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    America Ferrera and the ‘Barbie’ Monologue We All Talked About

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    Listing some of the many perils of womanhood in a still patriarchal society, the monologue that the actress America Ferrera delivers in “Barbie” with the intensity of a rallying cry, became one of the most talked-about movie moments of 2023.“I’ve never been a part of something so eagerly anticipated,” Ferrera said during an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel restaurant. Originally from Los Angeles but based in New York, she was back in her hometown for an awards-season screening of the smash hit.Relaxed in a cozy beige sweater, Ferrera, 39, was recalling a prerelease press stop in Mexico City where 20,000 frenzied people welcomed the filmmaker Greta Gerwig and the cast of her pink-soaked comedy. “It was like a presidential campaign,” she added.Ferrera plays Gloria, mother and Mattel employee whose self-doubt and unfulfilled aspirations in the real world prompt an existential crisis in Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) in Barbie Land. Ferrera’s plucky performance has landed her in the Oscar discussion this year.Though Gloria might be considered a supporting player in “Barbie,” Ferrera knows that it’s her flawed character who sets the adventure in motion. The performer, who broke through in “Real Women Have Curves” (2002) and went on to win an Emmy for her turn as the title character in “Ugly Betty” (2006-10), deeply admires how Gerwig dared to infuse a seemingly vacuous concept with plenty of meaning.“It’s huge for something that is both so commercially successful and culturally dominant to also be about many things at the same time, which is not easy to execute in the biggest movie of the year,” Ferrera noted.Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.Has the massive success of “Barbie” come as a surprise to you?I went into reading the script with really no attachment to Barbie at all. I didn’t grow up playing with Barbies. I was more curious about what Greta would do with it. It wasn’t just funny and subversive and delightfully weird. It was also about womanhood. When I was done reading the script, I was just giddy that this was the Barbie movie that no one asked for, but we were going to get. I felt it was going to be huge from the beginning.Why did you never play with Barbies as a child?We couldn’t afford Barbies. She was very expensive along with all of her stuff. [Laughs] I had a cousin who had Barbies, and I would play with them at her house, but they also seemed very far away from me. I didn’t necessarily feel represented in the Barbie narrative. It felt like a world that wasn’t accessible to me.Some critics took issue with her monologue as an oversimplification, but Ferrera countered, “We can know things and still need to hear them out loud.”Amy Harrity for The New York TimesSince you didn’t have a personal attachment to Barbie, how did you find your way into the character of Gloria and this world?One of the things that really gave me a glimpse into this character was the documentary called “Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie” that showed when Barbie expanded into many different sizes and shapes and colors. The woman [Kim Culmone] who led that as the head Barbie designer, a very cool feminist progressive woman, was getting backlash from all sides: From the legacy holders saying, “Barbie can’t change.” And from her progressive friends, angry that she cared about Barbie. “Why would you care about something that has been so bad for women?”But she had her own deep personal connection to playing with Barbies with her mother. She fought for this idea that she knew was imperfect but that still meant something to her. That gave me the insight I needed to play Gloria as a real adult woman and to understand why she plays with Barbie and wishes herself to Barbie Land.What did you think the first time you saw Gloria’s now incredibly popular speech?It definitely felt like an important moment, but Gloria was shining from the very beginning. She represents this quest for the permission to express yourself. She has to play the role of Mom and of responsible career woman, while hiding everything she loves underneath the corporate suit, being what she thought she needed to be. From the moment we meet her with her pink sneakers on to her getting to drive in that car chase, there was so much wish fulfillment and release for somebody who has been repressing so much.The monologue felt so right for Gloria. Yes, it breaks the Barbies out of their moment, but it’s also the natural breaking point for Gloria, where she has to say what she’s discovering on this journey. I recognized that it was a big moment and that it needed to work, but it also didn’t work independent of her entire search for more freedom for herself.Did the speech change at all?The text evolved a little bit. Greta asked me, “Why don’t you just tell me what you would say? Write it in your own words. What would you add?” Not every director starts out by inviting actors to rewrite their work. Some of what we talked about made it into the script. The line, “Always be grateful” came out of that conversation with Greta. She expounded on it adding, “But never forget that the system is rigged.” There were many versions that we did. We ended in tears. It ended in laughter, it got big, it got small, and I was able to do that because I really trusted Greta to know what would be right for the film.What are your thoughts on the discourse that some people believe Gloria’s speech oversimplifies feminism?We can know things and still need to hear them out loud. It can still be a cathartic. There are a lot of people who need Feminism 101, whole generations of girls who are just coming up now and who don’t have words for the culture that they’re being raised in. Also, boys and men who may have never spent any time thinking about feminist theory.If you are well-versed in feminism, then it might seem like an oversimplification, but there are entire countries that banned this film for a reason. To say that something that is maybe foundational, or, in some people’s view, basic feminism isn’t needed is an oversimplification. Assuming that everybody is on the same level of knowing and understanding the experience of womanhood is an oversimplification.From left, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, who plays her daughter, and Margot Robbie.Warner Bros.Gloria’s story is deeply intertwined with that of Barbie. How do think the two help each other overcome their struggles?Greta, Margot and I talked about Gloria and Barbie’s relationship as a love story. Not necessarily a romantic one, which some people on the internet have pushed for that reading of it, but we talked about it as Barbie and Gloria needing each other to be complete and to be the pieces of a puzzle that’s missing for each of them. The journey releases Gloria of the impossible assignment of being the kind of woman that she thinks she needs to be in the real world. And Barbie releases her herself from having to be an idea that is never going to satisfy all the things she’s meant to satisfy by choosing to be a human.What was your reaction when you first saw the doll made in your image for the Barbie collection inspired by the movie?Surreal. There were actually some similarities to me in the facial features. She’s the first Barbie doll fashioned after a Honduran American woman to ever exist. That’s really special, to know that no one had a Honduran Barbie doll to play with until now.Do you feel like your career has always been marked by firsts, like being the first Latina to win a lead acting Emmy? There’s a lot of pressure in being the first.I just took any single opportunity in front of me to do the best possible work that I could do in the hopes that there would be another opportunity after that. Looking backward, it’s much clearer to see that my career has been shaped by how the culture saw somebody like me. The opportunities that came my way were ones that kept me in very specific boxes. What I saw as my job as an actor was to inject those characters with as much complexity as I could, and not just play characters that were a foil to an expectation.Have things improved for Latinas in Hollywood since “Real Women Have Curves”?It took Josefina López, who wrote it, 11 years to get that movie made. And when the movie was successful, it didn’t result in a watershed moment for Latina writers and directors and actresses being given tons of opportunities. As you stated, I’m the first Latina to win an Emmy in a lead category. I’m still the only one and that brings me no joy. While I would love to think that things are different today than they were 22 years ago when “Real Women Have Curves” was made, the data shows that in large part, it hasn’t changed.That makes me think of Lupe Ontiveros, who played your mother in “Real Woman Have Curves,” and who made a career out tiny roles she managed to turn into screen gold.Ferrera in her breakthrough role in “Real Women Have Curves,” opposite Lupe Ontiveros.HBO FilmsShe was such a force, an incredible talent. [Ontiveros died in 2012.] I often think about all the incredible performances we were robbed of, that Lupe never got to give because those opportunities didn’t exist for somebody like her. And she still did her work. She took whatever scraps would come to her and she would fill them with humor and make them memorable. I think about her often, and all the Latino actors who’ve come before me, who did whatever they could with whatever they got.What does the ideal future for Latinos in the industry look like to you?The hope is that we get to actually have outlets for the immense talent that exists among Latinos. And that we can move beyond fighting just to be visible and that we can actually create and exist as full humans, as artists, with things to say beyond, “We’re here.” But it’s hard to find those opportunities. There’s a lot out there that is very transactional in terms of checking boxes to claim diversity. One of the most exciting things to me about this movie was, as a Latina woman, being invited to be a part of something so adventurous and joyful and fun. Gloria is Latina, but being Latina was not her reason for being in this story. More

