Plot in brief
Barbie lives in Barbie land which is the perfect female paradise
Suddenly, she has thoughts of death at a party and the next day she’s no longer perfect
She finds out that it’s because the girl that’s playing with her isn’t happy and isn’t getting joy from Barbie anymore and that’s created a tear in the fabric between Barbie Land and the real world.
To fix it, she has to travel into the real world, find the girl that’s playing with her and make her happy.
Detailed Plot
Opening
Homage to 2001 space odyssey buy Stanley Kubrick where the Barbie doll plays the role of the monolith as awakening and liberating women from playing the role of mom’s, housewives and homemakers by representing the vast possiblities open to women.
Interestingly, this suggests that being a mom was slavery and a terrible thing to endure which is reinforced by the way pregnant barbie is treated in the movie.
Barbie Land
Women do all the work and are really happy doing it and all get along, while men just sit around competing to get Barbie’s attention
The men appear useless, burdensome, dumb and superfluous
Barbie has no romantic interest in Ken, preferring to party with and spend time with her girls
At the party, Barbie contemplates death and after that is no longer able to be perfect–life becomes hard.
She can’t wear heels, her shower isn’t the perfect temperature, her toast is burnt, etc.
Her extraordinary life becomes ordinary and filled with the imperfections that comprise a real life.
She can no longer float through life.
(It’s an expulsion from the Garden of Eden moment)
Barbie asks around and finally goes to see weird Barbie who experienced a similar fate and she’s told that there is a rift between Barbie land and the real world and she has to go into the real world (symbolized by birkenstocks), find the girl who’s playing with her and bring her joy again.
Leaving Barbie land
Barbie decides to leave Barbie land and Ken (since he’s nothing without her) stows away in her car and basically makes her take him even though she doesn’t want to and essentially treats him like a child.
Welcome to the Real World
When Barbie and Ken get to the real world, they are shocked by how disorderly, mean, dangerous and sexual it is.
Barbie and Ken split up with Barbie going to find the girl that plays with her and Ken going to explore the real world.
Barbie finds the girl, Sasha, and is hurt when she finds out that the girl despises Barbie as a representation of everything that is wrong with the modern world and giving women false hope for the future.
Ken “discovers” that the world is run by men and is so excited by the idea of patriarchy that he tries his best to understand the key elements of it to return to Barbie land to transform it into the men’s paradise he believes the patriarchy creates.
Sad Barbie goes to sit on a bus stop bench and sees an old woman sitting next to her serenely. She tells the old woman that she is beautiful, and the old woman says, “I know it.”
This is part of Barbie’s awakening as she experiences the joys and the pains of real life.
Despite this, she decides to go to Matell’s head office in hopes that they can return her back to her old, perfect life.
Mattel Office
When she gets there, she finds out that Mattell isn’t run by women who want to empower women, but is instead run by men who are using Barbie to make money by tricking girls into believing they can achieve more than is actually possible.
They sell a dream that is only a dream and not a real possible future.
They promise they will return everything back to normal if she will just get in the box (this is the 2nd, but more real red/blue pill moment).
Just as she’s getting in the box, she has second thoughts and decides to escape.
The Getaway
As she runs away, she outsmarts these powerful, smart men, and finds her way to a secret room for a sit down with the creator of Barbie–now and old woman who reassures Barbie that the original intention behind it was to empower women, implying that men have corrupted Barbie into something else.
Once she makes her escape through a secret stairwell that Ruth Handler shows her, she’s helped by Sasha’s mother, a powerless secretary at Mattell who has decided to save Barbie.
Sasha’s mother, Gloria, now has her turn to show that she can outdrive and outwit men.
In the car, there is some weird exchange
Sasha: “Everybody hates women. Women hate women, and men hate women. It’s the one thing we can all agree on.”
Barbie: “Is that true?”
Gloria: “It’s complicated.”
Barbie realizes that the girl she was looking for isn’t Sasha, but Gloria, who is sad and disappointed with how her life has turned out–a perfectly normal middle class life.
Barbie decides to take them to Barbie land.
The executives follow them.
Kendom
They get to Barbie Land and they find that it’s no longer the girls fantasyland it was before, but now it’s the vision of men’s paradise that patriarchy provides.
The president and cabinet members have all stepped down to serve men–provide beer, massage their feet and act as cheerleaders.
The houses have all been taken over by the men who previously had no homes at all and the men engage in various forms of dominance displays.
The men plan to take over the government officially by voting in a new constitution.
Barbie tries to appeal to the women to remind them of their power and greatness but they’re not interested.
She feels like she’s a failure and wants to give up.
Gloria and Sasha are disappointed in Barbie for not living up to her role as a beacon of hope and as a role model for women and disgusted, leave Barbie land.
On the way back to the real world they are stopped by some Kens. Allen, who stowed away with them, holds off the Ken’s while Sasha says they should go save Barbie land which she despised before.
Gloria, who feels like a total failure for causing the collapse of Barbie land is shocked her daughter wants to save it. Sasha explains that she thinks her mom is great and that she wants to save it because she knows it’s important to her mom so they turn back.
Weird Barbie House
Gloria and Sasha go to find Barbie here at the suggestion of Allen.
When they arrive, they meet many discontinued Barbie dolls and Barbie who is still distraught and enumerates all the ways she’s not good.
Gloria reassures her that she’s wonderful in many ways and that the only reason she feels inadequate is because women have to live up to impossible and contradictory standards.
Expressing this, “awakens” the Barbies to the helplessness they’ve reduced themselves to and they decide that they will deprogram all of the Barbies by explaining the same thing.
To do this, they distract the Ken’s by feigning admiration for and interest in them and the need for their help, support and assistance.
The Fight
The un-brainwashed barbies then show interest in each other’s Ken’s to stoke jealousy and competition among them so they forget about the vote
Once the men realize, they all go to the houses where the Barbies have taken control back from them.
Ken and Barbie
Ken breaks down crying in private and Barbie reassures him and apologizes for taking him for granted.
And that he shouldn’t care what she thinks of him and should just accept himself for who he is.
Ending
The old woman from the getaway appears and introduces herself as Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie. She explains that Barbie is exactly what she was supposed to be–an impossible, unreal woman.
And that Barbie is an idea full of meaning and that ideas are what allow humans to transcend death.
Barbie says that instead of being an idea, she wants to create ideas.
Barbie asks her if she can become a human woman and Ruth tells her that before she does that, she should know what it means.
We get a collage that is a celebration of womanhood.
Barbie cries with joy.
The final scene is of Barbie taking her first action as a real human woman living in the real world. She checks in at the gynecologist.
Implications and Themes
Men live to but are are incapable of being important to women no matter how hard they try
Women can quite easily satisfy men just by giving them attention.
Women in power create a utopian world where everyone gets along in a conflict free environment
Men shouldn’t want or compete for attention from women but should recognize their intrinsic self worth
Ordinary, middle class life is depressing unless you make a special effor to not feel it’s depressing
Male competition and displays of dominance and status are silly and stupid
Men shouldn’t be motivated by wanting to be more than friends with women
Men’s striving makes them feel worthless without those successes
Men do but shouldn’t define themselves by women
Women carry Channel to impress men
Competition can be abolished
Life is hard–largely because of men
