Leaving Barbieland
Friendship in Barbieland [2/6]: Who needs sex when you look this good?
This series will (hopefully) proceed in parts released weekly. After this post, the parts will (hopefully) come in addition to the normal monthly/etc. posts.
Whatever—no one cares about the post schedule except for me. Anyway, enjoy. Spoilers for all. First post in series:
Reviewed:
Barbie (2023)
Friendship (2024)
Age of Innocence (1920)1
East of Eden (1952)
Notes from the Underground (1864)
Bereshit (????)
Last time, I said we’d get into gender. Let’s do it.
II. Barbie and Gender
The most important thing to note about Barbie is that there is not one moment in the film where Barbieland is a good place to live. The second most important thing to note about Barbie is that Barbieland is gender.
Let’s start with the second claim. I’m kind of shooting from the hip here, so if you’re well-versed in this stuff, please give me some grace. I don’t think the finer points of the matter really bear on where we’re going. Gender is a set of rules for social status; if you perform well, you get status, and if you don’t, you lose status. These rules generally govern our expression of our sex and sexuality to each other. Gender is expressive and (relatively) constructed; sexuality is creative and (relatively) intrinsic; sex is innate and (relatively) objective.
Barbieland is entirely expressive. Nothing changes in Barbieland; no one does anything. People say hi and throw parties. Ken2 almost rides a wave to impress Barbie, but for all the drama of Ken’s devotion to Barbie and his anxiety about Simu Liu’s Ken dancing with Barbie, nothing ever changes. “Every night is girl’s night.” People see and are seen and see themselves being seen. Everyone is called Barbie or Ken.3
Barbieland is clean and unchanging and at ease. In Barbieland, gender roles are not used to deal with some uncomfortable part of life;4 rather, Barbieland is gender roles. Barbieland does not include any visceral part of life. When Barbies and Kens eat, clean themselves, or cure each other, they do not gnash their teeth or scrape their bodies or cut their flesh. They perform a tidy mime. Their bodies never spill out into the world and the world never threatens the integrity of their bodies.
No one even touches each other! Late in the movie, the Barbies reassert their power over Barbieland, and they all dance to celebrate. But they don’t touch! The only two people who touch are the non-Barbie mother and daughter who helped the Barbies!
In Barbieland, all of these borders are sharp and untroubled: between Kens and Barbies; between self and other; and between body and world. The primary border, though, is between Kens and Barbies—gender.
Then Barbie wonders about death. A good deal of philosophy takes death to be the source of all unease, or at least something close to the source of all unease. I’m not particularly convinced by that, but death at least exemplifies a certain lack of control, order, or rightness.
Once Barbie wonders about death, things start going wrong: her bed hair is bad, her shower is cold, her waffle is burnt. Things get messy. She also can’t perform: she can’t float down to her car, she can’t keep her feet in the high-heel position, and she can’t even say “hi” in her usual perky tone right after waking up.
To solve these problems, the Barbies send Barbie to Weird Barbie. Weird Barbie does not, in general, join the other Barbies in their daily routines. But she has esoteric knowledge of the Real World, because she touched and was touched by the Real World. When Barbie goes to meet her, Weird Barbie explains that someone was “playing too hard” with Barbie and that caused these problems. Weird Barbie sends Barbie out to the Real World to find this person and find out why they were playing too hard. The Barbies insist on this terminology: strange things happen in Barbieland because girls “play too hard” with their Barbies (the strange things also require some unease on the Barbie’s part too—Barbie was not entirely without agency here).
Barbie, with Ken as a stowaway, goes to the Real World. And, as often happens when you move to the Real World, things just get more complicated. Barbie meets Gloria and Sasha, a mother and daughter who played together with Barbie’s toy. Ken meets a very different way of organizing gender.
Ken is interesting. He seems to be the individual in Barbieland who most feels a lack. He wants to be Barbie’s boyfriend and isn’t. Now, he has very little idea what that means, but it’s important to him. In fact, in the eternally recurring day of Barbieland, it’s the only thing that is important to him—it’s the only thing that can be important to him. There’s nothing else to do.