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      Stevie Nicks Unveils a Her Own Barbie at MSG

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      The performer worked with Mattel to create a doll in her likeness, wearing an outfit inspired by the one she wore on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.” She showed it off onstage at Madison Square Garden.Midway through Stevie Nicks’s concert at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, the musician told the audience that she had a “surprise,” prompting speculation among audience members about a potential unexpected guest: Could it be Lindsey Buckingham?It turned out that the special guest was a Barbie made to look like Nicks, and its musical abilities were limited to a tiny ribboned tambourine.Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie, officially unveiled the Stevie Nicks doll at midnight on Sunday, the latest addition to the world of Barbie tributes to musicians, including Tina Turner, David Bowie and Celia Cruz.(You may be thinking, that’s a lot of Barbie this year, and you are right. The audience at Madison Square Garden didn’t seem to mind.)Bradley Justice, a doll historian and proprietor of the Swell Doll Shop, which specializes in antique and vintage dolls, said that Mattel has been making celebrity dolls since the 1960s.“I see it as sort of a crossover branding, where you attract someone who previously may have not had an interest at all in the doll or the brand,” he said, “but suddenly is very excited to see their favorite singer or movie star or whatever immortalized in 11 and a half inches.”The Nicks doll’s outfit, as well as a pair of Pasquale Di Fabrizio black platform boots, was inspired by her look on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album “Rumours.”At the concert, Nicks explained that she sent the album cover outfit, which she still had decades later, to Mattel to capture that time in her life. To roaring cheers, Nicks began to speak in a high-pitched Barbie voice, explaining how much the doll meant to her.Nicks wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that when she looked at the doll, she saw herself at 27.“All the memories of walking out on a big stage in that black outfit and those gorgeous boots come rushing back,” Nicks said, “and then I see myself now in her face.”At the concert, Nicks also chose a fan in the front rows to take one doll home and promptly began to serenade the woman, named Sara, with the track bearing her name from the album “Tusk.”The doll went on sale hours later for $55, and preorders sold out almost immediately.Mr. Justice said that it was normal for the celebrity Barbie dolls to sell out quickly. “When you hear it’s coming, you need to just go ahead and start limbering up your fingers for your keyboard to type in your credit card number,” he said.The design team behind the Tina Turner doll studied Turner’s hair “at all angles.”The rush on the Nicks doll comes after decades of Mattel’s creation of Barbie dolls that honor influential musicians, athletes and pioneers.Mr. Justice said that one of the first celebrity Barbie dolls, released in 1969, depicted Diahann Carroll as the star of “Julia,” the first American television series to chronicle the life of a Black professional woman.More recently, Mattel released a doll of Celia Cruz, the Cuban American singer who was known as the Queen of Salsa. The Cruz doll, dressed in a red lace mermaid dress, was unveiled in 2021 but only went on sale this year.Carlyle Nuera, who designed that doll, said on Instagram that the design team had gone back and forth “with the fabric vendor to get the right scale of the lace design and to maximize the gold metallic threads woven throughout.”A Tina Turner doll that was released in October 2022 has sold out in stores, but it is available on eBay for hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars.That doll depicts Turner in the outfit she wore in the music video for “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”Turner, who died in May, was very involved with her doll’s design process, Bill Greening, a Mattel designer, said in a news release. Mr. Greening explained that the design team studied Turner’s hair “at all angles” to capture her look. “Lots of teasing and hair spray was involved!” he said.David Bowie has been honored with two Barbie dolls dressed in two of his classic outfits.Left, Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; Chris Pizzello/Associated PressDavid Bowie has been commemorated with two Barbie dolls dressed in tribute to two of his famous looks.Linda Kyaw-Merschon, who led the design of the second doll, which was released last year, said that it was meant to be a Barbie as Bowie, “not Bowie exactly as himself.”The doll was dressed in a replica of the powder blue suit Bowie wore in the “Life on Mars?” music video.The earlier Bowie doll, released in 2019, dressed as Bowie’s alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, wore a metallic red and blue striped get-up with siren-red platform boots and a gold circle on her forehead.The Stevie Nicks doll was released after a big year for Barbie. The Barbie movie released in July made more than $1 billion in ticket sales at the global box office in a few weeks, according to Warner Bros., and has created a windfall for Mattel.Nicks told USA Today that she loved the movie and said “I had to come home and tell my Stevie doll all about it.”Melina Delkic More

