On Monday evening, as a whole bunch of journalists, influencers and Barbie megafans (myself included, my second viewing in per week) lined up in Leicester Sq. decked out in fuchsia pink to stage a classy show of Barbie, a decidedly ignorant-looking man stood outdoors the Cineworld with a megaphone ranting, “Why do you want Barbie?” “What does she characterize?”
I am fairly certain he wasn’t planted by Warner Bros as a part of their in depth and elaborate international advertising marketing campaign, however was actually simply a type of grungy trying indignant boys who wandered across the West Finish with megaphone in hand, berating every part from Christianity to covid: tonight it was Barbie’s flip.
Because of Warner Bros. Photos
Ah, Barbie. Yet one more beacon of divisiveness in these very divisive, amplified, indignant instances of tradition conflict that we’re all residing by way of proper now. And the way brilliantly the distinctive director and author Greta Gerwig has responded to this.
From the beginning, this aggressively hyped behemoth of a film has used Barbie’s discord because the film’s most important asset. The tagline within the trailer is, “In case you love Barbie, this film is for you. In case you hate Barbie, this film is for you.” And it is true.
Spoiler warnings are rolling in, Barbie is each celebrated and chastised within the movie, and each factors are explored with highly effective ramifications and messages about what it means to be a girl in 2023.
In Barbieland, the place narrator Helen Mirren wryly informs us, “all the issues of feminism and equality could be solved,” the world’s most well-known doll is portrayed as a feminist icon who could make younger ladies in the actual world imagine they will obtain what they got down to do. need to stay life on their very own phrases: astronaut, president, lawyer, physician or Nobel laureate – they’re all at your fingertips. However in the actual world – the place Barbie is pressured to go to whereas within the throes of an existential disaster introduced on by ideas of dying, flat meals and cellulite – it will not be lengthy earlier than Barbie is admonished en masse, no much less by a teenage woman.
