‘Barbie’ packed with teachable moments

Anne Ohrt, 46, of Hiawatha, caved to peer pressure — from her daughter’s peers — and went to the “Barbie” movie.

Maggie Willems, 46, of Mount Vernon, took her 10-year-old daughter’s advice and saw it the night she returned from an out-of-town trip.

Neither mom was that excited to go — and both were blown away.

As educators, as well as moms and women who played with Barbies in their youth, they embraced all the teachable moments in the billion-dollar “Barbie“ film phenomenon that resonates across the ages and genders.

No one had to talk Dr. Christopher Okiishi, 53, of Iowa City, into seeing it. A psychiatrist and theater professional, he went opening weekend with his husband, another couple — and Okiishi’s reluctant mother-in-law. She just wanted to go to a movie, and asked if she could come along.

“She thought we were joking that we were seeing a Barbie movie, and when we actually walked into the theater (she) said, ‘What are we doing here?’ ... By the time it was over, she's like, ‘I get it now.’ ”

Okiishi gets it, too.

“My initial impression was that it was really, really smart,” he said. “I thought the idea of the world that it created — a place that was clearly in the imagination of the people who were playing with the Barbie figures, and what that would feel like from the perspective of toys — was fascinating. They never really eat and there's not really any walls and they don't really take showers and they don't walk down the stairs, they are picked up and deposited into cars or wherever they are. And some of the characters do have jobs, but they perform them in a stylized way.”

It’s female-centric, with a female president, an all-female Supreme Court, and women holding all the power, whether on the job or organizing nightly parties — to which the men are invited. But they can’t stay over, because that would be weird. And Ken can’t kiss Barbie, because that would be weird.

But weird also is celebrated, with Weird Barbie living apart from everyone else in her weird, colorful house on the hill, not in a perfectly pink dream house on a perfectly pink cul-de-sac. Her once-golden locks have been chopped up, her “makeup” is scribbled on with markers in many colors, her clothes are mismatched, and she does awkward splits — a lot.

However, things get really weird when Stereotypical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, begins to think dark thoughts. To whom does she turn for advice? Weird Barbie, played to perfection by director/writer Greta Gerwig’s college friend, Kate McKinnon.

As the movie unfolds, Weird Barbie becomes physically less weird.

“You have to wonder the intention of the director,” Willems said. “Is that because her peers started to think like, ‘Oh, she's not so weird,’ or if Weird Barbie felt like ‘Oh, maybe I'm not so weird. Maybe I fit here.’ There's two pieces to that or maybe a bit of both is true, as is often the way things go in life.”

Representation

While the film embraces diversity, equity and inclusion, especially in ethnicity and body types, it doesn’t speak directly to LGBTQ+ viewers.

Willems, who teaches social studies and social sciences at Mount Vernon High School, and advocates for LGBTQ+ people, found Weird Barbie to be the role model for anyone who feels “different.”

“I think that if I was a queer kid looking for myself in the film, I would have a hard time perhaps finding myself in the film, specific to my queer identity. Perhaps I would find myself in a different characterization not related to that identity,” she said.

"And I think that every kid who has ever felt on the outside looking in has to love Weird Barbie, so Weird Barbie is my favorite. If I identify as anyone, it's Weird Barbie. I've watched my daughters mutilate and color and cut the hair of so many Barbies.

“And I am actually a breast cancer survivor, so I’m asymmetrical. I’ve had a mastectomy ... and I’ve lost my hair through chemotherapy,” she said. “I just love Weird Barbie. There’s such value in this unusual and imperfect Barbie that maybe gives space to people who aren’t conforming, whether that’s gender or whether that’s me as a cancer survivor.

“I think one of the struggles I also have with Barbie is that it's a very binary world — there's not a lot of space for someone who's not binary, and I think that Weird Barbie creates (the message) that different is not only OK, it can be really, really valuable and important in a society, because she's the go-to, she’s the problem-solver.

“I really think Weird Barbie is a really important character,” Willems said.

Anyone who has ever dressed a Barbie or Ken knows that while Barbie has breasts, neither the male nor female dolls have genitals, which also is pointed out in the movie.

