I haven't blogged for so long that it feels strange to come back here. But then I feel I must even though I am pounding away on my keyboard so late this night.
This is not a movie review.
I will leave that with those whose eloquence in dissecting films is far superior than my capacity to make movies. Rather, this is a reaction --- a knee jerk response after watching a film that everybody is obliged to see if only to prove one's level of taste and education.
This is supposed to be the miracle week: two big Hollywood films opened at the height of the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) and the Writers' Guild of America (WGA) strike. Whereas Hollywood is on fire while all productions are paralyzed, two of the most anticipated films opened to give that much needed boost to the box office in the post pandemic era.
Greta Gerwig's Barbie and Christopher Nolan's (yes, the Christopher Nolan) Oppenheimer opened the same time sending a frenzy of people rushing to cinemas (again) after staying away and learning the joys of Netflix binging because of that damn virus. But enough of that.
I felt it was somehow as "civil responsibility" to see these two films since they opened a day or two earlier in Manila because of our new movies open midweek while the Western world unfold their initial screenings during the weekend. I have also been told by those who saw the previews and the first day showing that Gerwig's Barbie was not what you think it is --- or nothing close to what was seen in the trailer.
Oh, OK.
I was also forewarned that this was going beyond kiddie entertainment (which probably meant that this was something more substantial than that inane Mario Brothers movie or all the recent attempts to Disney to be relevant by being so "woke."
"But this Barbie is 'woke"," a friend of mine said. I gasped.
For the record, I now grow hives everytime I hear 'woke' repeated more than three times in the same paragraph. I used to nod my head in agreement when I heard buzzwords like inclusiveness, empathy, non-binary, non-judgmental. These are words that want you to grab the hand of the one seated right next to you and sing Kumbaya or that old Coca-Cola jingle that goes, "I'd like to teach the world to sing ..." Whatever.
"Brace yourself," another friend warned me. "It is not what you think it is."
OK. I was excited because Greta Gerwig always surprised me. Lady Bird and Little Women charmed me. I even liked her as an actress in Jackie. And her husband Noah Baumbach (who wrote and directed Marriage Story) is my newfound idol. Now for both Greta and Noah to collaborate on this story of a Mattel legend, what could they have been thinking?
Well, yes: after watching the movie ... I am still asking what they could have been thinking.
So did this Barbie live up to my expectations?
Honestly, I do not know what to feel.
The very fact that this film was greenlighted by a major studio was already a major feat. The mere th0ught that Mattel agreed to have this project filmed (considering what it says about the toy giant ) is like the parting of the Red Sea. Did the producers know what Greta and Noah were planning to do?
Yes, the movie is woke. I
never imagined (well, maybe I could have) that this film is a series of statements about gender and how the masculine/feminine dichotomy is dictated by society. Barbieland as the antithesis of the Real World is underlined by the difference between the role of the titular doll with forever tilted feet with that of her vapid male consort, Ken.
All the glittery doll house like simulations of a fantastic soundstage set can be such visual overload while the stupefied audience is fed statement after statement about what it means to be a girl, a boy and a doll. Not only do you get a sensory overload but a lecture of the role of men and women in their biological co-existence.
Teka, this is a Barbie movie, right? I ... I came here to be entertained and not to be lectured on specific topics in Gender Studies.
Regardless of what I feel about the movie, one thing is for sure. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling threw themselves into their iconic doll roles with all the heart and sincerity humanly possible with their looks and talents. And if ever I did not laugh for any single moment in the entire nearly two hours of the showing, it was not because the actors did poorly but because I was overwhelmed by all the undertones of seeeeeriousness in what the movie wanted to say.
Napagod ako. And at times, inantok.
I guess that is the backlash of being woke. Even fun can turn out to be contrived.
When the lights went on and the screening ended, I realized I was literally surrounded by little girls and tweens.
All these giggly specimens of innocence on the verge of daunting adulthood were seemingly shell shocked by what they saw.
These little girls must have thought that they would get into a cuteness overload with all that pink splattered in front of their peripheral vision and projected larger than life. Rather, in the end, they had to wrestle with the concept of patriarchy and why Barbie ended the movie by going to a ... doctor.
The look of confusion can best summarize the bewilderment of puberty.
Like Barbie, The Movie ... you just don't know what pink thing hit you.
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