It was so important to have Barbie look at that woman in the bus stop and tell her she’s beautiful. Cause, like Barbie herself says, she (as an idea) doesn’t have an end. As Stereotypical Barbie, she’s meant to be pretty and fun and that’s it.
But she shows that beauty doesn’t end when you get old. Aging isn’t the end of your story, just another phase of it. That old woman is beautiful, and it’s good that she knows it.
That’s why Barbie ultimately chooses to become human. She wants to experience that new and different kind of beauty; not just her physical appearance, but that of a life well lived. She wants scars and wrinkles and cellulite. Barbie’s end is that she lives as a whole narrative rather than some eternal object of visual pleasure.
The end joke of Barbie was absolutely perfect. Going to the gynecologist is something all AFAB people have to do as they mature, and pretty often, it’s the first step into adulthood. Barbie (Barbara Handler I’m sobbing) going right into the gynecologist shows that her arc is complete; she’s finally grown up, she’s a woman and she can embrace what that means. She is no longer an idea or an object, but a grown-up human. It was a funny moment, but also so meaningful.
the thing that gets me about the barbie movie being framed as an “anti-men” movie is that it’s fundamentally untrue to the message it’s sending out. the movie is an empowering feminist piece as much as it is a cautionary tale about men letting their insecurities and doubts about their place in the world lead them to falling into the alt-right/incel/mra pipeline. it’s looking out for men just as much as it’s looking out for women, and the only reason you might find this as an “anti-men” message is because you somehow deeply believe that this is the wrong message to send
i’m so fascinated by the “just ken.” in the context of the tagline (she’s everything, he’s just ken) it makes it sound like ken is just an accessory to barbie and is nothing without her, but in the actual movie in the speech barbie gives, she turns the phrase on its head. ken isn’t an accessory to barbie, he isn’t the attention barbie gives him, he’s just ken. and that’s not even mentioning the “she’s everything” part of the tagline and how it goes with gloria’s speech of women having to fulfill the impossible task of fitting into every box and juggle conflicting expectations and roles just to be liked by society. the tagline represents opposite ends of a spectrum but by the end of the movie barbie and ken meet in the middle, where they’re each allowed to be their own person independent of the expectations and insecurities they’ve been operating on. this movie, man
Barbie (2023) really had Barbie say “hey. I know the reason you hurt me is because I hurt you. I’m sorry I hurt you, because you didn’t deserve that. I know you are a better person than this, and you are fully capable of being that person. I can’t change the past, and I don’t think we can be in each other’s lives anymore without hurting each other, but i am sorry and I want you to be happy. I want you to find your identity and love yourself and live.” and then she realizes she’s also talking about herself.
she’s saying “I deserve to live. We both deserve to live.” it is one of the kindest things I have ever seen done to someone and to themselves in any piece of media ever