So when Barbie leaves, he goes with her. In the Real World, Ken is not initially impressed by any cruel power the world gives him. He is most enthused that someone asked him for the time—that someone gave him an opportunity to be helpful, and thereby showed their respect for him.5 What Barbie dislikes about the Real World—the danger and disrespect—is not what Ken likes about it. Later in the movie, when Ken reproaches Barbie for how the Kens were treated before Ken-patriarchy, he says “Out there, I was somebody. And when I walked down the street, people respected me just for who I am. Somebody even asked me the time.” He just wants to be helpful and respected! He also, I suppose, really likes horses and trucks.
Someone then tells Ken that all of this stuff is patriarchy, so he reads up on what that means. But Ken doesn’t really want patriarchy! Later in the movie, after the Ken revolution and Barbie counterrevolution, Ken admits as much. At one point, he says, “When I found out the patriarchy wasn’t about horses, I just lost interest anyway.” It’s just that he thought patriarchy was the only way Barbieland could change.
So Ken goes back and changes Barbieland’s gender script. Now the Kens are in charge. It’s never clear what being “in charge” means. No one uses force. Mainly, Barbies start admiring Kens and trying to get their attention rather than vice versa. This is supposed to be related to the fact that the Kens are playing volleyball instead of doing “beach” while the Barbies serve them drinks and that the Kens have the houses now.
For someone who cares about people and not Barbies or Kens, this is just the same thing as before. It’s not worse and it’s not better. What is better about a choreographed dance party than minifridges and The Godfather? Is it better that a Ken’s job is “beach” than that a Barbie’s job is “beach”? Both the Kens in Barbieland-1 and the Barbies in Barbieland-2 are visibly at ease. We see one Barbie shout “this is so much better than being President!”
If Barbieland is supposed to be actually good to live in, and not merely catharsis for people frustrated with certain aspects of the Real World, then there’s no difference. You had some people in power and some people out of power, and now they switched places.
Gender and Unease
Barbieland is not about sex. Above, I talked about how sex is troubling. Sex is also creative and, frankly, a little gross. Sex is how we procreate. We are a species that practices sexual reproduction and exhibits some sexual dimorphism. The sexes are different and create through connection.
In Barbieland, no one creates anything new and no one has genitals and the genders never touch. Literally, no one has genitals. This comes up multiple times in the movie. The borders are secure and nothing mixes. The Barbies and Kens act out gender without the thing which gender supposedly refers to. There is gender but no sexuality. Barbieland is entirely social. Barbies and Kens act neither in a moral register nor a visceral one. They simply inhabit their roles. When the individual doesn’t change and the world doesn’t change, the only thing that can change is the individual’s role (and its status) in the world.
In the Real World, Barbie is happy to not have genitals, while Ken pretends to have them. But when Ken returns to Barbieland, he can’t actually create—all he can do is shift power from one group to the other. He still doesn’t have genitals.
Barbieland has nothing that troubles gender per se until a girl in the Real World “plays too hard.” In other words, until a girl messes with the rules.
There are three points in the film where a level of unease shocks Barbies out of their assumed gender roles. The first is when Barbie mentions death. The second is when Gloria describes the conflicting demands of gender on women. The third is when Ruth (the creator of Barbie) discusses why people create values. We already dealt with the first. Let’s talk about the second.
When Gloria, Barbie, and Sasha return to Barbieland, they find the Kens in charge. And the Barbies seem fine with it. In fact, they seem happy. The only way the three returning women can get the Barbies to realize their misfortune is for Gloria to vent to them about Real World gender expectations:
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. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I know the natural reading of this is that the Barbies thereby become awake to the unjustifiability of their own subjection, but I want to suggest a different reading.
