In Barbie Land, Ken Steals the Show

My Disappointment with Barbie the Movie

The last time I posted a movie review here was in 2018, sharing my take on Incredibles 2. Apparently I enjoy writing about highly successful family-friendly movies that I find mildly disappointing. And I like to post these reviews well after the movie comes out, at a blistering pace of once per decade.

So, it’s time for me to discuss Barbie.

Overall, the Barbie movie left me feeling unsettled. I did enjoy parts of it — the Barbie Land sets and costumes were delightful, and the music made me laugh out loud. (“P, panic! K, death!”) I thought Ken’s chest-bearing dance-off battle with, well, Ken was brilliant.

But that’s kind of the problem. For me, Ken stole the show. And isn’t it a bit ironic for a man to steal the spotlight in a feminist-primer women’s-rights girl-power movie? So let’s dig in and find out what happened.

The movie establishes twin worlds — the doll paradise of Barbie Land, a matriarchy run entirely by women, and the real world patriarchy, dominated by men. We start in Barbie Land, where Barbie has a great day every day but Ken has a great day only if Barbie looks at him. (I loved that line.)

Unfortunately for Ken, she’s not looking. The sequence introducing Barbie Land makes clear that the Barbies are fulfilled by their female companionship, their balance of logic and emotion, and their bespoke dance parties. In Ken’s perfect world, Barbie is his casual long-term live-in girlfriend, together in the dreamhouse. But in Barbie’s perfect world, she doesn’t even know where Ken sleeps.

Ken is unhappy with the status quo, but he’s powerless to change it. The Barbies control everything. They won’t let a Ken run for office or join their after-party or even ride shotgun in the convertible. “Every night is girls night, forever and ever,” stereotypical Barbie tells Ken, denying any possibility of change.

Uh oh. This doesn’t seem sustainable. Conflict is brewing. Meanwhile, Barbie discovers flat feet, cold showers, and thoughts of death. Something is rotten in paradise.

At least, that’s what I thought was happening. I thought this was a great setup for bringing change to Barbie Land — which would, in turn, bring new inspiration to the real world (clearly in need of it). But in the end, the movie takes the view that Barbie Land doesn’t need to change at all. The Barbies restore it to exactly what it was in the beginning. Ken doesn’t need to fight the matriarchy — he just needs to accept it and accept himself. The same cannot be said for the patriarchy. The two worlds are not parallel.

Trust me, I’m all in for giving matriarchy a turn. But in the movie, the perfection of Barbie Land leads to an awkward imbalance. Ken’s problems can all be solved himself within Barbie Land, while Barbie’s cannot. Barbie goes on a figurative journey to save all women, while Ken goes on a personal journey to save himself.

Sound fair?

Let’s start with Barbie. When the Barbies have a glitch in Barbie Land, it comes from the real world. Weird Barbie twists into crazy splits because of the rough play her doll receives in the real world. Stereotypical Barbie gets flat feet because Gloria sketches her that way. These issues are not personal to Barbie herself. They are metaphorical; they represent the plight of girls and women in the real world.

But the issues facing the Kens are their own personal issues. Nobody is playing with them in the real world. Beach Ken is jealous of the other Kens, but this insecurity certainly isn’t coming from the patriarchy. It’s coming from Ken himself.

The result is a feeling that pervaded the movie for me — that the Kens were independent individuals controlling their own destiny toward their personal goals, while the Barbies were not. The Barbies were puppets coerced by someone else toward other goals.

The brainwashed Barbies exemplified this, and this part of the movie really made me cringe. When Ken brings patriarchy to Barbie Land, the Barbies fall victim to it immediately. They become brainwashed airheads, trading their business suits for French maid outfits, serving beers by the pool, turning over all decisions to the Kens. “We just explained [the perfection of] patriarchy, and they crumbled,” one Ken says.

Why are the Barbies so vulnerable and so naive? In the movie, Gloria explains that the Barbies had never before encountered patriarchy and thus had no defenses. Why not? Did they not have brains? What happened to their command of emotion and logic, their empowerment and confidence? The implication is that women are inherently susceptible and weak. After all, at no point are the Kens brainwashed under the matriarchy. The Kens always retain control of their bodies and minds.

I am sure the movie did not intend this message, but I have to do a bunch of mental gymnastics to avoid it. Like, maybe the brainwashing is symbolic of the oppressive patriarchies of the past, when women didn’t have any power or platform. The solution is to speak the truth — “By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you rob it of its power!” Setting aside how oversimplified this is (I know that’s been well noted), it’s still all the more true that the Barbies are symbols, representations of women through history, not unique individuals.

Meanwhile Ken confronts his nemesis, opens up to Barbie, slays his demons, and solves his identity crisis. All of this is within his power to do. He’s charismatic and confident, while Barbie becomes aimless and lost.

Maybe that was why I felt like the movie hit its stride with Ken. I didn’t struggle to interpret what he was going through or what it meant. His issues weren’t layered in complex symbolism. He was an individual; she was a concept. This was by design.

There were other mismatches too — for instance, how does the real world encompass both the crisp moment at the bus stop (the wind, the people laughing, the old lady’s glorious wrinkles) as well as the cartoon buffoonery of Will Ferrell? Does this world actually exist or not? I also don’t understand why Gloria tells her daughter, who rants about sexualized capitalism, “You look so pretty right now.” And don’t get me started on the useless mug shots, the B-roll home videos, or the movie’s odd fixation with genitals.

I liked the ending, where stereotypical Barbie becomes human. Going forward, there is no single doll that purports to represent all women. That’s a good message. But Barbie made that decision only after her life had been completely upended. I would have much preferred that Barbie had some desire for change in the first place, some discontent or ambition brewing within herself. But she didn’t — she thought Barbie Land was perfect.

Her reasons for leaving didn’t comfort me either. Essentially, she wants to become human so she can stop being at the mercy of the people playing with her. “I want to be part of the people that make meaning, not the thing that’s made,” she says. “I want to do the imagining. I don’t want to be the idea.” Not something she can accomplish in the matriarchy, apparently.

For a girl power movie, I found its messages about women considerably bleak.

Stay tuned for my next review, hopefully before 2030.