On July 21, 2023, two of the most awaited movies of the year came out: Barbie and Oppenheimer. While Oppenheimer focuses on the studies of Oppenheimer’s work on the Manhattan Project, Barbie is about, “...the gendered social phenomenon of women being expected to give up childhood joys and sacrifice for others,” according to Greta Gerwig, the mind behind movies like Lady Bird and Little Women, and the director of Barbie.¹ In many of her productions, she tends to explore issues for women as well as their relationships, making her the perfect director for the movie. She, alongside Margot Robbie, created one of the most viewed movies of 2023, earning nine Golden Globe nominations.⁵

The movie stars Margot Robbie as the iconic Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. Other actors like Will Ferrel (Mattel CEO), America Ferrera (Gloria), Michael Cera (Allen), and Kate Mckinnon (Weird Barbie) are featured in the movie. The movie features songs from Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Ryan Gosling himself, Lizzo, and many others. “Dance the Night Away" by Dua Lipa, “I’m Just Ken" by Ryan Gosling, and "What Was I Made For” by Billie Eilish all earned Golden Globe nominations.⁵

On the global opening weekend of “Barbie,” the movie earned $356 million, surpassing its budget of $145 million. In total, the movie grossed $1.3 billion, becoming “...one of the only female-dominated movies among the top-grossing films of all time”.² The movie also became Warner Bros. highest-grossing worldwide film of all time.

The Barbie doll officially came out on March 9, 1959, sporting a black and white striped bathing suit, iconic blonde hair, gold hoop earrings, a pair of white sunglasses, and black sandal heels. Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, was influenced by the German Lilli doll in 1956. She also got the inspiration to create a doll after watching her daughter Barbara play with paper-made dolls. From Prestige Online, “Driven by a desire to inspire children to envision their future dreams, she sought to innovate beyond the common plastic baby dolls of the time”.³ During the 50s, and still today, baby dolls are popular amongst young girls, teaching them to take care of others and teaching them the life of a mother. Later, in 1961, the idea for Ken had been put into action. He and Barbie were together introduced in a commercial. Fun fact, Ken was also named after Ruth’s son, Kenneth.⁶

At the time of release, Barbie sold 300,000 dolls. Some of the most popular Barbies are: Astronaut Barbie (1965), Twist N’ Turn Barbie (1967), Talking Barbie (1968), Malibu Barbie (1971), and Totally Hair Barbie (1992). Overall, over a billion Barbies have been sold, and the Mattel company that produces the dolls is worth $6.45 billion.⁴

Now onto the summary of the movie. Barbie begins with explaining the story behind the Real World and Barbieland. Barbies in Barbie Land represent dolls in the real world, dolls that are being played with by real girls. In the beginning, Barbie is shown with her normal routines, getting up, showering, heading to the beach, and partying at night. We see the friendship between her and Ken where Ken is interested in a relationship and Barbie just wants to be friends. The next day, it seems Barbie’s routine has been altered. She wakes up more tired than usual, has bad breath, puts orange juice in her cereal, falls into her car, and her feet become flat. After talking with her friends, she decides to talk to Weird Barbie, who tells her how to fix her problems. Barbie and Ken go to the real world and try to find the human girl playing with Barbie. While they look around the beach they landed in, Barbie experiences the harassment and assault of the real world. She gets catcalled, looked at, and sexually harassed by the men around her. On the contrary, Ken is looked at because he is the ‘perfect man’ in the real world. After going to jail for hitting the man who hit her and going to jail again for stealing clothes, the two head out to different places. As Barbie heads out to find her human, Ken discovers that in the real world, everything is about men. The president is a man, sports are all about men, etc. He heads to Barbie Land and makes it now Kenland, hypnotizing the Barbies into doing everything for the Kens. After finding her human, Gloria, Barbie brings her and her daughter to Barbieland, where she finds everything flipped. The Kens have taken over, and Barbie doesn’t know what to do to fix everything. After having an existential crisis, Weird Barbie, Gloria, and other Barbies get Barbie to calm down and work to make the Barbies go back to normal. They make the Kens fight each other by making them jealous and keep the Barbie Land Constitution, returning everything to normal. After making up with Ken, Barbie returns to the real world and lives her life there.

This movie can be controversial because rather than appealing to men, it’s a movie geared towards women and it describes similar instances that women can relate to. Especially online, the movie has received great reviews from its female audience and more critical reviews from its male audience. An example of this in real life is the Golden Globes, where host Jo Koy made fun of the movie, stating, “Oppenheimer was based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies,” showing that the movie served its purpose: no matter what women do to show their experiences, men will be there to make fun of it.⁷ This movie shows the hardships of women everywhere and how influential Barbie is in helping girls look to their future. Barbie is such an amazing movie and a great recommendation to watch for women everywhere.