Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
Barbie – Max and Amazon Theater
4 out of 4 palm trees
All the Barbies and Kens lived together in Barbieland where everyday was perfect and every version of Barbie ever created lived, though the story centers around the first one in created 1959, known as “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margo Robbie). Other Barbies included were Lawyer Barbie, Dr. Barbie, Physicist Barbie, President Barbie and more representing all the Barbies throughout the years and the occupations and ethnicities of women around the world. The Kens also came in many variations, but Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) was the one vying for Barbie’s love and attention.
While enjoying a dance party with all the other Barbies and Kens, Barbie asked the crowd saying outloud “Do you ever think about dying?’, a thought completely foreign to everyone living in Barbieland as everyday was perfect. They all froze in confusion so she blew it off with saying she was just dying to dance, but the next morning work up to a not perfect world where her shower was cold, her feet were flat and instead of floating off her roof to her car she fell to the ground.
The outcast discontiued dolls lived in Weird Barbie’s (Kate McKinnon) house including: Earing Magic Ken with bleach blond hair, a see-through purple mesh top, a lavender pleather vest, an unusual necklace, and a single earring; Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken dressed in a lime green damask blazer and crisp white pants, and he came with a dog named Sugar; Growing Up Kipper whose breasts enlarged when you rotated her arm and Video Girl Barbie that featured a tiny front camera capable of recording up to 30 minutes of video and a small video screen on her back.
Whenever any Barbie malfuntioned, she would have to go visit Weird Barbie, who was known to previously had been the most beautiful Barbie of all but someone played with her too hard in the real world cutting and burning her hair, coloring her face and dress and in Barbieland continued to fall into disrepair while helping other Barbie’s after malfunctioning. Weird Barbie explained that Barbie would have to go to the real world to find the human that was causing the disruption in Barbieland, otherwise Barbieland would continue to breakdown into nothingness.
Barbie set off for the real world in her little pink corvette, only to discover Ken had stow away in the back wanting to help Barbie on her mission to save Barbieland. The real world was very confusing for them, and Barbie and Ken were arrested several times for random things. Eventually, Barbie was able to find what was creating the problem which was a woman named Gloria (America Ferrerra) who was worked at Matel that was feeling depressed and was using her daughter Sasha’s (Arianna Greenblatt) Barbie to shift her sad feelings away from the real world.
In Barbieland Ken was merely an accessory, but learned about patriarchy in the real world and decided to bring the concept back to Barbieland, getting back before Barbie and changing it to Kendom covering everything with leather, books, pictures of horses and convincing all the other Ken’s to join him on his patriarchal quest to change Barbieland into a man’s world. Now it would be up to Barbie and her new friends Gloria and Sasha from the real world to save Barbieland.
Margo Robbie bought the rights to make a Barbie movie and had Gretta Gerwig and her husband Noah Baumbach write the movie. Gretta wrote the part of Ken for Ryan Gosling and directed the film as well. “Barbie” earned more than $1.38 billion worldwide to become the highest grossing film in Warner Bros. 100-year history; the highest grossing film ever from a female filmmaker at the domestic box office; and is the largest worldwide film release of 2023.
Runtime: 1h 54m
