Barbie has been Mattel’s bread and butter for far too long, so who can blame them? I will not at all pretend to care about (or for) the kind of craftiness it takes to run a multibillion-dollar business at any level, but I do understand that all businesses, big or small, need constant perception management and increasing social currency. Getting someone like Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Frances Ha) to write and direct a story about every girl’s best friend, Barbie, was a stroke of brilliance on part of the corporation, and Warner Bros.
Sitting here in 2023, we all recognize marketing efforts, and also appreciate a job well-done. We also have the self-awareness to recognize when something is marketed and targeted at us, and to not be too flattered by it. But when the material being marketed is what is possibly one of the most important pieces of social theory simplified for appeal and comprehension across demographics, we’re all for it.
And that is what Barbie is. It’s How the Patriarchy Ruins Everything 101.
It is not feminist agenda, although, just by the virtue of the writer and director being a woman, Greta Gerwig’s film becomes a feminist work, or at least a work with feminist concerns.
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