Barbie:  More Real Than Real?

By Shlomo Maital  

    I haven’t seen the movie Barbie yet, nor am I likely to (it will come to Israel only later this year).  But I note that it is breaking box office records, and I am following closely the interviews with its director Greta Gerwig.

     First, some background – how Barbie dolls were born. Ruth Handler’s husband Elliot was a co-founder of a toy company Mattel.  Ruth watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls and saw the little girl was giving them adult roles.  She pitched the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband and to Mattel, at a time when all dolls were ‘baby dolls’,  infants.  They loved the idea…. And Barbie was born.  

     The movie:   Gerwig told journalists that she and spouse Noah Baumbach (who wrote the script) wanted the movie to be ‘real’ —  and so the script included Barbie contemplating her own death!

       What?  This pink figment of unreality, with a totally unreal body figure that perhaps harmed little girls by pitching them body images that were unreal….  contemplating her death?   The producers bought the idea, even liked it.  And it turns out, so does the public. 

       According to The New York Times, a moribund movie theatre in remote Scotland has sold out the movie. 

       It is funny, ironic, maybe a bit sad – that an imaginary doll figure is conveying life truths to millions of women the world over (and, truth be told, men too), for whom the script narrative resonates.

       Lessons drawn?  The power of a narrative.  The integrity of art, even when making a movie about a doll figure.  Out-of-the-box thinking (would you have written a Barbie script that includes contemplation of death?).   The power of a story to resonate among people, when it reflects reality.

        I guess I need to see the movie.  Maybe with a few grandchildren?