Unique Times

Will the Real Barbie please stand up?

Meet the Cast:

Margot Robbie: Barbie
Ryan Gosling Ken
Will Ferrell Mattel CEO
Emma Mackey:
Simu Liu:
Michael Cera: Alan
Kate McKinnon
America Ferrera: Gloria

As promised here is my quick review of Barbie. I didn’t play with Barbie that I can remember and if I did, it was short lived or long enough to pull a leg off or cut the hair off, if I remember correctly. I do remember getting a life size doll one year at Christmas that walked and talked which I had an affinity for a few seconds.

The opening scene where the children were playing with their dolls is still perplexing to me. I’m not sure if they were conveying the message they did not want to have these real life looking dolls and would rather be Barbie or if they were breaking the mold of Barbie being the stereotypical image girls should aspire to.

Either way, it caught your attention. I would never have chosen to go to see this movie since I continually work with breaking stereotypical views of woman and have always viewed Barbie as putting woman in a mold devoid of introspection and intelligence.

Director, Greta Gerwig did an amazing job directing this movie and it turns out, that’s just what she had in mind. While not for kids because it is mostly directed to adults and goes over their head which can be confusing, it is a wonderful movie with amazing music and incredible dancing.

It is getting rave reviews from critics and judging from the laughs and box office sales of $214 million during its first five days at the domestic box office, it’s off the charts.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed the movie. It starts out in typical Barbie World where everything is perfect and everyday is as good as the last and as good as the next until Barbie starts having some real feelings that are incomprehensible to her and she starts to malfunction. A visit to “Weird Barbie” directs her to visit the real world and find the culprit that must be playing with her in life causing her to have real life feelings and return her to “Stereotypical Barbie”.

Ken jumps in the car and claims he is going with her which she’s not thrilled about. Once they get a taste of what it’s like navigating Venice Beach and landing themselves in jail on numerous occasions, things start to change. Barbie shows up at Mattel and they are outraged with a mission to put her back in the box and save Barbie before their multi-million company malfunctions just like she is and all hell breaks loose.

She finds the illustrator that has been breaking through the Barbie molds that loved her once but has been at an impasse with her daughter who has and aversion to Barbie. She starts creating images of the not so perfect Barbie and sketches real life Barbies from all walks of life which is what creates Barbie’s malfunction.

In the meantime, Ken finds out that being self servant to Barbie’s every need is not what the real world is all about and adopts a patriarchal viewpoint and decides to go back to Barbie Land and turn it into Ken Land.

The race is on as Barbie escapes Mattel in a chase and leaves with the illustrator and her daughter to show her what Barbie land is all about. Mattel is on their heels to get there first and save their company.

When Barbie arrives she is shocked to find that Ken has changed and is no longer the self serving wonderful admirable Ken so loving and polite and has turned everyone into a patriarchal society and booted Barbie out of her domaine saying “see this is what it feels like”.

There are some wonderful excerpts in the movie about what is real and what is fake and what it means to be real. A fun fact is Barbie was inspired Inspired by her daughter’s fascination with paper dolls that looked like adults, Handler launched Barbie to the American market in 1959. It was named after her daughter Barbara. The doll was an immediate success, and Mattel, already a dominant player, became the behemoth of children’s toys.

The most touching part of the movie for me was the end when Barbie looks in the eyes of a 91 year old woman full of wrinkles and says “your beautiful”. To see the 2 of them look into each other’s eyes when Barbie asks if she can be real as she closes her eyes with real tears rolling down her eyes brought tears to mine. She says “you never need my permission”.

When Barbie enters the real world with her best friends and heads to a doctor’s visit, there’s a good chuckle but I won’t spill the beans and share it with you in case you plan on seeing it.

Overall I enjoyed the movie.

Some felt it was a metamodernist film which while tenderly attempting to embrace the paradoxes of being human in today’s world, loses the meaning it strives for by blatantly overstimulating the audience. A new term for me, but you can google it if you want to hear more. My Godson walked out for that reason to clear his head for a bit before he returned. There was a lot to absorb with everything, everywhere, all at once.

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This will more than likely be my last Fun Fri-Yay for until after my first daughter delivers since I can’t sustain the pace with all that’s happening. We just discovered Hunter and the cats have fleas and gave them all baths and put some cocaine looking power all over the floors that my daughter swears works. Her cat is actually adapting well to our house finally and the fights have subsided, thank goodness.

When we were washing Hunter and Ollie and spraying the house with “cocaine” star walked by and Narnia saw her and fell down the stairs. Thank goodness she didn’t go into labor.

My dad is actually going to sell his house and yesterday I took him to look at a retirement home which looks promising. He broke out into a song and had the community begging for more. They will make him an ambassador if he comes. It looks promising.

I will more than likely post some poems and turn comments off most of the time so I can move into some respite space to bring my best self to the birth.

I will still be checking your blog posts when I can as well.

I’ll see you on Monday to share my published poems on Literary Revelations Publishing House, thanks to Gabriela Maria Milton.

Have a wonderful weekend and I’ll see you then.

Blessings of Love,

💗

Cindy

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