One billion dollars in box office at, say, an average of ten dollars a ticket, means that one hundred million people in the world have seen Barbie in the last three weeks. And to the financial benefits we must add the ideological ones. Barbie is all love. And from the vantage point of her matriarchy, she teaches Ken that he must learn to be himself, without depending on anyone's gaze. In contrast to the oppression of the patriarchy, which wears men down in their constant struggle for supremacy, while keeping women in the blight of nail polish, Barbie's inclusive matriarchy means breaking out of the corset, becoming human and go to the gynecologist... if you decide that you are a woman.
Greta Gerwig's film bores cows even on a summer night. Her so-called comic flashes last as long as a failed artificial rocket. Of course, the laughter in the room awakens from the torpor inspired by the combination of mainstream cinema and poorly elaborated material.
Never has a film so cheap been so profitable. Gerwig preserves the dullest and most pragmatic side of mumblecore (the indie subgenre in which the actress, director and screenwriter started): that of not keeping up. And as for her feminist commitment... she makes for a pedestrian re-enactment of the war of the sexes, with cunning perfidy attributed to women and a healthy helping of toxic masculinity: we'll beat men against each other! How? Easy: we seduce one and take off with the one next to us. That's how relatable pink femininity is for Gerwig: sex is power, even if it's between yawns.
And then there is the caricature of an outdated company whose board of directors is made up only of men who laugh thanks to a childish CEO, unable to smell commercial success in changing times. The message is one of P3 feminism, and even Mattel, the maker of Barbie, can laugh at itself with the silly gag about awkward men. Let's hope it reaches at least one hundred million viewers.
For the rest, Gerwig participates in the misogynistic thought that, as the philosopher Alicia Miyares warns, always operates in the same way: she defines what it is to be a woman and imposes on women that they adapt to the definition.
