Barbie goes to Hollywood
Barbie is finally coming to the big screen.
The brains behind the blond icon have been trying to make a live-action Barbie movie happen for quite some time. Amy Schumer was initially attached to the project in December 2016, for a story about a Barbie who gets kicked out of Barbieland for not being perfect enough, setting her on a path to embracing inner beauty and individuality rather than unrealistic standards of perfection. A few months after the announcement, Schumer dropped out, citing scheduling conflicts, and was replaced by Anne Hathaway — who Vanity Fair declared to be the “perfect choice” because of her comedy chops — but the Princess Diaries star also later stepped away from the role.
Here we are in 2019, and it seems that the third time’s the charm because Mattel Films has announced that it has partnered with Warner Brothers to make the live-action Barbie, produced by and starring Margot Robbie. And let’s be real, with her slim figure, big blue eyes and blond hair, she definitely looks like the classic doll.
But isn’t that classic doll — and its history of perpetuating unrealistic and problematic beauty standards — exactly what we’ve been trying to move away from? I mean, the original Barbie wasn’t exactly the poster child for feminism.
Personally, I never saw myself reflected in my stash of Barbies. As a kid, I was once gifted an “Indian” Barbie, which was just a white Barbie in a red sari. Later, I got another sari-clad “Indian” Barbie, this one with exactly the same facial features as the classic doll, just painted brown. Mattel is doing a much better job these days, having made a conscious effort to produce more inclusive Barbies with different body shapes, sizes, heights and skin tones.
It’s also leaning into empowerment; for International Women’s Day 2018, the company released 17 dolls honouring modern-day role models including Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and badass artist Frida Kahlo. Time magazine even argued that the very fact that people constantly judge Barbie’s appearance rather than her 200 career-long resume might make her “the most feminist doll around.” But will Barbie’s feminist evolution be reflected on the big screen?
With Robbie stepping into the role of Barbie, it seems to reaffirm that while there are a lot of other dolls with darker skin tones or different body types in the Barbie family, they are just that. Other. The real Barbie remains unchanged.
(Her casting announcement already has some publications speculating who will play Ken, selecting only white men as potential options.) “Casting Margot Robbie as Barbie is kind of a predictable move,” says Stephanie Patrick, a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa’s Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies. “She’s very (conventionally) beautiful: blond hair, blue eyes, everything you would expect Barbie to look like. So in itself, that casting choice sort of suggests that it’s not going to be radically feminist.”
Gillian Goerz, who co-founded Toronto’s Drunk Feminist Films,
agrees and adds that by casting Robbie in the starring role, it cements the idea that while we may have seen different iterations of this character, the real Barbie adheres to white, heteronormative beauty standards. However, while Robbie playing Barbie raises some concerns, her role behind the camera gives both Goerz and Patrick hope. Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment, the company behind I, Tonya and an all-female Shakespeare TV series, will be producing the film, and the actor readily calls herself a feminist and has been outspoken about her journey to understanding what the word actually means. She also has a history of bringing complicated and nuanced female characters, such as Tonya Harding, to screen. Patrick suggests that Robbie’s involvement could lead to a Legally Blonde-like film. That is, a tongue-in-cheek parody on the ideas we have about Barbie and her history, with a message that is relevant to all girls and women today.
“I’m interested to see if this can develop into something better than maybe most people would expect it to be,” she says.