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We
finally got around to
watching it, for a price
on Prime, on the 55"
home screen (supplied with
good snacks and drams of
Irish whiskey no theater
could provide).
I've been reading through
reviews and commentaries,
but while many writers do
dub the movie "feminist,"
they can't seem to agree
on what that term means or
its usefulness in an age
of intersectionality.
Let's leave untangling
that knot to the academics
since they need as many
pliable doctoral topics as
they can find given the
parlous state of tenure in
the American academy.
The bone I have to pick
with the movie is that
after a decade in
gestation and an army of
people dedicated to making
sure it made it to the
screen and entertained and earned a lot of money and appeared to say something meaningful, the movie comes off as lazy – lazily written, lazily campy, lazily capitalist.
One example/headscratcher:
The Indigo Girls "Closer
to Fine."? The song came
out in 1989 when America
Ferrera was only five
years old, so why would
her character know it
except that the writers
said, "She knows it, end
of discussion – and
besides, it fits in with
our theme." Second
example? Thinking that
Will Ferrell has ever been
funny and that all you
need to do it put him on
the screen. And back to
the first example: "Closer
to Fine" might as well as
be a bagatelle from the
19th century for all the
relevance its lyrics have
to today's identity
struggles (or any kind of
struggle – try
making sense of the
lyrics).
The movie also just
jobbed-in off-the-shelf
mythologies about
matriarchy and patriarchy
without taking a wry or
slant look at them.
For instance, Gerwig presents patriarchy as teaching men to be piggish
and derogatory, but whether Gerwig intended it or not, patriarchy
gives Ken (a superb Ryan Gosling) a way to break his glassy life into
shards of meaning and purpose: in short, it empowers him (to use the
overused phrase). And while the "meaning and purpose" for Ken turn
out to be an infatuation with trucks and horses, the outcomes of the
matriarchy aren't that much better: a sameness and indifference
among the other Barbies that make one wonder whether a gynarchy is
such a good deal, creating as it does a world full of empty gestures and
smug self-confidence.
And then there is the "existential angst" angle of the movie when
Barbie, out of nowhere, says that she thinks about death. How did that
happen in a world where people never die? No explanation, it just
happens, but it allows the writers to bring in Rhea Perlman to teach
Barbie about the blessings of a life that passes away – which seems to
have no discernible effect on her actions as she returns to Barbieland
to live once again in blissful indifference. A diversion that provides no
pleasant diversion but does tick the box of "deeper meaning" on the
director's to-do list.
But let's not get too carried away here. We're talking about patriarchy
and matriarchy and all related terms in a movie that, at best, engages
with them with a middle-school level of intellectual prowess. The
movie's not to be taken that seriously since it wasn't made with very
much seriousness. Just like the doll itself, it's a commodity cloaked in a
patina of faux significance whose real subterranean purpose (the
purpose that the suits follow, the capitalist purpose) is just to make a
lot of money for a lot of people for a long time before the whole thing
peters out, and, if you're lucky, maybe it will remain evergreen. (The
New York Post called it a "corporate cash grab masquerading as an art
installation.")
The thing that gives the game away: When America Ferrera pitches
Will Ferrell that Mattel should create an "ordinary Barbie." He bats the
pitch away until a suit with a tablet behind says that they could money
from that, at which point the doll is now headed for production.
I am glad, though, that the Indigo Girls will get a cut of the action –
they've been at it long enough (still touring in 2023) and deserve
making some bank on their intellectual property. And maybe we'll get
"Ken" at some point in the hands of someone like Wes Anderson or
Steven Soderbergh – or, given his new memoir, Werner Herzog. Now,
imagine that movie.
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