I'm child-free... and the Barbie movie made me feel bad about that
But Barbie didn't have kids herself! So why did the film seem so pro-motherhood?
Barbie was childfree. She was invented to be that way.
Her creator, Ruth Handler, way back in 1959, was disheartened to find that the only dolls her own daughter could play with were baby dolls. “My whole philosophy, of Barbie was that, through the doll, the girl could be anything she wanted to be.” Ruth wrote in her 1994 autobiography. “Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.” Barbie has since had 200 careers - she’s been a doctor, an astronaut and, yep I just checked, a journalist. And she’s faced what all women face, the pressure to become a mum: in the 1960s fans, at a time of both extreme tradition and extreme rebellion, called for her to just get married already, and have Ken’s babies. Barbie (or should I say Ruth) remained steadfast in her decision, she didn’t want to reinforce the idea that young girls should be aspiring exclusively to get married and/or have children. In 1982, there was a pregnant Barbie doll… but it wasn’t Barbie herself, it was Midge her best friend. Midge was also discontinued. The best said about poor Midge the better really…
Of course, if you’ve watched Barbie The Movie, you’ll know all of this. Barbie’s history is impeccably documented throughout. So… if Barbie herself was a child-free ‘icon’ (as many other opinion pieces have labelled her) then why did I leave the cinema with a niggling feeling that the movie really wanted me to be a mum? The answer is obvious, I suppose, but I’ll get to that later.
I’d like to preface this with a few things: the first being, I had a very nice time at the cinema watching the film. I haven’t been in the cinema in ages. The Barbie world is so fun, and frothy, and it’s such a clever replication of Barbie’s world, there’s campervan Barbie with her headscarf! Ski-mobile Barbie! etc etc etc. The swimming pools in Barbieland are stick-on, her Dream House has the slide and Margot Robbie moves her body exactly how we all play with dolls: she hinges at the waist, she lies forward on her back. It’s clever, funny and I laughed a lot. I’m happy that a female-directed film is the first to make a billion at the box office. As for the feminism? I came to the film too late. By the time I watched it (on Friday) there had already been so much hype about it being a feminist masterpiece I was only going to be disappointed. It’s entry-level… and that’s OK. We can’t expect one movie to be able to represent all of feminism.
But… the film is also an advert. For Chevrolet (there was no need for that car chase scene… other than to showcase just how well this car can reverse), for Birkenstock (don’t be so silly and wear heels! Buy pink Birkenstocks instead) and (so obvious I feel I don’t even need to type it out) for Mattel and the Barbie brand itself. Product placement is nothing new, and neither are films created around a product (e.g: The Lego Movie). We live in a capitalist society. The film gift wraps us empowerment, and sells it to us. I’d like it to be different… but it isn’t. *shrugs* Sorry to sound so defeatist.
The reason I raise the whole ‘I watched an advert for two hours’ thing is because, a few days later (perhaps I should have got there sooner) I realised why I felt such niggling upset about the overarching mothers are amazing, mothers rule the world undercurrent to the film. It wasn’t because I, in particular, was being overtly sensitive, as I had been telling myself.
Because I know that, as someone who has lost her mum, and isn’t going to be a mum, I was always going to view it in a particular light. I am also aware that art focuses on different aspects of different people’s lives, if every film, TV show, book, play tried to encompass all of our existences the resulting product would become an absolute mess of caveats and trigger warnings. The show’s director and writer Greta Gerwig has recently become a mum herself, and said “it was only ever going to be a mother-daughter story”. It’s natural she’d want to create something to celebrate how glorious being a mum can be. And she’s achieved that. Vogue called the film “the ultimate love letter to mothers” and BuzzFeed said the film is a “reminder your mum was once just a girl with hopes and dreams.” TikTok is currently full of women calling up their mums, crying down the phone and thanking them for all they’ve done.
This is all lovely. A little twee but lovely. Despite my own personal situation, and decision* I believe in celebrating mothers, and motherhood. If this film makes people feel comforted, in a world that takes the work of mums for granted, while also piling extreme pressure on them, then that’s great. I’m not here to yuck on your yum.
It’s just, to me (and a few other people I’ve spoken to) it was so pro-motherhood that, by the end, I felt that Barbie’s initial message (that we don’t have to follow a traditional path) was lost.
