By: Hamna Chowdhry and Zanna Berthold

Barbie was released on July 21, 2023, and its already rising popularity rose even further. For weeks after its release, you could go out into the street and see a group of people decked out in pink and know that they were most likely going to see Barbie. The movie had many of the key features of an excellent cinematic: chic costumes, stunning sets and perfectly cast actors. Everything about it seemed as good as all the advertisements. Almost everyone you talked to and asked their opinion about Barbie as a franchise said that the movie met their high expectations. Sarah Kotler ‘30 mentioned that she found the movie “unique” and that the “plot and costumes were very outstanding.”

Though we enjoyed these various aspects of the film, the overall structure of the plot was too overwhelming for our understanding. Barbie was supposed to be about the character development of Stereotypical Barbie and how she finds her way through life. Starting and ending relationships with Ken and entering into the human world were used to show her maturing from a plastic doll to a real human. But as we watched it more closely and noticed more themes pop up we realized there was much more that Barbie had to explore.

Once Stereotypical Barbie entered into the human world, her personal journey started to dissipate into the journey’s of many others, bringing along with it dozens of subplots. Mother-daughter relationships were heavily touched upon with Gloria and Sasha’s sassy moments. The idea of a patriarchy lived and died within Ken’s spontaneous decision to leave Barbie behind. When Barbie and Ken resolved their conflicts and remained as friends, however, the movie still continued. Over the course of the film, at random moments, Barbie brought words of wisdom regarding living for herself, existential dread, and the fear of the unknown. Bringing all the mentioned subplots in full circle, Gloria had her speech about what it means to be a woman in society. Normally, when directors have overlapping plots, they don’t encompass or scatter the main point of the film. However, each and every subplot was thoroughly developed and given enough screen time to make it the overarching theme of the movie. 

The root of the issue is simply that Barbie doesn’t have a solid understanding of itself. These themes would make a great self-discovery movie if it was only about Barbie finding herself.

 By the end of the movie, we were unable to keep track of the plots and couldn’t process the meanings, different scenes, and the many character dynamics. Lily Tucker ‘26 shares this same sentiment, and notes that the movie was “multitasking at the sacrifice of plot.” 

As a result of attempting to tackle many different ideas, Barbie doesn’t really take its time to explore 3/4ths of the messages they want the audience to take away, like how being different (like weird Barbie) can cause one to be socially isolated and how the real world perception of Barbie differs from the idealized version of Barbie. However, the audience is left to interpret the nuances of these dialogues after only a minute or two. The only real theme that is given time to fully develop is how misogyny – and having a society in which one gender holds all power – inhibits the progress of everyone (not just women). We see this at the beginning of the movie when the Kens, while seeming happy, are completely dependent on the validation of the Barbies and again when the Barbies are brainwashed into the Kendom and lose their interests and passions to serve the Kens. This, purely from an efficiency and a logical standpoint, should have been the central theme of this movie. And if you look at the moments where Barbie takes its time to flesh this theme out, it truly is very impactful. This is explored when Gloria talks to the Barbies about how hard it is to be a woman in today’s society, and its many contradictions. Barbie offers a lot in terms of cinematography, amazing soundtracks, great acting, and much more. Unfortunately, instead of focusing on all these great things about Barbie, we left the theater confused about what we had just watched.