“I think one of the things that it smartly does, is it sort of addresses the fact that the Barbie dolls, by the nature of the way they're built, are asexual,” Okiishi said. “So in one sense, it is addressing the LGBTQIA community, presenting asexual characters as legitimate and having full lives — and that is something that is grossly underrepresented.

“Everyone, in all forms of media, is expected to have a sexual life of some sort, or a romantic life in some way. And certainly, Ken is very much wanting a romantic life — he doesn't really understand what that is. But they are by nature, asexual beings,” Okiishi said.

“And so I think the movie sidestepped some of the other issues in that regard, but certainly addresses ideas of having an attraction towards someone that is not requited, and appropriate and inappropriate ways to deal with that, but also being honest about your romantic feelings for other people and the value in that,” he noted.

“And that also allows (it) to focus on gender without focusing on sex, which is in and of itself, a little revolutionary.”

But can the Barbie franchise be all things to all people?

“I think the overarching idea of how can one image symbolize all of a specific gender, and at the same time, subtly suggesting that a journey of real discovery for a human being is valuable and preferable in many ways to just fantasy,” Okiishi said.

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What about the boys?

“I think certainly the messaging about restricting people to very specific gender roles comes to human beings very early,” Okiishi said. “I think our messaging about ‘girls do this and boys do that’ or ‘you can't do that because you're a girl, you can't do that because you’re a boy’ is both explicitly and subtly communicated to all ages. So (this is) a movie that directly says and questions ‘is it fair to hold someone to simultaneously impossible standards.’

“And the other piece is, rarely do we see a pop culture film that so explicitly describes the ways in which rigid gender roles, which they refer to as the patriarchy, damages both men and women and everyone that buys into gender stereotypes,” Okiishi said. “Because the world was not better when the Kens attempted to take over, and the world was not better when they were just accessories to Barbie either.”

Whether the views are black and white, like the Real World that Barbie and Ken visit, or candy-coated, like the Barbie Land in which they live, “there’s nothing subtle here,” Willems said.

“You could look at this one of two ways. The narrative about the patriarchy is real clear from the director’s and writer’s perspective,” she said. “And I think the other side of that is that it’s really clear that Barbie underappreciated or undervalued Ken, and that is acknowledged, too. So does Ken, or do men, have a hard time in the film? Sure. And if you're willing to view it with some vulnerability, it might help us to have better conversations about whether it's gender roles or norms within families in our society.”

Conversation starters

As co-director of Harding Middle School show choir in Cedar Rapids, as well as a private voice and piano teacher, Ohrt sees many teachable moments in the movie.

“Middle schoolers are still trying to figure out who they are,” she said. “ ... It’s making good choices, learning how to work with people, remembering when it’s a good time to say things, and what’s appropriate to say. Teaching them to see things differently. There’s a whole lot of perspective in the Barbie movie.”

Those perspectives also can help young people relate to the way they’re feeling, too, Ohrt said, which can inform them how to express the emotions of a song they’re singing or a role they’re playing — as well as in real life.

Willems can see using the movie themes in her classrooms, too.

“I think any great conversation is one based on curiosity: ‘Who saw the Barbie movie this summer? And tell me what you thought?’ I just love to listen, and then maybe to ask clarifying questions to hear from students, or maybe to encourage students who haven't seen it to go and see it,” Willems said. “ ... It's valuable to hear from others and a teenage lens is going to be different than a 46-year-old woman's.”

And of course, the impassioned speech America Ferrera gives as Gloria, an overlooked Mattel employee and struggling mom in the Real World. Her words about society’s double-standards for women reportedly have made some audiences cheer and applaud.

“If you simply take one thing away from this film is that narrative that difficulty can lead to growth, and that it's so positive when that happens,” Willems said.

After seeing the film, Ohrt and her daughter, Rigley, turning 13 this week, polled her friends about their take-aways from the film:

“That you don't have to be perfect and that women are just as important as men.” And “You can do anything you put your mind to.”

“It felt like a love letter to all women and it really changed so many things about the way I see life.”

“I got the impression that you don't have to be ‘perfect’ to be beautiful because in general, everyone has a special beauty from within them. Although it’s hard to find the change inside yourself — it's always so worth it at the end of the line.”

“That I can be anything I want to be.” And “to love my mommy.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com