Hey guys, it’s Baby Know-It-All, and today we’re reviewing Barbie, because it’s such a slay movie.
Barbie follows Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, on her journey as the stereotypical Barbie. There’s a bunch of different Barbies, and the movie follows Barbie Land and all the different types of Barbies who live there. It opens on her waking up in her little pink Barbie Dream House. Lovely. All the Dream Houses are right by each other and each Barbie has one.
Not every Barbie is assigned a Ken, but there are Kens, and they’re assigned jobs. Ken’s job is beach. So they all go to the beach, they’re hanging out, and Ken and Ken are rivals for Stereotypical Barbie. They’re fighting or whatever. Cool. Then at night there’s a little Barbie dance party, and that’s where you find out she has thoughts of death.
A Doll With Thoughts of Death
A doll with thoughts of death. You find out later it’s because of her player, the person who plays with her. The connection is off. She gets that from Weird Barbie, played by Kate McKinnon, who tells Margot Robbie’s character that she needs to go to the real world and fix it. If she doesn’t, she’s going to have cellulite and all this other stuff Barbie usually doesn’t have.
So she says bye bye to all her Barbie people and goes to the real world with Ken, played by Ryan Gosling. (I almost said Ryan Reynolds. No. Ryan Gosling.) And they find out the real world is kind of the polar opposite of Barbie world. It’s run by men, per se, where Barbie Land is run by women, and they deal with looks and all that fun stuff.
Sasha Was Not Having It
Back in Barbie world she’d been having these visions of a girl, and she decides she needs to find her. She tracks her down at a middle school. I forgot her name and had to go look it up. Sasha. Her name is Sasha. From what I saw, she and her little friends are considered to be based on the Bratz dolls.
Barbie finds Sasha and says, hey, I’m Barbie, I made you dream big, I gave you big aspirations. Sasha was not having it. Sasha was like, um, no, you’re a fascist, and just starts using these big words. I’m seeing this with my friends, and I lean over to them and say, I don’t understand what she’s saying, because there’s so many big words. Basically she tells her, I don’t like you, you’re Barbie, and you gave such a bad complex to other girls. Barbie runs away crying, and Barbie doesn’t usually have emotions like that.
Ken Finds Out About Patriarchy
While that’s happening, Ken is having a grand old time. He sees that men have other jobs instead of beach, that they’re running the world. He goes to libraries and finds out about patriarchy. He tries to get a job, and he learns that in the real world you need an education to have certain jobs. So he decides he’s going to change that in Barbie Land.
Then Mattel wants to get this Barbie under wraps. I think Ken ends up going back to Barbie Land without her, and she goes with Mattel. Mattel tells her they understand all of this, and all that needs to happen is she goes back into the box. She says okay, cool, and then she starts running, because she can’t do it. She ducks into a side room where an old lady is having tea. You don’t really get to know her name. It’s a hiding spot for a little bit, and then she runs and gets out.
Cut to the Mattel receptionist picking up her daughter, and the daughter is the girl who told off Barbie. Sasha tells her mom there was this real life Barbie, and her mom goes, oh really? Then she’s driving, she sees Barbie, and it’s get in the car, now, come on. Barbie gets in and they’re on this high speed chase. I’m pretty sure that car was product placement, not gonna lie, but slay, whatever you’ve got to do to get that dough. And the mom says they need to go to Barbie Land.
Mojo Dojo Casa House
They go back to Barbie Land and it’s completely changed. The little Mount Rushmore that used to be Barbie heads is horses now, because Ken has a thing for horses. The Barbie Dream Houses are Mojo Dojo Casa Houses.
Not gonna lie, I also saw it with my boyfriend, and he said, I want one. Apparently every guy who saw it said yeah, I want a Mojo Dojo Casa House. Which, by the way, kind of cool, but not the point.
All the really high-ranking women, like President Barbie, have just started serving these men, and we were like, what’s going on? Ken has changed the whole thing and goes off about patriarchy, how it’s super cool, super fun. And I completely forgot this part: they were going to change the Barbie laws so only guys could run things, just like how it is, quote unquote, in the real world. It’s kind of flip-flopped. All the guys run Barbie Land, every guy gets a Mojo Dojo Casa House, horses are like pets or something. The Kens were about to rule Barbie Land. No bueno.
Barbie’s feeling defeated. She goes up to Weird Barbie and says, I don’t know what to do.
