What Barbie & Lady Bird Have In Common

By notoriouslysinglegirl, July 23, 2023

Yeah, actually my job is just BEACH

Ken, The Barbie Movie

I wanted to like the Barbie movie. I really did. I liked the beginning. But then, something went wrong.

Actually I didn’t like the opening. Little girls bashing dolls against rocks. Then “original Barbie” makes an appearance like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Cheesy indeed.

But the beginning with multiple Barbies in Barbie Land, in their Barbie homes and cars. That was fun.

Oh and I love, love, loved “Weird Barbie,” played by Kate McKinnon.

Weird Barbie the “Oracle” that gave “Original Barbie” the task to go to “the real world” to find out who was playing with her after she took a cold shower and her feet were flat on the ground. Also of course, the Birkenstock product placement was a bit of an eye-roll taking me back to my DominicNun Catholic school days.

I loved the ripped hole in space themes. I like the reverse Wizard of Oz theme. I also loved how Barbie had to go into the real world to find out “who was playing with her too hard?” Kinda like the avatar theme .

However, I could have done without the man bashing.

Sure Ken and all the Ken’s were super cute. And let’s not forget Alan who fits into all of Kens clothes. But really? The man bashing storyline was a bit much.

Greta Gerwich, the principal writer of Barbie claims to be a “feminist” aka man basher even though she’s “partnered” with a male and has 2 boys. If Carl Jung was still alive he’d probably say she was projecting all her “hate” for being a female into this movie.

The male character who plays America Ferrara husband in the movie is first seen sitting on a couch hyper absorbed into a language app learning Spanish. He’s literally in his own world. Perhaps Greta was parodying her “partner” who looks very much like the “husband” in the Barbie movie.

In Greta’s movie “Lady Bird,” based on her own youth, Lady Birds dad is hyper absorbed in a computer and completely disconnected from her. Seems to be a common theme with the male characters in Greta Gerwig’s movies. They are just there. Disconnected. Unimportant.

Greta for sure has ADHD. Not only is it evident in the choppy Barbie screen play. It’s also evident in all the press junket’s she’s speaking at. She’s fidgety. She over gestures with her hands and she’s not even Italian. She makes no sense when she’s talking about the Barbie movie. She’s literally all over the place just like the Barbie movie.

Well Greta does say that her films are literally about her life.

In one interview Greta mentions that she knew nothing about Barbie. Her mother didn’t let her play when Barbie because she thought she was “anti feminist!” Interesting how no this me says Super Man is too masculine and anti reality when it comes to boy toys.

In the movie Lady Bird, the mom character is portrayed as an aggressive nurse always screaming at teenage Lady Bird, who decides to change her name. Poor Lady Bird, she’s just trying to express herself and explore her own identity. Perhaps the nurse mother forgot to read Eric Erickson while she was in her pediatric rotation.

I can relate with Lady Bird. I too changed my name in high school. My mother didn’t seem to care since my new school name was very close to my nickname. My mother didn’t seem to care when I decided to explore fashion design and mismatch some of my dads vintage 1970s suit jackets with bleached out denim mini skirts. She did care when I decided to shave off all my hair for swim team. Although my hairdresser convinced her it was the style. Shaved on the bottom. Long on top.

And again much like Lady Bird I was into writing. Photography. Drama. And swimming. Not sure she was into swimming. But Lady Bird and Greta Gerwig’s mother was a bitch. Mine was too but she literally let me explore my creativity and my identity. Although my mom owned her own business as a designer and seamstress, I wouldn’t consider her a feminist. And she loved Barbie. In fact she’d often make me clothes and teach me how to fashion Barbie outfits from scraps and of discarded fabric.

I was utterly confused with the end of the movie. Barbie ends up at the gynecologist office. Why?

Some say to get a “vagina?” Barbie decides to stay in the “real” world and become a “real woman.” But wouldn’t her vagina just become R-E-A-L too? That makes me think about Pinocchio. Did he go to the Urologist to get a real “penis” once he became a real boy?

Eye roll Greta. Eye roll.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were both amazing in the Barbie movie.

Next time, Margot is producing a film. She needs to pick a conscious writer. Not one who is still wrestling with her personal internal demons from her upbringing.

The Barbie Movie will definitely give you a hefty dose of dopamine to your brain.

The next day, after watching the Barbie movie, my mood was literally off kilter. I was definitely feeling out of balance.

After speaking to Dr. Anna Lembke, the author of ‘Dopamine Nation,” and Director of Addiction Medicine at Stanford on my ‘The Nurses and Hypochondriacs Podcast” I now know that the Barbie movie gave me a huge surge of Dopamine to my brain which threw me into withdrawals the next day.