There was the end montage of babies being born, mothers and daughters hugging in soft, Hallmark card lighting, that not-so-subtly painted the picture that a ‘good’ life involves having children, while one of the stand out lines from the show (hailed, by some, as “the best line in the movie”) was “we mothers stand still, so our daughters can look back and see how far they’ve come”** (said to Barbie by her ‘mum’ Ruth Handler, in ghost form). Others might feel differently, but I left the cinema feeling as if I’d just been fed a pink, strawberry flavoured potion that was trying to sway me into believing that motherhood is the happiest, most fulfilling path of all.
(** side note: how do you read that quote? I was enraged by it at first… as it seems to be implying that mothers should step back, provide and not have any life of their own apart from allowing their own daughters to flourish, which seems a ridiculously backwards view of motherhood. But, it could also be interpreted as you can use what older generations went through as a yardstick to see how far we’ve progressed, in which case I approve of it as, particularly as times can seem so tough, it’s good to be able to look back and see how far we’ve come. Mostly I think, for such a massive moment in the film, they should have used a quote that wasn’t so hard to interpret.)
Which is why, a few days later, pondering on my feelings (and, as usual, trying to dismiss them as being too sensitive) I felt a lot better once I came to terms with the fact the movie is an advert. As, despite Barbie herself being proudly child-free, I’d wager that the Mattel board of directors don’t particularly want to push that agenda. They need to be pro-natalist, as the more of us that have children, the more toys we’re going to buy. Noticing how pro-natalist the world is, and why, has been one of the most comforting and enraging lessons in my journey in becoming happy, and confident in my child-free status. As, I could have analysed this niggling feeling I had after the film in a different way. I could have read it as: ‘oh I feel a bit weird and shitty about not having kids after seeing that, maybe it’s because I want them…’ Whereas now I can recognise it for what it was: a natural reaction to a film, a marketing ploy, coming from a company that needs more people on the planet so that they can buy more stuff.
I wrote this piece, not as a take-down of the film, or anyone who loved it but simply as a reminder to myself (and anyone else who might find it useful) that this world can be tough. It’s filled with messages that try and convince you to be traditional, to go one-set-way as that set way is hugely beneficial to our capitalist society. These messages will infiltrate you, in even the most unsuspecting environments (such as a movie you thought was simply going to be a fun, feminist Friday night out) and the more aware you become of this, the better you can examine any doubts or worries you may have.
I hope it helps! I’m not a big fan of writing reactive opinion pieces, as I like to take time to analyse all sides of an argument, and sit with my feelings for a while. Usually by the time I’ve come to a conclusion on the ‘hot topic’ of the moment it’s passed. And that conclusion is usually ‘it’s complicated, with lots of different sides to it.’ Anyway! Let me know what you think in the comments below!
*The fact that being child-free is a decision I’ve made, rather than one that was forced upon me, undoubtedly makes not only watching the film, but dealing with society’s pro-motherhood stance a lot easier, if you’re someone struggling with infertility, have you seen it? What did you think? Feel free to message me privately.
Hello Catriona, so I saw the film and loved the bright colours, the jokes and the fact it made a billion. It didn’t make me feel bad about not being a mother (though it might have when I was younger and thought I might have kids), but that quote about mothers standing still did make me cross.
First, because not all mothers have daughters and second because it implies older women are ‘standing still’.
For all its diversity, there are very few women of middle age or above represented - America Ferrara’s character (and I agree about entry-level feminism) and Ruth Handler (and maybe Weird Barbie?). And the Ruth character is presented in a cliched way with her cosy kitchen - I’d much rather see her break some stereotypes. Or maybe that’s to show how she’s been standing still?
Also, I wonder how men who’ve seen it feel? Especially the ones who’ve serenaded women with their guitar-playing...
Loved this! I am probably one of the only people who hasn’t seen the movie but I can imagine, as you say, there is some level of strategy behind it. And alienating mothers probably = less sales, so validating their choice is probably a smart strategy. I am also child-free by choice (and marketer by trade 😬)and by the sounds of it the Barbie narrative has maybe strayed from the message that I remember impacting my very early thinking that I didn’t want children. I am curious to watch the film but I think I might draw a similar conclusion to you.