Beauty, Power, and Utopias in Gerwig's "Barbie"
by Beverly Jurenko, Inside Edge Consulting LLC
Even if you missed seeing ‘Barbie’ in theaters last summer, you surely heard about it. Director Greta Gerwig has achieved superstar status at the box office, with over $1.34 billion in tickets sold worldwide. “A dazzling achievement,” according to RogerEbert.com. “Fiercely funny,” declared Entertainment. Not everyone loved it, however. Some took offense in how the Kens were portrayed, but getting us to see how men experience the world so differently from women was the point. In ‘Barbie,’ Gerwig cleverly reminds us that the patriarchy is alive and well, as she flips the script on gender power dynamics, deploying the best communication tool ever: humor.
And we flocked to see it. Even those who were not Barbie fans accompanied those who were. We wanted to see what the hype was about. Some laughed, some cried, many did both. We laughed with the men when they saw themselves in the silliness at the Mojo Dojo Casa House. We cried when Barbie at a bus stop saw an older woman for the very first time and touchingly said, “You’re beautiful,” and she responded, “I know it.” This tender scene reminds us we’ve all been socialized to see older women as anything BUT beautiful. When will we be willing to discard such artificial filters! I hope I’ll be brave enough, in less than a few years, to go with fairy hair and adult gray pigtails, secure in my appearance regardless of how wrinkly I look.
Aging aside, I’d like to spend a minute considering the empowerment culture of pinkness and joy in the film’s Barbieland. There are fourteen separate variations of Barbie, presenting an array of beauty, intelligence, and achievement. President Barbie (Issa Rae) is just as gorgeous as Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef) and Physicist Barbie (Emma Mackey), each confident of her own value and worth. None of them, including Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), competes on looks or seeks superior status. We see no separation, as we usually do in feature films, of looks and smarts among the female characters. We lean forward in our seats, encouraged by the idea that it’s finally true (at least in Barbieland) that women can in fact succeed based on their skills and achievements regardless of their appearance! Even better, the Barbies celebrate their sisters’ abilities and talents without resentment or jealousy. Seeing success in another version of Barbie generates feelings of pride and happiness among all the Barbies. In Barbieland, women lift each other up. In real life as well, when we support one another, we can do great things.
Does Barbieland exist in real life? Aspirationally, yes, and it is called ‘Cohousing.’ Distinct from co-living, where you might see the same people nearly every day whether you want to or not, cohousing allows for greater privacy, with optional group events and meals. Are they utopias? Not sure. There’s one in the UK founded in 2016 called New Ground, a community for 26 women aged 50+. Each member has her own living space, and men are invited to visit, but they can’t live there. The group fosters independence, care, and cooperation. In the US, this concept is catching on, particularly with our aging population. We may see more and more pocket neighborhoods and ‘she sheds’ over time as more of us seek community and independence simultaneously. Moreover, cohousing isn’t just for women. According to cohousing.org, groups have formed centered on a variety of life stages, values, and priorities, and there are currently more than twenty in the Carolinas. However, I do wonder how inclusion is managed and how decisions are made. I also worry about social dynamics and who might be left out.
Which brings me to Weird Barbie. Initially an outcast, whispered about and a bit scary, Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) embodies a near mythical status as both the town fool, performing her perpetual splits, and the high priestess of knowledge and wisdom. She’s the doll that was played with “a bit too hard,” shameless about her imperfections. She doesn’t appear to suffer over her lack of social status because she knows she has special abilities. She can heal, mentor, and think strategically. She literally saves the day by coming up with the plan to de-brainwash the Barbies. And then, after all that, she’s accepted as one of the gang. We can’t help but notice that even in Barbieland, the epitome of inclusion among females, there’s still a pecking order in which the one who is different is feared and avoided. Only after the other Barbies are forced to know her personally is she accepted into the group. Maybe in real life we could skip the ostracizing part, and go right to the acceptance part, so that we can be stronger together from the get-go.
One of the messages from Barbie that I loved best involved Barbie and Ken together reaching a mutual understanding at the end of the film. They came to see that equitable sharing of power and resources, rather than single-group domination, is better for everyone over the long run. Imbalances of power bring consequences, eventually. We could use more of this in the real world because we do have imbalances. Even when women earn about the same as our husbands, we do more housework, spend more time on child and elderly care, and spend fewer hours on leisure and hobbies than they. We have gained some ground at work and in leadership, we still have far to go. Our society would benefit from discarding our habit of favoring men over women as the ones who should be in power. Women have far too much to offer to default to secondary roles. Everything about us, everything we can create, and all we have to contribute should be way more important than just the way we look.
References:
https://www.zippia.com/senior-manager-jobs/demographics/