s careful depiction of Margo Robbie’s portrayal of Barbie in the film. However, there are other supporting cast members who are not inherently included in the credits. The fashion and style certainly gets attention however it was palpable what a large role the music, curated by Mark Ronson, who acted as the executive producer of the Barbie movie’s soundtrack. When describing the ethos of the score Ronson explained, “It’s fun to show people different scenes and getting them to dream big.”
Musician Ava Max, who is featured multiple times on the soundtrack shared a similar sentiment when outlining her creative journey. She shared, “I really like(d) Cirkut’s beat. It sounds almost like a video game. It’s like Barbie video game vibes, and it’s a super pop song that I love to sing.” Max’s contribution to the Barbie soundtrack is not unique in it’s nod to gaming culture, with multiple tracks paying homage to our heroine’s experiences across genres throughout the film. However, her song, ‘Choose Your Fighter’, signals the spirit of the Barbie as avatar concept with her chorus proclaiming:
“…You can be a lover or a fighter, whatever you desire
Life is like a runway and you’re the designer…”
This invitation to try-it-out/on, plays directly into the concept of Barbie as an avatar, which was expanded upon in the movie, and certainly across the Mattel franchise.
Billie Eilish shared her pure joy at participating on the soundtrack, with a song entitled: ‘What Was I Made For?’ on Instagram, with what looks to be a hand-draw sketch of the iconic Barbie ‘B’. Eilish not only features a heart-felt sentiment, but adds to the Barbie as avatar metaphor in her video for the song, where she touts a “yellow dress and a Barbie ponytail — pulls doll-size versions of some of her own most iconic outfits and solemnly tries to fit them all on a doll clothing rack, despite wind and then rain.”
✨How Does Barbie’s Avatar Status Leave It’s Mark on Popculture?✨
The concept of giving Barbie a whirl to see what experiences can be designed with her as your guide and inspiration. Her ambassadorship prompts her fans and followers to employ an interpretive lens to their imaginations. Just like the avatars of deity status, and Barbie, you are able to take on a new form and identity to immerse in the decision of which reality you will choose to inhabit.
Therein lies one of the many connection points between the film, the doll, and the musical journey that pairs so nicely with the Barbie as avatar journey. Toon’s multiple video game rifts permeate throughout the Barbie movie’s carefully curated soundtrack and create a musical link from the live-action picture, to the possibility of traversing the film as if you were one of the characters like Barbie, Ken, Gloria, Sasha, Ruth, etc.. or whomever you choose as your avatar to embark upon this journey through Barbie Land, the ‘Real World’ Kendom and back.
The way the film’s Director, Greta Gerwig explains the now popularized woman on a bench scene featuring costume designer Ann Roth, is akin to how a Hindu deity taking on the human form to relay a message would be voiced, “The idea of a loving God who’s a mother, a grandmother — who looks at you and says, ‘Honey, you’re doing ok’ — is something I feel like I need and I wanted to give to other people,” Gerwig added to The New York Times about the importance of the scene, which she describes as a “transaction of grace.”
Gerwig goes on to describe in an interview on NPR’s Here & Now, how she viewed the movie’s deconstruction of a toy icon, sharing: “Barbie as an idea, as a brand, had this mission statement of inspiring girls to be whatever they wanted to be as adult women. And then I think it’s very important to have an adult woman talk about all of the kind of impossible contradictions.” This dynamic symmetry between the multiple versions of Barbie, showcased in the film as well as across the Mattel franchise, calls to mind the infinite forms that Hindu avatars take as they who are called upon to ‘try-on’ various iterations, forms and identities to inspire people in times of need.
✨The Brush With Humanity, And Barbie’s Choice✨
So where does this leave us, the viewers, the gamers, the players, the fans? Quizzes, merch and immersive experiences aside, what is the final destination of our existential road trip through the real and imaginary with Barbie? In part, the magic is in the lack of an answer. Without spoiling the ending for those who have not yet seen the film, we are left by Gerwig, in the movie to embark, Birkenstocks and all, to one of the ultimate real-world female definitive experiences known to women. However, humanity vs. toy avatar status aside, maybe it all comes down to the simplicity of the song, ‘Closer to Fine,’ which is also featured on the film’s soundtrack. Originally performed by the Indigo Girls circa 1989, but re-interpreted by Brandi and Catherine Carlile, with the thoughtful chorus that could have slipped from Barbie’s own heart-shaped lips:
“And the best thing you ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It’s only life after all.”
*Author’s full-disclosure: I am completely unbiased on the topic of Barbie. My Barbie dolls were at the heart of my childhood play. Their infinite wardrobe and style possibilities are one of the reasons I pursued a career in fashion, design and the things I learned playing Barbie as a young girl, instilled the importance of creative play and imagination as a key focus of how I see the world. Not to mention this piece was written while listening to not only Aqua’s ode to Barbie but the soundtrack from the original motion picture, so clearly a fan of both the doll, the myth the legend.✨💅🏻💕💄🛍🎀🪞🩰🪩 🦢🧚♀️ 👙🐩💋👠🔮✨
