I eventually caved and decided to watch “Barbie” on a rainy vacation day. My social media feed was flooded with posts about the movie, so it was time to understand the buzz and controversy.
I convinced my sister and two friends to come along – people I was sure wouldn’t spend the car ride home psycho-analyzing the movie’s meaning.
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I was entranced by the beautifully executed opening scenes of Barbie Land. They brought back my childhood excitement of finding the pink car and house under the Christmas tree.
Seeing Barbie walk on her tiptoes out of the shower, dress in her perfectly coordinated daywear, and gracefully float down from the roof made me smile. We all knew Barbie never took the stairs.
The colors and outfits reminded me why I loved the Barbie brand as a 9-year-old fashionista. I never got my white Gogo boots dirty, and neither did she.
I chuckled at the sight of Kate McKinnon’s Eccentric Barbie, seemingly frozen mid-split and suffering from a butchered hairdo. Her off-the-cuff remarks were idiosyncratic and entertaining. While they might not have aligned with my political sentiments, she made me laugh out loud.
What truly stood out was observing the Barbies discussing their careers. It reminded me of a recent conversation with my childhood friend, a respected surgeon. Barbie served as a poignant symbol of our shared past. In an unexpected turn, at my father’s memorial service, we reminisced about the days when we imagined our Barbies as ambassadors and doctors, mirroring our aspirations.
My friend and I never owned Ken dolls. Instead, our Barbies married her brother’s GI Joe. A marriage arrangement that Ronald Reagan would likely have given his nod of approval to.
I even understood why so many of my peers felt a strong connection with actress America Ferrera’s movie monologue as she opined, “Being a woman is hard. You’re beautiful and smart, but I don’t think you’re good enough. We must always be amazing, but somehow, we get it wrong.
I mean, who hasn’t had that kind of talk with their girlfriends over a morning coffee?
Let’s be honest. We are hard on ourselves and each other.
America Ferrera nailed the female psyche with this comment: “You should be thin, but not too thin. And you can’t just say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but still, you should be thin.” We’ve all been there!
But let me lay it out. The movie hit every sweet spot for folks like me who cherished Barbie and stored away our dolls and their miniature wardrobes for our daughters. Right from the start, I was caught up by memories of the past.
However, as is the pattern, Hollywood pushed the envelope too much. The frequent repetition of the term “patriarchy” grew stale. The conversations, peppered with allusions to more adult topics, steered the movie away from its potential as an ideal mother-daughter bonding experience, firmly planting it in the realm of eye-rolling exasperation.
The reality is that the movie didn’t retain its kid-friendly essence. It morphed into a film with a divisive agenda that became boring. So much so that the little girl seated to my left grew disinterested, and a boy a few rows back repeatedly chimed in with the puzzled phrase, “I don’t get it.”
Spending 15 years of my career in Northern California instilled in me a knack for taking things in stride and not letting myself get worked up. But even with the clever marketing that had folks flooding the theaters, posing for selfies in that iconic pink backdrop, I’ll describe my response as lackluster.
Some are quick to defend the movie, while others are equally ready to critique it. In our carload of moviegoers, the sentiment leaned more towards a “meh.” The ending struck us as unintelligent, and the decline in doll sales remains an ongoing trend. It’s a squandered chance for an iconic brand to unite us.
America Ferrera hit the nail on the head: “We tie ourselves in knots so that [the ‘right’] people will like us… it’s exhausting.” Regrettably, that’s precisely the course Mattel ended up charting.
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Lisa Gable is a CEO, former US Ambassador, UN Delegate, and author of Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller “Turnaround – How to Change Course When Things Are Going South.” Lisa is recognized worldwide as a turnaround mastermind and innovative businesswoman and started her career in the Reagan administration.