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      Mattel’s Windfall From ‘Barbie’

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      The company’s approach has paid off to a degree that even the C.E.O. could hardly have believed possible.When Ynon Kreiz arrived at Mattel in April 2018, the newly installed chief executive had one mantra when it came to a feature film starring Barbie, a project he really wanted to get off the ground: He didn’t care if the movie sold a single additional doll.But “Barbie” the film had to be good and a cultural event. It had to be different. It had to break molds.And if that meant turning the chief executive of Mattel — i.e., himself — into the object of comic ridicule in the portrayal of the chief executive character in the film (“vain and foolish to the nth degree,” as The Guardian put it), then so be it.That approach has paid off to a degree that even Mr. Kreiz could hardly have believed possible. “Barbie” is close to grossing $1.4 billion and passed one of the “Harry Potter” movies as the top-grossing Warner Bros. film of all time. It could end up near the $2 billion mark. (The record-holder is 2009’s “Avatar,” at $2.9 billion.)How Mattel pulled off a feat that had eluded the company for years was the subject of recent interviews with Mr. Kreiz; Robbie Brenner, Mattel’s executive producer of films; spokespeople for Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig, the film’s star and its writer-director; and others familiar with the doll’s sometimes tortuous path to the big screen.Mattel and Warner have jealously guarded their financial arrangements. But people with knowledge of their agreement said Mattel earned 5 percent of the box office revenue, as well as a percentage of eventual profits as a producer of the movie and additional payments as owner of the Barbie intellectual property rights. At $2 billion in box office revenue, that amounts to $100 million. In addition, there are sales of merchandise connected to the movie as well as an expected boost in sales of dolls.Representatives for Mattel and Warner declined to comment on the financial arrangements, though the company’s chief financial officer said at a conference on Thursday that the company would make about $125 million in total billings from the film.Even though Barbie results weren’t reflected in Mattel’s latest earnings, released July 26, all anyone wanted to talk about at the earnings call was “Barbie.” Mr. Kreiz hailed the film as a “milestone moment” in the company’s strategy to “capture the value of its I.P.” and demonstrate its ability to attract and team up with top creative talent — a cornerstone of its ambitious slate of more toy-themed movies.After the first “Barbie” trailer — showing a hyper-blond, Day-Glo-clad Ms. Robbie and Ryan Gosling skating along Venice Beach — went viral in December, anticipation started building. Mattel stock has been on a tear. It has gained 33 percent, from $16.24 on Dec. 19 to this week’s $21.55. The S&P 500 rose 16 percent over the same period.Wall Street has been reluctant to give much credit to one hit, on the theory that such success is hard to replicate. (“Barbie” has had no discernible impact on Warner Bros. Discovery’s stock price.)But for Mattel, the positive impact of “Barbie” goes far beyond just one film. The company’s yearslong strategy to become a major film producer, using its vast storehouse of toys as intellectual property, had been met in Hollywood with skepticism, if not outright mockery. A-list talent wasn’t lining up to direct a plush purple dinosaur like Barney. But now the perception that Mattel’s leadership is willing to trust and support an unorthodox creative team that delivered both a box office bonanza and a possible awards contender has radically altered that.And Mattel’s surprising willingness to make fun of itself was one of the elements that mostly delighted critics and added to the buzz that roped in many more moviegoers than the “Barbie” fan base.That Mr. Kreiz was willing to laugh at his own caricature came as something as a surprise to some acquaintances and former colleagues. An Israeli military veteran with dual Israeli and British citizenship, a former professional wind surfer, an avid kite surfer and a fitness buff, with more than a passing resemblance to a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger, the 58-year-old Mr. Kreiz comes across as more of a square-jawed G.I. Joe action hero than a Barbie fan with a sense of humor.Mr. Kreiz’s entire career was in media and entertainment, not retail. His longtime mentor, the Power Rangers entrepreneur and billionaire Haim Saban, hired him fresh out of the University of California, Los Angeles, to launch Fox Kids Europe, a joint venture with Fox. He later ran Maker Studios, a YouTube aggregator, which Disney acquired in 2014. Mr. Kreiz left in 2016, and Maker was folded into the Disney Digital Network in 2017.That “Barbie” even got made was no small feat. It had languished at Sony for years, with Mattel routinely renewing the option, as various writers struggled to adapt the doll for the big screen. Although one of the most popular toys ever, Barbie was the subject of intense controversy, seen both as a symbol of female empowerment and as an impossible standard of beauty and femininity. The only feasible approach seemed a parody. The comedian Amy Schumer was once slated for the part. But scripts came and went.Ynon Kreiz, the chief executive of Mattel, and Robbie Brenner, a producer of “Barbie.”Rozette Halvorson for The New York TimesWeeks after becoming chief executive in 2018, Mr. Kreiz refused to renew the Sony option, according to multiple people interviewed for this article. He called Ms. Robbie’s agent and asked for a meeting. Ms. Robbie was among the most sought-after young actresses in Hollywood, fresh from acclaimed performances in diverse roles — as the ill-fated ice skater Tonya Harding in “I, Tonya”; in Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street”; and as a fixture in Warner’s DC Comics universe as Harley Quinn, the Joker’s former girlfriend. And while no human could replicate Barbie’s exaggerated dimensions, Ms. Robbie came reasonably close, while also radiating wholesome beauty.Ms. Robbie was simultaneously reaching out to Mattel and Mr. Kreiz after learning that the “Barbie” option hadn’t been renewed. She was looking for a potential franchise to take to Warner, where her production company, LuckyChap, had a first-look deal. But she wasn’t looking to star in the film herself.Over breakfast at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the plush entertainment and celebrity hangout not far from Mattel’s less glamorous El Segundo headquarters, Mr. Kreiz shared his vision: He didn’t want to make movies in order just to sell toys. He wanted something fresh, unconventional, bold.