Gloria is offering options to the Barbies. She is injecting the messy, contradictory nature of the Real World into Barbieland. And contradictions create possibility—they demonstrate that the way things are is contingent, not natural. The Barbies themselves did not experience Barbieland-2 as confusing or contradictory, much as they did not experience Barbieland-1 as confusing or contradictory. But once they hear about these contradictions, they ask: why am I doing this?
I don’t mean to both-sides the gender debate (in part because the two sides of the gender debate are not men and women), but it is quite easy to make a similar speech about contradictory gender expectations for men:
You have to be tough, but not too tough. And you can never say you want to be tough. You have to say you want to be emotionally intelligent and vulnerable, but also you have to be tough. You have to have money, but you can’t be too proud of your money because that’s crass. You have to listen, but you also have to solve problems. You’re supposed to love being a dad, but don’t take any credit because your wife had to actually give birth to them and obviously does more work for them and took a career hit for having them. You have to have a good career, but if you like your career too much that’s shallow. You have to show initiative to date women, but if they don’t like it then you’re being aggressive or pushy. And you obviously can’t complain about any of that because of how dangerous dating is for women, no matter your personal intentions. You’re not supposed to care about your appearance, unless you’re a slob, but also you can’t try too hard because then you’re shallow or feminine. Always be useful but always be just listening for support. Never forget that the system was rigged for you to succeed. So find a way to acknowledge that but also you have to succeed. You have to never get annoyed, never be angry, never give advice, never be shy, never lose, never complain. . . . And it turns out not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
Whatever the quality and quantity of difficulties men and women face in the Real World, it is just factually untrue to say that only women face contradictory expectations. What is actually happening is that Gloria is introducing the possibility of contradiction: you could have to be too thin or not thin enough; you could have to be a leader but also you could have to listen to others’ ideas; you could have to stay pretty but also you could have to stay not too pretty. It doesn’t work because it’s feminist but because it’s the messy real world intruding on Barbieland’s tidy lines.
The problem is that Gloria wants to be liked. But it is impossible to “be liked.” You can be liked by particular people with particular preferences, values, desires, ideals, etc. The real world is stupid and contradictory and maddening because it is made up of people, with stupid and contradictory and maddening desires and ideals, not Kens and Barbies.
I do want to note briefly how different Gloria’s speech is from Sasha’s criticism of Barbie. Sasha says:
You've been making women feel bad about themselves since you were invented. . . . You represent everything wrong with our culture. Sexualized capitalism, unrealistic physical ideals. . . . You set the feminist movement back 50 years. You destroy girls' innate sense of worth and you are killing the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.
Where Gloria complains about the contradictory narratives of contemporary society, Sasha complains about the restrictive singular metanarrative of the old guard.
Let’s talk about the third moment.
Unease and Creation
Ruth: You understand that humans only have one ending. Ideas live forever, humans not so much. You know that, right? . . . Being a human can be pretty uncomfortable. . . . Humans make things up like patriarchy and Barbie just to deal with how uncomfortable it is. . . . And then you die.
Barbie: Yeah. Yeah. I want to be a part of the people that make meaning. Not the thing that’s made. I want to do the imagining. I don’t wanna be the idea. Does that make sense? . . . Do you give me permission to become human?
Now, this is a rich text. Note, for one, the ambiguity in “[h]umans make things up like patriarchy and Barbie just to deal with how uncomfortable it is.” Do people create a patriarchal system to deal with discomfort, or do they create the term “patriarchy” to deal with discomfort? I would say both. Note also the distinction between ideas, which are created and don’t die, and humans, which are creators and do die.
As humans, we have contradictions and we have options. In Barbieland, “you’re either brainwashed or you’re weird and ugly.” In the Real World, there are a lot of different kinds of brainwashing, and however weird you are, there might be someone weird in the same way. You give up the sureness of the script for the possibility of writing something new.
In Barbieland, no one wants power. The Barbies seem to give it up easily to the Kens and Ken insists that he really doesn’t care about power. He just wants to talk about horses and be Barbie’s boyfriend. Everything Ken does is largely to be Barbie’s boyfriend. When the Barbies return to power and Barbie talks to Ken, Ken says, “it’s ‘Barbie and Ken.’ There is no just ‘Ken.’ That’s why I was created. I only exist within the warmth of your gaze.”
