For this podcast, I am going to comment on the movie Barbie from a radical feminist perspective. I suppose the title could be: From a radical perspective, is Barbieland a woman’s dream come true?
The movie begins with a female narrator telling us about the creation of Barbie and what it meant for girls' and women’s empowerment and liberation in the world. The speaker is an older voice which gave me a sense of being the voice of experience, motherhood, independence and possibilities. She goes on to tell us that thanks to Barbie, gender roles are challenged, girls who until then would play with dolls as “mothers, carers” are not the only option and so girls can aspire to become doctors, businesswomen and many other professions.
Before I watched the movie what were my ideas of what the movie might be about? I went to watch the movie with the idea that it would be a girly movie where there is women empowerment and unity.
Why? I watched the movie because I am a woman and being a female is exhausting as there is a lot of pressure on women to be a certain way and to look a certain way.
I found the monologue touching as it deeply resonated with the experiences of many women I know in my family and friendship group.
Ferrera’s character, Gloria: “It is literally impossible to be a woman…. You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. … I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us.”
What is it about women wanting to be accepted and liked and Why?
In my view, this need to be accepted and liked stems from the role of women in society having being organised by men and so we are constantly at a disconnect between what we should be and what we are. I also feel that it is a constant competition between women to be the best in our gender group and this connects with the way that now women are up against men that call themselves women. It feels as if the battle for gender inequality is no longer the real issue.
In Barbie’s world, the role of men is dependent on women and what they want from them. Men don’t have an important role to play in Barbie’s world, they don’t have any decision-making in what goes on and they are their existence is to satisfy the Barbies’ needs. In the movie, it shows how unsettling this is for Ken and how emasculated he feels by this. It kind of reminded me of women’s role as mothers, carers, wives…always taking a secondary place to men. Even in some cultures, girls have a lesser status than boys and are even aborted.
The movie shows how this power imbalance impacts their relationship and how important it is for Ken to be seen as a person and not just as a commodity. I thought the T-shirt he wore with “Kenough” written on it was a very funny touch. It was refreshing though to see men in this position as it is women who are often objectified.
This connected for me to how much our gender identity is constructed by others and how oppressing and disempowering it is to find yourself in a role that you cannot choose and the constraints or limitations of gender and gender identity for individuals, particularly gender binary classification man or woman, and why more people are choosing to step into a more gender-expansive identity such as genderfluid, genderqueer, non-binary or agender.
The acknowledgement in the movie of the power imbalance in relationships made me think about Foucault’s quote "Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere." In the movie, this is addressed head-on by giving all the power to women as a way of compensating for the power imbalance in the real world “Every night is girls' night”, leaving Ken with no say in it. Ken is also surprised and energised by the way he is seen in the real world, as someone that matters, I think he says “I was asked for the time”.
It seems to me that power, and the lack of it, becomes problematic in all relationships even when this is subtle or obvious. it makes it difficult to deal with as none of us is given a clear guide on how to navigate power in our day-to-day interactions and relationships.
At the ending of the movie, Barbie makes a choice between living in the safety of Barbieland, where she is in control and life is predictable and uncomplicated, and becoming a real person and experiencing the complexities of womanhood. I guess there is a message here about having choice and finding fulfilment and happiness in a different way? It is not so clear, however, why her first appointment is with the gynaecologist and I wonder if there is here a message about the sanctioning of the female body only if there is a reproductive function. I’ll end my comment with that question.
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