“Our vision for Barbie was someone with a strong voice, a clear message, with cultural resonance that would make a societal impact,” he said, recalling his message.Mr. Kreiz’s obvious enthusiasm and determination, and his pitch for creative integrity make him hard to resist, as Ms. Brenner, a producer, discovered when he recruited her to run the newly created Mattel film division during another meal at the Polo Lounge. Ms. Brenner, a respected producer and an Academy Award nominee for “Dallas Buyers Club,” was attracted to his idea for the movie. In Mr. Kreiz’s vision, Mattel would be as much a movie company as a toy company. The two bonded after he asked her who should play Barbie, and she, too, volunteered Ms. Robbie.At their first meeting, Ms. Robbie suggested Ms. Gerwig for the director. The two were friends and had talked about working together. Mr. Kreiz loved the idea in part because it was so unexpected — Ms. Gerwig had directed and written acclaimed but offbeat independent films like “Frances Ha,” “Lady Bird” and a new take on the classic “Little Women,” but no big-budget fare.“Lady Bird” was one of Ms. Brenner’s favorite movies. But would Ms. Gerwig consider such a mass-market, commercial proposal?Ms. Gerwig, it turned out, had played with Barbie dolls and loved them. She even had old photos of herself playing with Barbie. Ms. Brenner met with Ms. Gerwig and her partner, Noah Baumbach, also an acclaimed screenwriter and director, at an editing facility in New York. They kicked around a few ideas, but nothing concrete emerged. Anything seemed possible.A deal was struck, and Warner signed on as co-producer. Once Ms. Gerwig was on board, Ms. Robbie agreed to star.At which point Ms. Gerwig and Mr. Baumbach retreated. “I know it’s not conventional and not what you’re used to, but we have to go into a room for a few months. That’s how we work and want to do it,” as Ms. Gerwig put it, Mr. Kreiz recalled.The script for “Barbie” — starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and directed by Greta Gerwig — “was like going on this crazy ride,” Ms. Brenner said.Warner Bros.When the script did land in Ms. Brenner’s email, it was 147 pages — the length of a Quentin Tarantino film, epic by Hollywood standards. She closed her office door and started reading. “It was like going on this crazy ride,” she recalled. It broke rules, including the so-called fourth wall, addressing the audience directly. It poked fun at Mattel.New to the company, Ms. Brenner didn’t know if this would prove too much for Mattel executives. But she believed it was a great script.Ms. Brenner’s first call was to Mr. Kreiz. “I’ve read a lot of scripts, and this is so different,” she told him. “It’s special. You don’t get this feeling many times in an entire career.”Mr. Kreiz read the script twice, back to back. “It was deep, provoking, unconventional and imaginative,” he said. “It was everything I was hoping it would be.”Ms. Brenner was pleasantly surprised. “Ynon is a very confident person,” she said. “He can laugh at himself.”At one point Mr. Kreiz flew to London, where “Barbie” sets were being built at Warner’s studio outside the city. He and Ms. Gerwig spent a half-hour discussing the perfect shade of pink.Mr. Kreiz and Ms. Brenner knew they had a potential hit. “It was our secret that we couldn’t talk about,” Ms. Brenner recalled.The original budget target of $80 million jumped above $120 million once Ms. Gerwig was signed. But even that wouldn’t realize the director’s full vision for the film. For Warner executives it was a struggle to find what are known as “comps,” similar films that had grossed enough to justify such an outlay.Would “Barbie” be another “Charlie’s Angels” from 2019 — which was budgeted at $55 million but grossed only $73 million and, after marketing costs, lost money? Or another “Wonder Woman” from 2017, budgeted at over $100 million, with a worldwide gross of $822 million?Eventually the budget hit $141 million and, with some reshoots, ultimately topped $150 million.On opening night, July 21, Mr. Kreiz took his 19-year-old daughter to the Regal cinema complex at Union Square in Manhattan. As they neared the theater, droves of moviegoers — and not just young girls — were heading to it in pink outfits. Five screenings were in progress. All were sold out.Mr. Kreiz and his daughter dropped in and out to gauge audience reactions. People laughed, applauded and in a few cases shed tears.Of course the success of “Barbie” has drastically raised the bar — and expectations — for Mattel’s movies in development, starting with “Masters of the Universe,” written and directed by the brothers Adam and Aaron Nee. Twelve more films are in various stages of development, including a “Hot Wheels” produced by J.J. Abrams, also at Warner. Some of these may need to be rethought.And there will no doubt be “Barbie” sequels, perhaps even a James Bond-like franchise, which would be Mr. Kreiz’s ultimate fantasy (although he said it was too soon to discuss any such plans).Mr. Kreiz acknowledged that in a notoriously fickle and unpredictable business, future success is hardly assured. But “Barbie” has given Mattel momentum — the beginning of what he calls “a multiyear franchise management strategy.” More