The only relation is the gender relation, structuring both how the Kens and Barbies relate internally and how they relate to one another. Gaining power in Barbieland seems to largely consist in withholding attention so that the other party seeks your attention. This seems miserable to me.
Barbie responds to Ken:
Barbie: Ken, you have to figure out who you are without me. . . . You’re not your girlfriend. You’re not your house, you’re not your mink. . . . You’re not even beach. Maybe all the things that you thought made you you aren’t really you. Maybe it’s Barbie and it’s Ken.
Ken: Ken is. . . me?
Barbie: Yes.
Ken: Ken is me!
Barbie: And I’m Barbie.
They’re reversing the arrow: gender does not determine who you are, but rather your needs determine what gender should be. The Kens go from saying “I’m just Ken” (lit. “I am nothing more than the category/name Ken”) to saying “Ken is me” (lit. “the category/name Ken is defined by what I am”).
Here is another point of interest: both Ken and Barbie upset the borders of Barbieland at various times in the movie. Ken desperately wants Barbie’s love—and wants her love specifically. He even tries to kiss her near the start of the movie. He has actual, particular desire.
Barbie shows compassion for the Kens (and Ken specifically) when she comes back from the Real World. She doesn’t see them as another species anymore; she is understanding them as legitimate equals. Even as she does so, she still holds her ground: she doesn’t love Ken. They are equals, not superiors.
Ken tried to connect with her, but she can’t connect with him. He tried everything to get her to love him, he was perfect and he was powerful; but when he returned to the Barbies being back in power and the houses re-dreamified, he couldn’t bring himself to use violence. That was a line he didn’t cross, and so he had to accept Barbie’s rejection.
It is impossible to not get Freudian here: Ken is the intrusion of the id upon the ego while Barbie is the intrusion of the superego upon the ego.
Compared to the Real World, Barbieland is tidier but also more divided; it is purer but also more zero-sum; it is more at ease but also more unjust. In Barbieland, you can do things the Right Way and Be Liked. In the Real World, no matter what you do, you’re violating some value or script someone has cooked up in their individual, wrinkled little mind. So you have to choose. Or maybe you get to choose.
Ken stays in Barbieland, trying to find out who Ken is without Barbie or any of the other signifiers he adopted. Maybe he’ll be able to find something. But without the social roles and without the object of his desire and without the ability to create, I am not sure what could be left of him. Maybe he’ll be Horse Ken. Maybe that will be enough for him.
For Barbie’s part, she goes to the Real World after her talk with Ruth. The song “What Was I Made For?” starts playing. The final scene is Barbie walking into an OBGYN office and signing in for her appointment. She is ready to create.
So, are we good? Did we do it? We fixed it? We just leave Barbieland behind and go into the Real World?
I added this and switched up the order a bit. For good reasons. Not just because I recently finished Age of Innocence and want to write about it.
"Ken” and “Barbie” here will refer to Ken as played by Ryan Gosling and Barbie as played by Margot Robbie. I will distinguish other Kens and Barbies as necessary.
Allen, of course, excepted. But he also is (in the traditional sense) the exception that proves the rule. He is the same sex as the Kens (to the extent that such a classification exists in Barbieland), but he is definitely not part of them as a group that shares activities and social status.
I should note: when I say gender “is used” for these things, I am being vague on purpose. Some are critical of gender roles and say that they are used by the powerful to oppress, while others say they are the result of accumulated wisdom that allow us all to live in an orderly society. I want to be agnostic to this debate for now. Whatever gender does, it is organizing our interactions around sex and sexuality, and that is what’s important for our purposes here.
There might be something to say here about the gender politics of Gloria’s husband being useless but also her learning to drive like a getaway driver because of an earlier boyfriend. But that’s a bit outside my scope.