“What happens in crowds is messy, wild, benevolent and beautiful,” Amanda Petrusich Written in The New Yorker about a Swift concert. A woman attends one of the first “Barbie” shows speak The defender she’s been waiting for for two years: “I’ve been wanting to go to the cinema and see something like a monoculture event.”
Part of the reason Barbie is so popular — aside from the trivial pleasures of costumes and great setting — is that the film sees becoming a woman as a hero’s journey. (This is also what angered right-wing critics.) A key moment in the film comes when America Ferrera’s Gloria, giving an impromptu speech about the impossible demands of women: “You must never grow old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall, never let your fears go, never let go. “It’s too difficult! It’s too contradictory!”
The important part of this monologue – the pre-reveal – is not only what it clearly states, but also what it achieves. Gloria’s words awaken the Barbies brainwashed by Ken into submission. “By speaking out about the cognitive dissonance it takes to be a woman under patriarchy, you take its power away!” exclaims the film’s heroine, the typical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie. It raises consciousness like magic. And in the end, no matter how difficult it is to become an adult woman, Robbie’s Barbie chooses it over staying in Barbieland’s idyllic genderless girlhood, as we learn in the film’s flawless final line.
With the obvious hunger for entertainment out there infuriating women, it makes sense if Hollywood, once the writers and actors strike is over, must do more to cultivate female screenwriters and directors. Women still rarely get the chance to direct high-budget films; as the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film establishWomen direct only 11% of the 100 highest-grossing films of 2022. And look at a list Of last year’s big movies, I was struck by how few of them seemed to be made with female audiences in mind, part of the reason the demand for “Barbie” was so pent-up.
Searchlight Pictures may feel gratified about signing Swift, who counts “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig as an influence, to direct her feature film debut. But for the most part, unfortunately, it seems that the lesson Hollywood will learn from the success of “Barbie” is not to make more stories for women, but to make more movies about toys.
