WHY I DID NOT LIKE THE BARBIE MOVIE

Pink sequined miniature dresses, glittery shoes which got lost every now and then, naked plastic figurines doing splits with blonde hairdos that went messy by the end of December; that’s probably the most accurate description of my childhood as a Barbie lover.

Back then, I would cry and throw tantrums to get my hands on every pink item I could possibly possess. Schoolbags, bottles, erasers, frocks – I painted my whole world pink. As I grew up, my obsession with pink got my relatives to call me ‘pinkyamma’, a decolonialized Malayali version of what it meant to be a ‘Barbie girl’ .

This is probably one of the reasons why I had so much expectations from this movie. I remember watching the teaser online and sending it to my friends immediately saying: ‘WE MUST GO WATCH THIS!’ I was super stocked about the director, the cast, the fabulous teasers and of course- the fact that it was going to be released the day before my birthday on July!

We booked the first show on 21st, fixed our outfit colour palette(pink obviously), caught an auto and reclined on the red chairs while waiting for the show to start. I had anticipated every possible way I would enjoy my comfort character on the silver screen. It was pure joy of an eight year old that manifested on my face that day.

The show finally started and I patiently waited for it to reach the exciting part. But excitement never came. All I was left with was confusion, a few predictable laughs and impending disappointment.

Now before you judge me, I want to explain that my disappointment did not stem from the feminist ideas that were deemed to be too ‘woke’ by many critics. And like any other normal person I did surf the entire internet to justify my opinion. But none of the bad reviews gave me satisfaction since all of them were written out of spite, anger and a fierce hatred towards feminism. Was the movie political? Perhaps. Did it question the entire power relations between genders? Yes. But was that a bad thing? Not in the least.

My problem with the Barbie movie was not its ideological leanings or its diverse cast. My disappointment arose from the way the narrative was presented. The first twenty minutes of the movie was a replay of whatever was shown in the teaser. This would not have been a huge problem if those first sequences did not involve much to do with the narration or plot. But since the movie was hardly one hour long, it felt as if there was no novelty. The punchlines were already revealed in the trailers and hence failed to deliver. The exposition was poorly written and generously marketed to the point where nothing was unknown to the viewers.

My second issue with the movie was its immense reliance on tropes and cliches. I’m a sucker for comfort films which feature popular film tropes but this was not it. The quest to find Barbie’s owner and the car chase in the real world were poorly juxtaposed next to each other. The mysterious room with the old lady was a scene that felt so out place with the narration. Why did they jump from chase scene to tea time so quickly? I guess we’ll never know.

The only portion I enjoyed at least partially was the ken song, and the war scene (maybe because it wasn’t marketed enough and hence was unpredictable and slightly chaotic). Even the scene where America Fererra talked about womanhood felt passionless and lack lustered without a touch of naturality. The ending was philosophical and dragged out the movie unnecessarily.

To everyone who tells me that Barbie was intended for kids and therefore built on tropes and cliches; I respectfully disagree. It was rated pg-13 and even if it was intended for children, the tropes could have been placed within the narration more effectively. Enchanted is a great example of how stereotypes and tropes have been used perfectly to create a comfort film. Ella is a lot like Barbie and journeys to the real life too. But her journey is more organic and holistic when compared to the one-dimensional path of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.