This is true, Greta Gerwig this is a caption that would suffice as a positive expectation about the film Barbiesurprisingly unconventional films such as Lady Bird AND Small woman on the other hand, they have already shown the directorial talent of this extraordinary woman, also a translator, given her long apprenticeship as an actress before pursuing her dream behind the camera. And yet, I confess, I felt a kind of ill-concealed reserve as I entered the room, surrounded by an explosion of pink, tinted in every conceivable hue. However, something already in the foyer of a small cinema on the outskirts of Rome somehow struck me: the fact that in addition to the army of mothers and daughters, mostly girls, there were also many men. Young people from the last segment of the notorious “genZ”, also in Schiaparelli outfits, but also millennial fathers, couples from twenty to forty years old.
Perhaps it was a necessary conceptual revision of the color pink, which has always been associated with femininity, shall we say, not quite freed from traditionalism, which often gave the writer an almost feeling of “submissive” rejection to arouse that strange sense of social embarrassment. well the movie Barbie he probably succeeded in subverting the construct, even reconciling it margot robbie, the protagonist and producer of the film, to this so offended tone, as she herself had the opportunity to state, also offering wonderful themed outfits to world premieres.
But what is so special about this film? Trivially high-quality “ingredients”, as well as a lot of absolutely fantastic actresses and actors. For all of course Margot Robbiewho radiates light and beauty in shovels without giving up that not at all reassuring smile harley quinnand Ryan Goslingwhich, in addition to a very tanned marble bib, also offers the frankly irresistible Ken, without stinting on good vocal and dance numbers, to end on an immense Will Ferrell AND America Ferrara.
First of all, she wins the scepter of the queen, a far from taken for granted, patriarchal plastic world, where women are often pushed or simply invited to enter the box, to mention another memorable scene. Former protagonist of a successful TV series Unattractive BettyV Barbie interprets Glory, a name Gerwig herself admits she would like to give to her daughter if she had one. This is her most intense and emotional monologue in the film, in which, between anger and stubbornness, she tells the world why “it’s almost impossible to be a woman.” Honorable Mention Helen Mirren as a storyteller voiced for us by the beautiful Ada Maria Serra Zanetti.
But it is known that performers alone are not enough, it is the dramatic construct, backed up by excellent direction, that serves as a very strong scaffolding for this great little cinematic pearl, which would not be superfluous among the next nominations for Oscar. It’s a real hero’s journey, it’s better than heroin, with all the trappings of a case where almost nothing is missing.
The story is funny, full of rhythm, full of cinephile quotes and, above all, smart. Yes, because if for some, fortunately, few, Barbie The Girl’s Movie, the truth behind what could only seem like a parody, is a simple testament to how a world dominated by one gender inevitably leads to decline, dysphoria, downfall.
Barbie it is a feminist film in the truest sense of the word, where we want to understand by this term the necessary, constant, inexhaustible search for balance between the sexes. It is a film that speaks to all of humanity, reminding us how challenging and exciting it is to be human, and does so by first square the very contradictions that have been created. Ruth Handler since that distant 1959, when he gave the world the first Barbie.
In a society dominated by the idea of wife and mother, even in the world of games, with dolls and reproductions of household items, Ruth, the co-founder of Mattel, blows her brains out with a mini-pin-up; it is no coincidence that the film’s opening scene has a Straussian background music 2001 Space Odyssey. This is just the beginning, from now on Barbie will cross centuries and history, teaching on paper the girls of the entire known universe the possibility of being anything: from a doctor to an astronaut, from a gymnast to a Malibu lifeguard, but also forcing them to once again enter the “box” of a perfect and incredible body.
The logic of the company ideally adheres to the idea of mass reproducibility and mass production. Barbie AND Ken “Stereotype” excluding less homogeneous dolls from the series, pioneer Alanplayed by an extraordinary Michael Cera‘too weird’ pregnant Barbie or disturbing Skipper to which nothing but breasts grew. Also the infamous Ken early 2000s “ideal boyfriend” speaker, not mentioned in the film, who, however, from personal memory also made his own beautiful scandal, as he was created specifically to utter what must have been presented as words that every woman would like hear.
Already because the lobster machone in question, complete with a tight-fitting shirt instead of a bib, had a tape recorder in good synthesis and repeated like a parrot. In the ad, the most popular phrase was, of course, “I love you,” when in fact, future insecure women of that generation would probably like to hear something like: “transfer done,” perhaps from “Ken’s employer, come on.” . timely payments.
But here’s a new trap. And here, among the unverifiable excluded men and the men at the top of the company that created the world in which everything is ruled by Barbie, we again fall into the sexist abyss. And maybe it’s not even enough that Mattel has recently switched to other Barbies with wider specs. How to get out? Probably the lazy Indian genius who filmed the movie Oppenheimer with Cillian Murphy as the father of the atomic bomb, he knew better than the rest of us who flooded the net with fantastically ridiculous memes, unmistakably fascinated by the hybrid phenomenon Barbienheimer.
In short, what can I say, Barbie is a film not to be missed, to be seen at all costs and not to be given a boost by the anti-patriarchal slogans repeated like Ken mentioned above, but to reflect on one’s own hypocritical human nature. Who, on the other hand, honestly, a man or a woman, can claim that he has never destroyed or damaged a Barbie in his life? In both cases, we can interpret this as a rejection of the mold if it was a girl, or a germ of masculinity if it was a “little bad boy”.
We may even have to break our myths at some point as a rite of passage, growth, and awareness of our uniqueness. Maybe then the truth lies somewhere in the middle, we are all a little “eccentrics”, like Barbie obsessively striving for the twine, who has a face in the movie Kate McKinnon, a little pink and a little dark, every other day, and thankfully there’s nothing wrong with that. It remains only to dance on it, friendly greeting the busts of the former wrestler. John Cena-Triton and Dua Lipa– a siren, literally installed inside a very hard, like a blue ocean, concrete, which, together with Lizzo, Billie Eilish and many other artists, among the most famous in the musical panorama, co-exist on the soundtrack with guaranteed hip movement.
And if the assumption Ariana Greenblattto the cinema Sasha, the daughter of Gloria, for whom “everyone hates women: women and men”, we too can try to just escape from our personal sci-fi cellulite-free Barbieland or Mojo Dojo Ken House, teeming with horses and testosterone, understood as the conservation of the mental, so we we must necessarily demonstrate that we are better than the man or woman at the moment, recognize that we are only ourselves, including imperfections and afterthoughts. Maybe it’s enough for us to just be flat-footed Barbara in a pink birkenstock or “just” Ken (Kenow) alone, without feeling like someone’s accomplice … Freely rushing on fluorescent skates along the Venetian beach of our offline. dreams!
After all, that’s the message of this beautiful $145 million film that we think is already a blockbuster, thanks to Greta Gerwig for reminding us of this.