By Keely Mills, Volunteer Writer
As with most college age girls, Barbies were my favorite toys when I was young. Every time a new Barbie princess movie would come out, my parents would pop in the dvd for my sisters and I. The three of us grew up watching Barbie dance and sing across our little box television in our small condo. For several years, until we eventually grew out of them, we would be gifted Barbie dolls for our birthdays and Christmases and then spend hours upon hours playing with them in our room. Barbies were our life.
So naturally, when this new live action Barbie film began advertising, I along with the rest of my doll-obsessed generation of young girls, was ecstatic. Barbie had meant everything to me as a child during playtime, what would a live action movie about my favorite doll entail?
I went to the mall quite a bit over the summer with somebody who challenged my thinking in ways I never thought imaginable. At every shopping center or store we went into, there was always some sort of advertisement for the new Margot Robbie film. Every time I saw one, a little burst of excitement would bubble up in me.
“Look, Barbie!” I would say.
My friend’s response was always the same, “Ewww, why do you care so much about that movie? It’s probably not going to be very good.”
I knew he was wrong, though I had not seen it yet. He had to be wrong, it was Barbie!
Soon enough, July 21st rolled around and my teenage sister and I excitedly rushed to the nearest theater to watch it. Then, a few weeks later I went to see it with a group of friends here in Belton, Texas. What the following entails is my reaction to both times viewing the movie, and how my opinion changed from the first time to the second.
A few days after the opening day of Barbie, I was sitting in a movie theater as the lights began to dim and the British narrator began speaking. I smiled at my sister, thrilled that this was finally happening, I was watching the biggest movie of the year.
If I am speaking honestly, the movie affected me intensely the first time I watched it. I grinned when they showed Barbie Land, the glamorous dream houses every girl had when they were young, and all of Barbie’s clothes. I cracked up when Ryan Gosling sang, “I’m Just Ken.'' I cried when Barbie experienced a life-altering emotional breakdown, after realizing all her strivings to make the world a better place were useless. The film’s ending was beautiful and hilarious all at the same time. I walked out of that theater with my sister completely stunned with how much I enjoyed it. This is because I had heard much negative talk about it from my close friends.
On the way home, my sister and I had a passionate conversation about how the movie was so deeply moving and how it had touched on the aspects of society not many people like to discuss. It affected us to that degree because we could very much relate to some of it. Though parts were extremely and ruthlessly feminist, it grabbed my attention with how much women “struggle” in our culture these days. My sister and I spoke about how sad parts of the film were, how gorgeous the cinematography was in the scenes when it showed how beautiful all parts of life are. Overall, I adored it and encouraged my friends to go watch it. Moreover, as previously mentioned, prior to watching Barbie I had heard that there was much political nonsense in it. Now, initially I did not believe that after seeing it the first time. I did not notice much of it. This was until I watched it a second time a few weeks later.
My reaction while watching it again did not change, I still laughed and cried at all the same scenes. I noticed more little details that I did not see the first time, as is the case every time one watches a movie again. However, walking away from the theater afterwards, my passion for it all diminished. Suddenly, I was disgusted with the way they portrayed femininity as a constant uphill battle for power and identity. As a Christian, the film was depressing to watch because I knew that people who did follow Jesus were utterly hopeless.
While the film showed that men and women have different roles in society, and those roles are necessary and fulfilling, it also showed how devastating life is without Jesus. It did not give any sort of lasting hope or redemption. It also left many other people, mostly women, in tears and a sense of hopeless abandonment after watching it. Women had emotional crises after seeing Barbie cry over her helpless existence, and it made real life women feel the same way. After watching it a second time, I realized that the film never tied anything up at the end.
It had a funny tagline at the last scene, but as stated before, it gave no redemption or fulfillment. The only sure ideal it did give was that according to society, a woman’s life is measured by how she feels about her social status, her goals, her looks and nothing else. When in reality a woman as well as a man’s life is not measured by those petty things, but rather what their Creator says about them and the facts they do know about their value as a person. Everyone is valuable, men are not more powerful than women. That is yet a mere trick our society has always played on people.
I suppose I believed I would love Barbie because well… why wouldn’t I? I adored all the princess movies when I was a girl, this would be no different. I was wrong, and my friend was right, as he typically tends to be. I did what I had wanted to do, I saw the highly anticipated film for myself, twice even and it disappointed me. I have no desire to see it again. The only hope it gave me was that I am safe in Christ, not the material world. More than anything, it gave me a desire to change the way women view themselves because the world’s view of women is sickening.
