“Hi Barbie!” “Hi Ken!”
If you grew up in the 90s, it’s nearly impossible now to watch the new trailer for the forthcoming “Barbie” movie and not start singing the 1997 Aqua song — “Barbie Girl” — in your head. But in the new Greta Gerwig-helmed story, Barbie (Margot Robbie) doesn’t immediately jump in and go for a ride with Ken (Ryan Gosling) around her Barbie World.
In a movie landscape dominated by ever-expanding action-centric superhero franchises, “Barbie” is one for the girls, gays and theys.
That comes later — and the roles are reversed. lt’s Gosling’s extremely sweet, extremely blond himbo of a Ken that sneaks his way into the back seat of Barbie’s signature pink convertible as she departs Barbie Land for the real world. And, obviously, he brought his neon yellow rollerblades with him.
But the newest trailer’s delights don’t stop there. We get glimpses of Barbie as a president (Issa Rae), Barbie as an author (Alexandra Shipp), Barbie as a physicist (Emma Mackey), Barbie as a Supreme Court justice (Ana Cruz Kayne) and a Barbie whose hair has clearly been hacked off by her child owner (Kate McKinnon). Helen freaking Mirren is the narrator! A bunch of Kens (Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir) engage in a homoerotic exchange about “beaching off.” Every frame is full of bright pinks and seafoam greens and baby blues. There’s gingham and stripes and Hawaiian prints and so many perfectly matching sets.
In a movie landscape dominated by ever-expanding action-centric superhero franchises, “Barbie” is one for the girls, gays and theys. Even if fans still don’t really know what the movie is about. Landing on the same day as former President Donald Trump was arrested in Manhattan, this beautiful, bizarre, nostalgic distraction was perfectly timed. And so were the memes.
Details of the July film’s plot are somewhere between vague and nonexistent. Vogue reported in December that the movie will center on “a doll living in Barbie Land, who’s forced to leave due to her so-called imperfections — setting off on an adventure in the real world and discovering along the way that perfection can only truly be found within.” Similarly, according to Deadline, an earlier version of the film, was “a fish-out-of-water story… whereby Barbie gets kicked out of Barbie Land because she’s not perfect enough, a bit eccentric and doesn’t fit in. She then goes on an adventure in the real world and by the time she returns to Barbie Land to save it, she has gained the realization that perfection comes on the inside, not the outside, and that the key to happiness is belief in oneself, free of the obligation to adhere to some unattainable standard of perfection.” But that was before Gerwig and her husband/co-writer Noah Baumbach joined the project.
It seems likely that even if that rather cliched logline indicates the building blocks of the “Barbie” storyline, Gerwig and Baumbach, known for pioneering mumblecore, will get a little weird and campy. Especially because the cast doesn’t even seem to be able to explain what the movie they filmed is about. “Whatever you think it is, it’s not that,” America Ferrera, who plays one of the few humans in “Barbie,” told People. “It’s something else.”
But the truth is, the details are unnecessary right now. Because the extended “Barbie” trailer is sparking collective joy simply by way of the vibes and the aesthetics. There’s a reason that so many people are creating their very own Barbie-branded memes with the movie’s official selfie generator.
Culturally, we are currently experiencing a Barbiecore renaissance; one full of platforms and pink and sequins and suiting and monochrome accessories. (See: anything Valentino releases in hot pink.) Zendaya and Anne Hathaway and Lizzo have all rocked Barbiecore outfits on the red carpet. Barbiecore is about unabashed feminine camp, and after years of living in the isolation of pandemic land, you can see the appeal of the vibrancy of Barbie Land.
There is also something distinctly nostalgic about Barbie, even though Barbie dolls never went away. (Barbie sales dipped between 2014 and 2018, but in 2021 and last year, Barbie generated $1.68 billion and $1.49 billion in sales, respectively.) She is, after all, a remnant of multiple generations’ childhoods; a formative way for many of us to role-play our ideas about adulthood, especially as a woman.
Her legacy, of course, is a mixed bag. Barbie originally represented an ultrawhite, ultrafemme, ultrathin ideal of womanhood. Her feet were permanently high-heeled — a distinctive feature which the trailer winks at — and her waist was so tiny that a life-size Barbie’s organs would have a hard time fitting inside her body. A 1965 Slumber Party Barbie even came with a scale permanently set to 110 pounds and a tiny book titled “How To Lose Weight,” with only one instruction: “Don’t Eat!” It’s no wonder that Barbie became a site for feminist discourse and critique.
But the Barbie of the 2023 movie signals a less rigid and oppressive vision of what Barbie perhaps could be. Robbie’s Barbie is just one of many Barbies, played by a diverse array of actors. In 2023, Barbie can be a politician or a doctor or a lawyer or a diplomat or an author or a Pulitzer Prize winner or a mermaid. She is full of possibility. And, amid yet another incredibly depressing news cycle, positivity.
So come on, Barbie, let’s go party. We’re ready.