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      Barbie and Ken and Nothing in Between

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      For one trans viewer, Greta Gerwig’s hit offers both a too-pat idea of gender and a complex view of humanity.This article contains spoilers for “Barbie.”In Barbie Land, there are Barbies, and there are Kens. For every Barbie (in this case Margot Robbie), there must be a Ken (Ryan Gosling) who supports her, props her up and longs to exist within her gaze. Are there other dolls who live here? Yes, but they are on the edges, either because they are discontinued models (like Ken’s friend Allan, played by Michael Cera) or because they were created as second fiddles to Barbie (beloved, long-suffering Skipper).This binary has existed since the alternate universe’s founding in 1959, when the first Barbie doll went to market. It is a gender-swapped version of our own world’s hierarchy. The director Greta Gerwig’s smash hit “Barbie” is an opportunity to introduce a presumably younger audience to basic tenets of feminism (patriarchy, double standards for men and women, the male gaze, etc.) in a funny, candy-coated context. But as Barbie and Ken move from their world to ours, the story grows more complicated, yet its depiction of gender remains rooted in the overly simplistic vision of Barbies and Kens.Using them to provide a baby’s first feminism course makes perfect sense. After all, this duality is drilled into us as children early and often. Think of the very toy aisles that hold different products for boys and girls. Children themselves know which toys are “meant” for them, and they also know there might be harsh reprisal from peers or authority figures should they play with the “wrong” ones. In 2023, a caring parent would probably say that it’s OK if a boy plays with Barbie or a girl with G.I. Joe, but that allowance itself props up a pat view, one that “Barbie” feeds into.As a trans woman who writes and thinks a lot about film, I found the movie’s approach both deeply frustrating and strangely resonant. Yes, the film does well by trans people in some regards, especially by casting the trans performer Hari Nef as Doctor Barbie and giving her plenty to do. She isn’t just on hand to score “we love trans people!” points. Yet the film’s story line and its politics set up a kind of pure distillation of womanhood that seems specifically rooted in the cisgender experience and affords little room for anything outside a rigid understanding of gender.The film gives Hari Nef, second from right, plenty to do as Doctor Barbie.Warner Bros. PicturesNontraditional dolls can exist in Barbie Land but they have to be created through play, as happens with Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who has unnaturally chopped-off hair and marker drawings all over her face. Perhaps there are nonbinary dolls in Barbie Land, if children came up with them, but Mattel seems unlikely to manufacture such a doll anytime soon.As an alternate universe, Barbie Land is one thing, but its facile vision continues to be the film’s primary model for how the world works on our plane of existence. You could imagine a version of the film’s two-worlds setup that explores the split between how Barbie Land approaches gender and our own society’s much more complicated relationship to it, replicating the way children think in more nuanced ways about these ideas as they grow up.In practice, it mostly amounts to some quick scenes depicting how patriarchy functions in reality before Ken imports it to Barbie Land and disrupts the social order. There isn’t room for a Barbie Land with Barbies, Kens and a spectrum encompassing every point in between.Several trans women I know object to the film’s final line, in which Barbie, now a human, goes to a gynecologist. In this critique, the ending suggests that genitalia equals womanhood. I don’t agree with that reading; the final 15 minutes are about the thorny weight of being human, a state of reality that necessarily involves, for example, gynecologist appointments.I still understand why the line bothered the objectors. Trans people have been reading ourselves into narratives that don’t directly involve us as long as there have been stories, and this has happened with “Barbie,” too. Some nonbinary viewers have found common cause with Allan, a good-hearted doll who exists outside the Barbie vs. Ken duality. He eventually rejects the premise of the patriarchy and helps the Barbies defeat it.Yet when the movie reaches its climax and the Barbies have retaken their world from the Kens, they return to the old divide, resubjugating the Kens and installing themselves as the good and just power.At times, “Barbie” seems interested in the idea that this whole binary has been constructed for them by others. Thus that system is deeply broken and unfair to both Barbies and Kens. The characters know that they have creators at Mattel, that their world and its divide has literally been made by someone else and is fundamentally false. Instead of pushing against that, though, they prove largely willing to exist within it.Fighting the creators might prove too difficult, and at any rate, it wouldn’t allow Mattel, which produced the movie, to sell more toys. Trans people understand too well that one way society pretends to accept us is by marketing to us, but “Barbie” doesn’t even bother to do that.And yet part of me did find a lovely mirror of the trans feminine experience in the last 15 minutes. The war for Barbie Land over, Barbie realizes that life there is restrictive and false and that she wants to live in our world, with all its chaos and complications. She chooses to become real with the assistance of Ruth Handler, the woman who created Barbie in the first place. (Handler is played by Rhea Perlman from “Cheers,” which is a cosmology I can get behind.)The moment reminded me, deeply, of when I realized how artificial my time trying to live “as a man” had been. When I came out, a lifetime of emotions and experiences I had been holding at bay flooded me, and I realized what it meant to be “real,” or, to put it another way, to be human. Humanness is inherently messy, and as the film embraces that messiness, it finds space outside its dualities, space where trans people can thrive.The film’s finale suggests that our lives as humans are united by fundamental truths that supersede all of the false binaries we have constructed to imprison ourselves. As Barbie realizes, to be human is to accept that we are all born, and we all die. Hopefully along the way we find people and things that give our lives meaning, yet that meaning doesn’t arrive automatically. We must find and embrace it for ourselves.You are, as Barbie reminds Ken, not your girlfriend or your job. You need to be Kenough on your own. More

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      ‘Barbie’ Debuts in Saudi Arabia, Sparking Delight, and Anger

