Did Barbie the Movie send a subliminal message to women and young
girls?
Photo Credit: https://deadline.com/gallery/
By Jillian Miano
Barbie dolls have been a staple for women and girls for decades. The inventor Ruth Handler created Barbie in honor of her daughter Barbara Handler. Recently in 2023 Warner Brothers made the largest box office hit Barbie the Movie. With the rating of PG-13, families took their young daughters, nieces, etc. to see the movie.
The beginning of the movie showed how baby dolls were all the rave, but once Barbie came out things changed. In this movie they showed how little girls were smashing their baby dolls so they could play with Barbie. After that they showed the authentic way us young girls would play with the fashionable doll.
For instance, when young girls put the doll in the Barbie car from the dream house, they floated down instead of walking down steps. With their slogan “You Can Be Anything” the movie illustrates how a Barbie can be a Journalist, President, physicist, etc. The movie focused on one specific type of Barbie, Stereotypical Barbie, which happens to be the pretty girl, Barbie. Throughout the film it depicts how perfect life is in “BarbieLand”.
She starts going in a downward spiral. For example, her pointed feet become flat, starts getting cellulite on her legs, and the most important she has feelings of suicide and anxiety. This is what the film called a malfunction. The reasoning for the malfunction is because the owner of that specific doll is feeling the same feelings. In order for the problem to be solved, Barbie must go to the “Real World” and find her owner.
Sasha, a young tween who is going through a difficult time being in between a child and a teen comes across Barbie. It was only a matter of time until Sasha told her how she ruined the world for women. Sasha named some ways Barbie is bad for girls. She expressed how Barbie made women feel bad about themselves since being invented, set the feminist movement back 50 years, sexualized capitalism, and even called her a fascist.
It wasn’t until Sasha’s mother revealed that she was the one making Barbie feel the way she’s feeling. Sasha’s mother was drawing depressing pictures of suicide and cellulite on her legs because she has problems with her daughter not liking her.
While Barbie was getting down to her problem, Ken decided to join on the trip and learned and made a patriarchy to BarbieLand without Barbie knowing. When coming back to BarbieLand, she sees that all the women were catering to Ken’s needs. The Kens were in power until Sasha and her mother decided to work together to reprogram the rest of the Barbies back to their old selves.
It wasn’t long until the Kens were fighting each other and BarbieLand was no longer ruled by men. There just happens to be one problem. By the end of the movie, Stereotypical Barbie decides she wants to be human and not live in the imaginary world. She had a heart-to-heart talk with Ruth Handler, inventor of the doll. Ruth told her to feel, and Barbie decided to go into the real world under the name Barbara Handler.
I personally feel that the movie wasn’t made for kids. It should have been an adult movie. Kids don’t understand feminism, patriarchies, and the highs and lows of men vs. women.
“This piece was written without the aid of studio-provided materials while WGA and SAG_AFTRA are on strike. These unions represent our writers, actors, and artists across TV and Movies in their fight for a fair and equitable contract. SAG-AFTRA asks those who cover shows and films to refrain from promoting stricken content at this time.”
