Some Thoughts on Barbie

Recently I’ve taken a step away from social media, which has mostly been refreshing. My attention settling on objects other than the rapid fire of jokes and discourse is worth the tradeoff of feeling more connected to a lot of people who I don’t really know, and in this regard Bluesky isn’t so different than Twitter (now X?) was. One downside is that I still have opinions I want to share with the world and without the ability to fire off a few posts like I’m venting steam, I am forced to accede to the life of the blogger.

I watched Barbie a couple nights ago. To get it out of the way, I admit it was incredibly funny, full of good performances, and visually very stylish. With the exception of whiffing the emotional climax and making a few wrong steps in the real world section of the movie, it’s a very well-made film.

It is also one of the most craven pieces of media I have had the displeasure of watching. On Letterboxd, there is a list of movies that Greta Gerwig offers as inspirations for Barbie, but there is a film that it shares a spirit with, despite wildly different levels of success as a film: Space Jam 2. The common trait is the nakedness of the ploy, the plainness of its goal as an advertisement, the audacity to sublimate art to advertisement so fully.

The difference, and what makes Barbie so repulsive to me, is the self-awareness with which it pursues the goal of absorbing the critiques of this toy that has worn out its welcome, of mythologizing its past and present and future. It says to the audience, “You know we’re doing this. We admit we’re doing this. We’ll make a joke out of the fact that we’re doing this, and you’re clever for seeing our aims. Laugh at us!”

That laughter doesn’t neutralize this aim, but instead neutralizes the critiquing audience. Appeals to the viewer’s cleverness and insight are, counter-intuitively, one of the most proven ways to get them to stop thinking, and Barbie’s seduction combines this with its brightly colored atmosphere to stun us into letting us brush away any inkling of its evil in exchange for fun. But the propaganda piece designed to relaunch this ailing brand is evil, even if it does so with a wink, and a wink reflected in a mirror, and a reflection of a reflection of a wink, and so on and so on until all you can see is how playful they’re being with it. That it so thoroughly incorporates its own critique to manipulate the viewer into accepting the goals of advertisement is what repulses me about Barbie, encapsulated in the moment that they included a full-on car commercial in the movie and I became queasy as I realized what, exactly, was in charge of the film.

Barbie sales are going to spike. Mattel is going to try to make more movies based on its toys. More directors will find their opportunities to make a movie constrained by what corporate IP is available to promote, and if Barbie proves anything, it’s that art can’t surround and overcome an advertisement. Barely muffled, the heart beats beneath the hot pink floorboards.

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I do also want to briefly address the fact that so many queer people in particular are going to see this movie, and that it is particularly gay or trans. Campiness has long been an aesthetic of our people, and heightened performances of gender have been too. However, what homoeroticism exists in Barbie, exists for laughs, and, though the movie is about gender, it is not particularly about being transgender in any meaningful way. It can come as a surprise for those who spend our time gazing through gender as a primary way of untangling the world, but while a story about gender includes our own concerns, it is not necessarily about us. The sharp double-edge of femininity cuts through cis women as cleanly as it does trans women. It doesn’t have anything particularly interesting to say about either being gay or being trans, and doesn’t try to say much at all on that front. But I suppose pandering is the heart of all advertisement, and Barbie and its marketing campaign succeeded admirably on that front.