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      Denounced in some Middle Eastern countries for undermining traditional gender norms, the hit movie is finding an audience in Saudi Arabia, illustrating the region’s shifting political landscape.On Friday night, Mohammed al-Sayed donned a pale pink shirt and denim overalls to join a friend at a movie theater in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where the men settled in to watch a film about a doll on a mission to dismantle the patriarchy.Similar scenes played out across the conservative Islamic kingdom last weekend, as women painted their nails pink, tied pink bows in their hair and draped pink floor-length abayas over their shoulders for the regional debut of the movie, “Barbie.” While critics across the Middle East have called for the film to be banned for undermining traditional gender norms, many Saudis ignored them.They watched as the movie imagined a matriarchal society of Barbie dolls where men are eye candy. They laughed when a male character asked, “I’m a man with no power; does that make me a woman?” They snapped their fingers in delight as a mother delivered a monologue about the strictures of stereotypical femininity. Then, they emerged from the darkened theaters to contemplate what it all meant.“The message is that you are enough — whatever you are,” said Mr. al-Sayed, 21, echoing the Ken doll’s revelation.“We saw ourselves,” said Mr. al-Sayed’s friend, Nawaf al-Dossary, 20, wearing a matching pink shirt.Watching Barbie’s search for identity and meaning, Mr. al-Sayed said he was reminded of the fraught period when he started college and wasn’t sure of his place in the world. He said he believed that the movie had important lessons for men as well as women.“I felt like my mom should see the film,” he said.“All of our families — all families,” Mr. al-Dossary said, laughing.That this was happening in Saudi Arabia — one of the most male-dominated countries in the world — was mind-boggling to many in the Middle East. When “Barbie” opened on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, it arrived suddenly and overwhelmingly. Moviegoers rushed to prepare Barbie-pink outfits. Some theaters scheduled more than 15 showings a day.Moviegoers wore pink during a screening of “Barbie” in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday.Ali Haider/EPA, via ShutterstockA snide headline in the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat declared that Saudi cinemas had become “havens for Gulf citizens escaping from harsh restrictions” — a twist in a country whose people once had to drive to Bahrain to watch movies.Eight years ago, there were no movie theaters in the Saudi kingdom, let alone any showing films about patriarchy. Women were barred from driving. The religious police roamed the streets, enforcing gender segregation and shouting at women to cover up from head to toe in black.Since he rose to power, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 37, has done away with many of those restrictions while simultaneously increasing political repression, imprisoning conservative religious clerics, leftist activists, critical businessmen and members of his own family.Even now, despite sweeping social changes, Saudi Arabia remains a state built around patriarchy. By law, the kingdom’s ruler must be a male member of the royal family, and while several women have ascended to high-ranking positions, all of Prince Mohammed’s cabinet members and closest advisers are men. Saudi women may be pouring into the work force and traveling to outer space, but they still need approval from a male guardian to marry. And gay and transgender Saudis face deep-seated discrimination, and sometimes arrest.So as word spread through the kingdom that “Barbie” would debut on a delayed schedule — a sign that government censors were most likely deliberating over it — many Saudis thought the movie would be banned, or at least heavily censored. Bolstering their expectations was the fact that neighboring Kuwait banned the film last week.Lebanon’s culture minister, Muhammad Al-Murtada, also called for the film to be banned, saying that it violated local values by “promoting homosexuality” and “raising doubts about the necessity of marriage and building a family.” It is unclear if the government will follow his recommendation.Even in Arab nations that have allowed the film to be shown, it has faced intense criticism. The Bahraini preacher Hassan al-Husseini shared a video with one million Instagram followers calling the movie a Trojan horse for “corrupt agendas.”Even while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has done away with many social restrictions in Saudi Arabia, he has increased political repression.Pool photo by Ludovic MarinAnd in Saudi Arabia, not everyone is receptive to the film. To the entrepreneur Wafa Alrushaid, who suggested that the film be banned in her country, its messages are a “distortion of feminism.”“I’m a liberal person who has called for freedom for 30 years, so this isn’t about customs and traditions, but the values of humanity and reason,” she told The New York Times. The film, she argued, excessively victimizes women and vilifies men, and she objected to the fact that a transgender actress had played one of the Barbies.“This film is a conspiracy against families and the world’s children,” Ms. Alrushaid, 48, declared.Many Arab critics of the movie expressed views similar to those of some American politicians and right-wing figures who have castigated the film as anti-male. The tussle in the Middle East over the movie illustrates how battles that sometimes echo the so-called U.S. culture wars are playing out on a different landscape.The animated film “Lightyear,” which showed two female characters kissing, was banned in several countries in the region last year. And six Gulf Arab countries issued an unusual statement last year demanding that Netflix remove content that violates “Islamic and societal values and principles,” threatening to take legal action.In Kuwait, religious conservatives have become more vocal in recent years, Gulf analysts say, broadcasting views that many Saudis would be hesitant to express in public now, fearing repercussions from the government.“Banning the movie ‘Barbie’ fits into a larger tilt to the right that’s increasingly felt in Kuwait,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University. “Islamist and conservative forces in Kuwait are relishing in these culture wars to prove their ascendancy.”Some Kuwaitis expressed astonishment that they would have to travel to the Saudi kingdom to watch the movie. Many pointed out the irony that Kuwait and Lebanon, despite objecting to the film, had long provided greater freedom of expression than many other Arab countries.Streaming out of movie theaters in Riyadh, people who watched “Barbie” seemed to leave with their own understanding.Lining up for “Barbie” in Dubai. Many Arab critics of the movie have expressed views similar to those of some American right-wing figures who have castigated the film as anti-male.Ali Haider/EPA, via ShutterstockYara Mohammed, 26, said that she had enjoyed the movie, dismissing the Kuwaiti ban as “drama.”“Even if kids saw it, it’s so normal,” she said.To Abrar Saad, 28, the message was simply that “the world doesn’t work without Ken or Barbie; they need to complete each other.”But to teenage girls like Aljohara and Ghada — who were accompanied by an adult and asked to be identified only by their first names because of their ages — the film felt deeper.“The idea was pretty realistic,” said Aljohara, 14, wearing a hot pink shirt underneath her black abaya. She said she liked that the film ended with a type of equality between men and women.“But it wasn’t nice that it ended with equality,” interjected Ghada, 16. “Because I feel like equality is a little bit wrong; I feel like it’s better for there to be equity because there are things a boy can’t do but you can do them.”Asked if they ever thought they would watch such a movie in Saudi Arabia, both exclaimed, with laughter: “No!”“I was expecting them to censor a lot of scenes,” Ghada said.In fact, it did not appear censors had cut anything major. A scene in which Barbie declares that she has no vagina and Ken no penis remained, as well as a scene with the transgender actress. The Arabic subtitles were rendered faithfully — including the word patriarchy.Hwaida Saad More

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      This Isn’t Barbie’s First Time Onscreen: She’s Been a Movie Star for Decades

