Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling playing dolls and subverting the pop cultural trends, what more do we look forward to from this release directed by Greta Gerwig?
Barbie and Ken together embrace their journey to navigate life through existential philosophy. Philosophy should not be a thought but a way of living. Barbie reinforces the key ideas of humanism that teach us to embrace life. Existentialists question the meaning of life and thoroughly investigate what absurdity could mean. When Barbie casually says, “Do you guys ever think about dying?” makes us wonder about the anxiety of sustaining life without thinking about suicide. In the constant interrogation of whether life will find its meaning, Camus notes that the world rests on hope. Barbie’s individualism makes her question her purpose in life which ultimately leads to thinking about death because if life can seem pointless can death have any meaning?
Barbie is seen to depend on her own and does not seem to need a partner for her to experience things to make her feel fulfilled. The anxiety of being on one’s own counters the relevance of traditional values, and morals that helps to transcend and look beyond the mass culture.
Female identity on television has been hyper-sexualized and eroticized or else represented as a homely nurturing kitchen woman. The other woman is seen romanticizing her relationship with food and limiting her life to children. Barbie is seen to fit in none of the typical roles. The color blonde sentimentalizes feminine beauty alone without an intellect according to pop culture. She reads enough to question her existence and is not thrown into domesticated or overly sexualized roles. Barbie shatters these stereotypical comments when she takes on the limelight by being the lead female heroine who does not need a man to rescue her. She has a mind of her own when she is seen questioning the things that don’t quite seem to be normal. When Barbie questions and subverts the dominant culture by posing doubts, the movie attempts to exemplify the female blonde archetype.
The floral femininity and the color pink assert cultural dominance that leads to social and cognitive semiotics tracing back to Victorian standards of beauty. “While pink’s calming effect has been demonstrated, researchers of color psychology have found that this effect only occurs during the initial exposure to the color. When used in prisons, inmates often become even more agitated once they become accustomed to the color.” We need to remember that the colors that we engage with are a by-product of individual and cultural preferences. The discourse on the color pink does make Barbie conform to societal standards, but it is important to learn that we are a product of culture, and hence choosing a different color for representation does not make one appear bold but rather only speaks about individual expression. If Barbie wants to acknowledge being a part of the culture and choosing to wear pink to define her, there should be no doubt that pop cultural trends alone have influenced her.
The movie would force the viewers to understand fiction and look at it as a representative form of reality. The movie does not advertise the mythical perfect woman but flaws her character to make the audience sense themselves.
The ontological question that arises out of image making and media presentation, Barbie does not disdain pop culture but at the same time questions iconic depictions. The dominant cultural values that feeds upon trends, Barbie forms her own identity by not responding to every social media trend.
The overdose of philosophy does not ridicule women but instead empowers them to be more than humans; to be ideas that go on to live forever. Hence, Barbie’s identity does not confine her to her own knowledge but accommodates a space for her to become an ideal.