Barbie Is Enough

Self-aware in both Birkenstocks and high heels, Greta Gerwig's Barbie is an unforgettable cinematic experience

- Nishtha Gautam

MY three-year-old daughter is running around the Khan Market parking lot—upset at me for denying her a Barbie doll set—while my friend is chasing her. More than a decade later, this remains my friend’s favourite memory of her. He uses it sometimes to tease her and the discussion inevitably veers towards how I am a mean mom.

I watched Greta Gerwig’s Barbie first day, first show. I wore ripped shorts, a crumpled T-shirt and my latest Birkenstocks. This turnout was purely circumstantial as I had driven twenty-five kilometres to drop my teenager at school before going to watch the film. I was, clearly, a part of the non-pink crowd. Yet, I-a daughter of third-wave feminism-am the biggest cheerleader of Barbie, the film.

What is there to not like about a film that is so self-referential and pokes fun at everything that we seem to have taken too seriously? That uses all the familiar tropes of feminism and patriarchy and turns them into Brechtian agitprop? A film that is, most importantly, so entertaining as a cinematic experience it makes one’s heart feel dizzy? The last reason alone should be enough to like any film but, clearly, it is not. Every bit of the film, the filmmaker and the filmmaking process needs to be dissected and found flawless to be able to appreciate cinema these days. Else, you are accused of making an uninformed choice.

Ah, the elusiveness of choice! Brown Birkenstock Arizonas or burnished-pink Louboutin Pumppies (at least that’s what they looked like)—Gerwig’s