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      Before Margot Robbie’s live-action take on the doll, Mattel put out more than a dozen animated films that have an avid following, even now.Every Christmas season starting when I was 5, my sister and I had a go-to movie: “Barbie in the Nutcracker.”We’d pop in the VHS tape and watch Barbie as Clara dance the night away with the Nutcracker on a journey to find the Sugarplum Princess and defeat the Mouse King. We cheered as she landed her prince and consoled each other when she lost him again.It was just the tip of our fandom for the animated Barbie films that Mattel began releasing at a rate of around one per year beginning with “Nutcracker” in 2001 and eventually totaling about 40 films. Our affection came to encompass VHS tapes of the first five princess movies, as well as my “Barbie of Swan Lake” eighth birthday party with an Odette ice cream cake and pink paper-swan tiaras (which my 70-something grandfather gamely donned).Though Greta Gerwig’s new live-action “Barbie,” which just crossed $1 billion at the box office, has been a smash, attracting reams of pink-clad moviegoers to cheer Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie and lust after Ken’s tie-dye “I Am Kenough” hoodie, it’s hardly the first beloved movie to feature the doll, as my sister and I well knew. But until recently, I thought the hold the animated films had on us was unique.And then I learned that there’s a whole generation obsessed with them, drawn perhaps by nostalgia for a simpler time of sparkly princess gowns, beautiful music and, despite a few obstacles, happy endings for Barbie and her friends.On college campuses across the country, 20-somethings host watch parties, mainlining hours at a time of the 90-minute animated adventures, the earliest of which feature classical scores played by illustrious outfits like the London Symphony Orchestra and star villains voiced by name actors like Martin Short (the traitorous Preminger in “The Princess and the Pauper”) and Tim Curry (a conniving Mouse King).There are dozens of TikTok accounts devoted to clips from the movies. On eBay, play sets associated with the earlier films — like the royal music palace from “Princess and the Pauper” — can command upward of $1,000.“There’s so much positivity in the movies, friendship, and love, that people can’t not love them,” said Hannah, a 26-year-old Barbie cosplayer in Neuberg, Germany. (The New York Times agreed to identify her only by her first name because of privacy concerns.) Since 2016, she has run a popular Instagram account in which she posts photos of herself dressed up as the franchise’s heroines, like Odette, Rapunzel and Clara. (“Nutcracker” is her favorite film.) The heroine always had to be portrayed as “kind, clever, brave,” said Kelly Sheridan, who voiced the doll in “Barbie of Swan Lake” (2003) and other entries in the franchise.Artisan EntertainmentOne reason she is so drawn to the early animated films, Hannah said, is the gorgeous backdrops and the fabulous fairy-tale wardrobe.“At first, my idea of making a Barbie ball gown for myself caused a lot of people around me to shake their heads and laugh,” she said. But she wanted to show them “that I could be whatever I wanted.”Even, she added, a princess.The success of the animated films, at first glance, is not obvious: The one regarded as the best, “The Princess and the Pauper,” sits at just 75 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics have been lukewarm, with The New York Times calling “Barbie in the Nutcracker,” the first installment, a “pallid but likable” tale for “very small children.” Aspects like the greedy, hooknosed villain of “Swan Lake” have not aged well, provoking criticism for antisemitic tropes.The problems are painfully obvious to me now. But, on a recent rewatch, I also saw what had initially engrossed me and my sister: Barbie is incorruptible, resistant to the human forces of temptation, pride, selfishness. By the rules of fairy-tale logic — good things happen to good people — her happy ending is a foregone conclusion.Kelly Sheridan, the Canadian actress who voiced Barbie in 28 of the films between 2001 and 2015, said the initial mantra for the Barbie character was “kind, clever, brave.”“Barbie was flawless,” Sheridan, 46, said in a recent phone conversation from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia. “She could do no wrong.”For instance, in “Nutcracker,” the script initially had Barbie as Clara stumbling when she carried a tray and catching herself before spilling it contents. But a meeting of the film’s producers and Mattel representatives led to a change because, Sheridan said, “Barbie would never stumble.”Another time, when she was recording the scene in which Clara confronts the Mouse King, a Mattel representative asked if Barbie could sound less angry. “Because Barbie would never be angry, even confronting the villain,” she said. “She was always kind, clever and brave.”The reins had loosened, she said, by the 16th film, “Barbie and the Three Musketeers,” in which an athletic, ambitious Barbie engages in sword fights. The studio, she said, realized people actually wanted to relate to her.“She was able to be more silly and goofy and to have more comedic moments,” she said.By the career-focused titles of the mid-2010s, Barbie had shed her princess gowns for pants. Now, she was exploring space, going on spy missions and designing video games.The artist known as Purcy, a 22-year-old illustrator who on Instagram posts her work picturing Barbie as various characters from the animated films, has seen 33 of the films. (She also asked not to use her full name for privacy reasons.) The ones she rewatches the most are set in the modern day, like her favorite, “Barbie: Princess Charm School.”The Barbie of those films, she said, “showed us that we can be kind, caring, feel love, love pink, while also be strong and standing up for ourselves.”For Hannah, the best Barbie animated films will always be the original princess tales.Whenever she attends a cosplay event or posts a photo of her costumes on Instagram, she said, both men and women approach her to share childhood memories they associate with the movies and the dolls.“Barbie connects us,” she said. More

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      How ‘Barbie’ Set Designers Brought Those Dreamhouses to Life

