A Barbie Movie Review | MariletteSanchez.com
/By Marilette Sanchez
Margot robbie as stereotypical barbie in greta gerwig’s 2023 film ‘barbie’
Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie’s Barbie movie was the most inspirational blockbuster for me since ‘Wonder Woman’. There, I said it.
Yes, I am a follower of Jesus. Yes, I believe in the beauty of marriage and the significance of motherhood. No, I don’t agree with every single aspect of the film.
Borrowing a concept from Andy Crouch in his book Culture Making, as a Christian, it’s easy to arrogantly condemn culture, quickly copy culture, or mindlessly consume culture, but my hope here is to bring a dialogue around the issues that the film attempts to address. If you want to see Barbie but are met with the thought that you might be “betraying your Christian faith,” I hope in sharing my perspective, you can find freedom to check out the movie for yourself and draw your own conclusion.
My name is Marilette Sanchez. I am a stay-at-home mom and full-time missionary with FamilyLife. My husband Moses and I live in Brooklyn, New York where we homeschool our five kids ranging in age from four to eleven, run a community center outreach, and lead the Awana children’s ministry at our local church. Several times a year, my husband and I travel around the country as speakers with FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember marriage getaway.
I realize that from the outside, I may fit the stereotype of some of Barbie’s biggest critics, but maybe that’s why the movie impacted me so much.
Barbie opens with an ingenious parody of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as a way to introduce the origin story of the Barbie doll. Several school-aged girls are stranded in a barren primordial landscape. Helen Mirren elegantly narrates the scene, explaining that, since the beginning of time, little girls only had baby dolls to play with. As a result, they had no choice but to imagine themselves as mothers and nothing else. Along came the invention of Barbie (played by Margot Robbie), who, in her many variations, expanded the little girls’ horizons, inspiring them to be astronauts, doctors, judges, and even President. In melodramatic fashion, the girls now smash their baby dolls to pieces, heralding a new era of equality and opportunity. The stage is now set to enter Barbieworld, in which, at least in the perspective of the Barbies, all of women’s problems are now solved.
The entire film follows two worlds that intersect and affect each other, similar to Pixar’s Inside Out. Following Helen Mirren’s hilarious and overdramatic intro, the audience is immediately immersed in the all-pink universe of Barbieworld (the creation of which caused a shortage of pink paint). In utopian Barbieworld, every day is a “perfect day” and women are in the highest forms of government and influence, while the “real world” is run by men in which women are an afterthought and objectified.
The rest of the film follows Stereotypical Barbie’s journey traveling between the two worlds, catalyzed by an existential crisis alongside a hilarious physical manifestation.
The set design was perfectly executed–complete with a Barbie Dreamhouse and giant waterslide. I loved the costumes paying homage to actual iterations of iconic Barbie varieties. However, the highlight of the movie for me is a monologue by Gloria (America Ferrera), a Mattel employee and mom of a pre-teen daughter, which has since taken over social media. When I attended opening weekend, you could have heard a pin drop during that scene.
The main theme of Ferrera’s monologue was that as modern women, we have expectations hurled at us that are not only unrealistic but simultaneously contradictory. Whatever our marital or socioeconomic status, we live in countless variations of a Catch-22.
As a woman steeped in American Christianity, I’m expected to be my husband’s helpmate, have a Pinterest-worthy menu plan and home decor, and “Remember, being a mom is your highest calling.”
As a mom who has always had high career aspirations, I’m guilted into thinking that any outside aspirations, including freelance writing and blogging, means I’m a mom who’s not fully present with my kids.
As a first-generation immigrant whose family hails from the Philippines, I’m told to follow my career and take advantage of all the opportunities here in America, but also, “don’t forget to do all the housework.”
I have often felt the tension of my choice to find purpose in spending the bulk of my time at home while my kids are young, as if I’m silently torturing myself by not relentlessly climbing the corporate ladder at any given moment. I have personally experienced the discouraging effects of countless expectations hovering over me, which consistently make me feel like a failure on some level.
I’ve learned the hard way that it is difficult to simultaneously do all these things well at any given time. The only thing I can do is be sensitive enough to the Holy Spirit to discern what I am called to do moment by moment and be okay with different seasons of life, ministry, and career.
So while some may see Barbie as just a movie about a doll and seemingly pointless, God used this movie to remind me of how often I am guilty of letting others dictate who I should be, instead of who I was created to be. ◆
