There’s a milestone they don’t tell you about in the parenting books. It’s one that happens when you’re sitting in a darkened movie theater, the scent of buttery popcorn in the air, and you look over at the seats beside you to see your kids’ silhouettes. Their heads are thrown back in laughter, their little feet bob in the air because their legs are still too short to touch the floor, and you know they’re experiencing something truly transformative and delightful on the screen. This is the exact milestone moment the “Barbie” movie provided my 9- and 11-year-old kids and me.
Movies have always been a love language my husband and I share with our kids. During the summer, we do Friday Movie Nights, a tradition in which we brainstorm a bunch of films we want to watch together, draw one title from a hat each week and then have a living room watch party, complete with themed snacks. Our Friday Movie Night feature films have ranged from simple fare like “Ratatouille” to more emotional, complex classics like “My Girl” and “E.T.”
As a writer and storyteller myself, I’m a firm believer in the power movies hold and the way they can open your eyes to new ideas, inspire you to think deeply about important topics and provide a vital cultural touchstone for interpreting the world around you. In my house, movies are a tool for learning. They inspire deep conversations and big ideas. They’re also a lot of fun. For my kids, “Barbie” is, perhaps, the best example yet of how all of these concepts can coexist.
Spoiler alert: Various plot points and scenes are described below.
The Barbie movie takes place in two worlds. One is Barbieland, a hyper-feminized land of dolls. The other is the Real World, a place where, for the most part, men run things and women have to fight to be heard. Barbie begins the movie in the fantasy space of Barbieland, where she and the other Barbies hold all the power and influence and deal with none of the sexism, oppression or insecurities that plague human women. In Barbieland, the only role that exists for Ken is following Barbie around like a puppy dog. His days consist of waiting for her, trying to impress her and begging for her attention. Kens don’t really matter in Barbieland, so he doesn’t know where he fits.
“Movies are a tool for learning. They inspire deep conversations and big ideas. They’re also a lot of fun. For my kids, ‘Barbie’ is, perhaps, the best example yet of how all of these concepts can coexist.”
The perfect bubble of Barbieland bursts when Barbie starts experiencing existential dread and insecurities — the result of the human playing with her in the Real World having similar thoughts. So, she and Ken head to the Real World to find this stressed out human, and Barbie becomes suddenly aware of the full emotional weight of what it’s really like to be a woman. She begins to question whether she is good enough, smart enough, capable enough and pretty enough.
Ken, on the other hand, gets to experience male privilege for the first time. He sees how men in the Real World so often occupy positions of power, are instantly respected and hold influence, and he decides that bringing those ideas back to Barbieland is the key to his happiness. He rallies the other Kens, gets a huge truck, bares his impressive abs and takes over Barbie’s Dreamhouse, transforming it into the equivalent of a frat house.
Ultimately, the movie has lessons for Barbies and Kens. Barbie realizes that it’s no longer fulfilling to her to just be an “idea” of a woman. Her path to joy lies in becoming human and accepting all of the complexities, heartache and imperfections that go along with that. In turn, Ken learns that neither the mold of hyper-masculinity nor his role as Barbie’s non-essential sidekick are going to make him happy. He has to figure out who he is and what he wants on his own terms, a realization that culminates in a shot of him wearing a tie-dyed hoodie hilariously emblazoned with “I am Kenough.”
In the days since the movie’s release, there’s been a lot of arguing online about the ways the movie gets to this final point and how it represents men and women. The film has been called anti-male, toxic and political. “It’s supposed to be female empowering or enlightening or something, but seems to have a healthy dose of male-bashing and male stupidity,” one reviewer writes on Common Sense Media.
For as much pearl-clutching is going on over the movie’s supposed man-bashing, the message that “boys are dumb and girls are better” is not one that my kids took away from the movie at all.
My kids didn’t need a movie to show them how limiting the narrow path of gender roles and societal expectations can be. They live that every day. My 11-year-old is a girl with short hair who loves video games and wouldn’t be caught dead in a skirt, much to the frustration of strangers around her. They confuse her for a boy often and get annoyed when she corrects them. When she wore suspenders, a suit and a bow tie to the school dance this year, another tween girl looked at her aghast and snarled, “Girls aren’t supposed to wear that.”
My 9-year-old is non-binary, and though they present as male in their appearance and style of dress, they often feel suffocated by how often others expect them to conform to masculine standards. The orthodontist assumes they want the blue retainer case and calls it “strange” when they request the hot pink one. The lady in the Target checkout line tells them boys shouldn’t wear nail polish. We attended a Taylor Swift concert a few weeks ago, and during a bathroom break, the attendant breathlessly asked if they want “a hot girlfriend like Taylor.” She couldn’t imagine that they’d be there to enjoy the “girl music,” not to ogle the woman on the stage.
When I asked my 9-year-old what the point of the “Barbie” movie is, they said they think the movie is about how there are a lot of different ways to be a person and how it’s too hard when we have to try to be what everyone else expects of us.
“Ken has to learn that just hanging around Barbie is not his life,” they explain. “And he has to learn that he can’t try to make himself and everyone act like the men from the real world either. He just has to be Ken. He loves ponies and the beach, and he should just do that.”
The message that “boys are dumb, and girls are better” is not one that my kids took away from the movie at all.
My 11-year-old agrees. “Barbieland is run by perfect women, and the Real World is run by men,” she says. “Ken thought making Barbieland more like the Real World would balance it out, and Barbie thought she had to get everything back to the perfect way it was before, but they all just need space to be who they are.”
My 9-year-old then surprised me by quoting an iconic line from the film. “The point of the movie is what Barbie says: ‘I want to do the imagining, not be the idea.’”
For my kids, “Barbie” was not just a hilarious, visually stunning movie with a killer cast and costumes to die for (though it certainly excelled in all of those areas). It also wasn’t, as some fear, a man-hating manifesto sent to indoctrinate the youth.
For them, “Barbie” was a charming and heartfelt call to be “real”; to be messy, to be yourself, to embrace and hold space for all the beautiful complexities that come with being a human being. It’s a message they see reflected in the values we hold inside of our own home, and it’s a brilliant dream of the ways a little more equality, compassion, love and understanding could powerfully transform our own Barbie World.