Sidebar: Will Ferrell and his team are trying to find Barbie, because they know whatever’s going on is about to change Barbie Land and they can’t have that. All through the movie there’s this thing where to get between Barbie Land and the real world you have to go ice skating, roller skating, in space and all. You see all the Mattel guys do it, like seven of them, but you don’t see them again until the end of the movie, which I thought was kind of weird.
The Speech, and the Ken on Ken War
At Weird Barbie’s house, Margot Robbie is crying, and they make a joke. She says something like, I don’t feel pretty, and a voiceover comes in to say Margot Robbie was not the right person to cast to make that point. Because Margot Robbie is gorgeous. I mean, look at her.
Then Sasha’s mom, the Mattel receptionist, goes off about how women can’t do this but they have to do that. It’s a whole speech, and honestly I can’t do it, but it was powerful. Go off.
There was another Barbie they were trying to fix, and she heard the speech and kind of snapped out of whatever daze she was in. So that’s how they’re going to fix it. They just have to figure out how to give the Barbies speeches, and they come up with a plan to convert them back.
Part of the plan is this whole guitar scene. Really great. I honestly added that song to my playlist, but don’t tell anyone. Then all the Kens get into fights and have a whole Ken on Ken war. You’re trying to steal my Barbie. No, you’re trying to steal my Barbie. And they just go at it.
While that’s happening, the Barbies go to the capitol of Barbie Land and fix all of the laws. Slay, right? So slay.
Ken Got Nothing
Barbie Land is kind of back to normal. The Mattel guys show up like, oh, you guys solved this yourselves. And Sasha’s mom says, how about a regular Barbie? A mom Barbie. A Barbie that wears sweatpants, that has cellulite. The Mattel guy says no, that’s not going to sell, and the guy behind him says, no, that’s going to sell. So he goes, all right then, let’s do it. Because you’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do for that dough.
Then there’s a voiceover that says maybe one day Ken will have as much freedom and power as women do in the real world. Because it’s flip-flopped. Ken got nothing out of this. Low-key, he got nothing. But it’s okay.
Favorite Character: Allan
Favorite character: Allan. Hi Barbie. Oh, hi Allan.
There are no multiples of Allan. He’s just Allan. I’m confused about that. Love Allan. He is so slay. Michael Cera did so good and he is so much fun, and all the edits on Instagram and TikTok are so funny, with the little dancing.
He punches a bunch of Kens, too. He basically says he doesn’t fit in anywhere. “I’m not a Ken, I’m an Allan.” So when Sasha and her mom are trying to go back to the real world, he goes ham on the Kens who are trying to build a wall to keep anyone from leaving Barbie Land. Crazy. Allan is my favorite.
The Bench, and the Ending
Barbie made me cry at some points. There’s this one scene where she’s sitting on a little bench next to an old woman, looking around and finding the beauty in just everything. She turns to the old woman and says, you are so beautiful. And the old lady goes, I know that. I’m tearing up, and I’m like, oh, you just ruined the moment. But I see what she’s saying.
I’m sorry I’m so everywhere, but at the end you find out that lady who was in the room is the maker of Barbie, the person who had the idea of Barbie. She says she based Barbie off of her own daughter, but her daughter didn’t have long legs and wasn’t super skinny. She just named her after her. We were like, oh, that’s super cool.
Then Barbie asks, what if I want to go back to the real world? She says okay, take my hands. She takes her hands, they go back and forth, she does this whole thing, and then Billie Eilish’s song plays. Beautiful. So good. I sobbed at that. My friend next to me sobbed at that.
She goes to the real world, her feet are finally flat, and she goes to make an appointment. They ask what they can do for her today, and the ending scene is her asking to see her gynecologist. That’s where it ends. It just ends there. We were like, okay, slay, go off, I guess.
The Verdict
Barbie is a 10 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index from Baby Know-It-All. My index rating is different than my dad’s, and I’d rate this a 10 out of 10 just because of how slay it was.
I mean, come on. All the pink. Margot Robbie being cast perfectly. The humor, all the stories and themes and plots. Lovely. Love it. So good. So slay. So Barbie.
Baby Know-It-All don’t be doing videos herself, but she wanted to do Barbie, so give her some credit. Sorry it was a little jumpy.
Tell me what you’d rate Barbie, and who your favorite character is. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