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      To make their Barbieland sets a reality, the movie’s production team embraced the surreal, going big on bright pinks and shrunken proportions.While working on films like “Atonement,” “Anna Karenina” and “Darkest Hour,” the production designer Sarah Greenwood and the set decorator Katie Spencer, both Oscar nominees many times over, had to turn soundstages into period-accurate sets, using their extraordinary attention to detail to embroider these spaces with texture and soul.And while those jobs were demanding — if even one thing looked wrong, it could dispel the film’s period illusion — they proved to be no match for the bright-pink studio comedy that is Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”“It was one of the most difficult philosophical, intellectual, cerebral pieces of work we’ve ever done,” Greenwood told me last week during a video call with Spencer. “How can that be? It’s ‘Barbie.’ But it really was.”Then again, since the film works on several levels, many things about “Barbie” are headier than you might expect: Though it’s a big-budget film based on a Mattel toy, Gerwig and her co-writer, Noah Baumbach, pose plenty of significant questions about life and womanhood throughout. And in the visually dazzling Barbie Dreamhouses that Greenwood and Spencer designed — where Margot Robbie, as Barbie, and Ryan Gosling, as Ken, performed — even the smallest details in the background required many months of existential pondering.“Everything is considered,” Spencer said. “Absolutely everything.”Though Gerwig came on board the project as a bona fide Barbie aficionado, Greenwood and Spencer had no personal history with the doll. “Neither of us had Barbie growing up,” Spencer said. “I suppose we were like a lot of the population, quite judgmental about Barbie in a way.”The film’s primary color was a vivid fuchsia. The production cleaned its paint supplier out of every pail they had.Warner Bros.Still, captivated by Gerwig’s enthusiasm, the two women threw themselves into intense research. Their directive was to preserve a sense of play, which is why Barbie’s home has no stairs: Why would a doll deign to descend a flight of steps when she could take a circular pink slide or, even better, float gracefully down from the roof as if guided by the invisible hand of a child?“We all had to believe in it as much as if it was a space movie or period movie,” Spencer said. “We had to research it as though it was set in 1780.”First, the designers studied a vintage Barbie Dreamhouse, finding it to be much more cramped than they anticipated: A classically proportioned Barbie could graze the ceiling of each room with a simple upward swivel of her arm.To simulate that feel, “the Dreamhouses in the film are 23 percent smaller than they would be, as are the cars and roads,” Greenwood said. “When you scale the house down, you make the actors like Margot and Ryan seem bigger, which makes the whole thing seem ‘toy.’”Instead of adapting the Dreamhouses to feel more real, Greenwood and Spencer played up their surreality. When Barbie opens her refrigerator, most of the foods are simply flat cartoon decals. Her oversize cup contains no liquid — why should it, when Barbies don’t drink? — and the size of her toothbrush is even more exaggerated, since it’s the kind of prop a child might find included in a dollhouse.“Once you’ve done that once or twice, those moments of dollness, it makes the whole thing believable,” Spencer said.With few walls to speak of, Barbie Dreamhouses are the definition of “open plan,” which presented its own logistical problems. “You’re designing something that isn’t there, in effect,” said Greenwood, who drew inspiration from museum dioramas to conjure layers of background that would help fill each shot. Since our main Barbies live in a cul-de-sac — in fact, it’s the dot of the “i” in the cursive roads that spell “Barbieland” — each Dreamhouse looks out into several other Dreamhouses, while the blue sky and mauve mountains that surround them were hand-painted onto an 800-foot-long backdrop meant to recall old-fashioned soundstage musicals.If it feels artificial, that’s the point: Why preserve the fourth wall for homes that barely have any walls to begin with? “It’s fake-fake, which is perfect,” Greenwood said. “It was almost Brechtian, the way Greta approached it.”Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie. Her home stands in contrast to the style of the film’s Barbie Dreamhouses.Warner Bros.There is no actual fire in Barbie’s fireplace, nor water in her pool, since Barbieland is devoid of all elements and is as hermetically sealed as a toy box. There aren’t even whites, blacks or browns: Anything in a Dreamhouse that would typically be those colors is just a different shade of pink, with a primary fuchsia so vivid that the production cleaned its paint supplier out of every pail they had.“All the other colors, like the blues, had to up the ante,” Greenwood said, referring to their intensity.The cul-de-sac Dreamhouses were designed in a midcentury-modern style that evokes the time period when Barbie was invented. “We kept coming back to the aesthetic of Palm Springs,” Spencer said. In contrast to those homes, distinguished by clean and simple lines, was the postmodern house on a hill owned by Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) — a riot of weird angles and clashing colors, as if Pee-wee’s Playhouse emerged in the middle of a carefully constructed pop-up book.“It was once a Dreamhouse, and it all went a little bit cockeyed, like her,” Greenwood said. “Nothing there was straight, in any sense of the word.”Like its owner, whose face is covered in scribble marks, the walls of Weird Barbie’s house are adorned in doodle patterns and swirls, and there are plenty of other colors on display besides pink. (The primary color on one wall is even, gasp, green.) The other Barbies treat her domicile as if it were a witch’s house, but you can’t deny that Weird Barbie has an eye. Greenwood and Spencer singled out her irregular rainbow rug as a favorite that everyone hoped to take home.“We all wanted her rug, but it’s gone into the Warner Bros. vault of goods,” Spencer said. “But I love the fact that in this vault where you have to go through so much security, you have the Batmobile and then you have Barbie’s car.”Weird Barbie’s house isn’t the movie’s only deviation: Later in the story, after a trip to the real world tips off Ken to the power of the patriarchy, he returns home and exhorts the other Kens to turn the pink and girlie Barbieland into their own personal “Ken-dom.” Soon enough, they’ve staged a hostile takeover of the Dreamhouses — rechristened the “Mojo Dojo Casa Houses” — and given those buildings a man-cave makeover replete with La-Z-Boys, mini fridges and appalling equestrian lampshades.From left, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ryan Gosling and Ncuti Gatwa, three of the film’s Kens.Warner Bros. “We had to keep going back to Greta and saying, really? Really ugly?” Greenwood said. “But there’s a purity to the ugliness as well, because it’s a limited palate.”That’s because these himbos aren’t sure where all of their purloined swag ought to go, or even what most of it does. Barbecues have been placed haphazardly onto ovens, the juicers are filled with Doritos, and flat-screen TVs in every Mojo Dojo Casa House are tuned to the same hypnotically banal clip of a horse in eternal gallop.”He’s no interior designer, Ken,” Spencer said, chuckling. “But can I just say, a lot of the crew wanted to buy things from the Ken-dom. I’m not saying who, but a lot of them did.”The film was shot last year at Warner Bros.’s Leavesden Studios, about 20 miles northwest of London, and as word of the colorful sets spread, the production quickly attracted its fair share of visitors. “We were filming in an English winter, gray and black with snow,” Greenwood said. “So everybody would just come in there for an injection of light and summer.”Added Spencer: “It made people happy. You couldn’t help but smile.”And what of its makers? Did all that time spent on these “Barbie” sets affect their personal palette? Yes, confessed Greenwood.“I’ve painted my bedroom pink, literally,” she said. “I’d never painted anything pink before. I love pink now!” More

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      ‘Barbie’ Fans Show Up in Style

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      Fans nationwide shopped their closets for the rosiest interpretations of the Barbie ethos: sparkly bags, open-toed pumps, stretchy headbands and more.Karma Masselli woke up Thursday morning knowing it was a special day. The “Barbie” movie was finally here.Masselli, 26, and her group of about 25 friends began the festivities by rummaging through their closets for sheer pants and polyester shirts and pink Crocs to assemble their outfits, each representing a different doll: Cowgirl Barbie, Sporty Barbie, Vintage Barbie, Malibu Barbie, Mermaid Barbie and more.Next was “Barbie brunch” at a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn, featuring an array of pink foods, including pink deviled eggs, pop tarts, pasta salad with beets and pink salsa.“It felt like it was the Super Bowl at our ‘Barbie brunch,’” Masselli said. “It felt like we were getting together and having a holiday about girliness.”By afternoon, the group arrived in Manhattan, at the AMC in Kips Bay, to watch the long-awaited film. The screening was delayed for 25 minutes, but once the film started the packed theater erupted in applause. People clapped and cheered and guffawed as the Warner Bros. logo — in pink — appeared onscreen and when Barbie was introduced.“It was amazing,” Masselli said, emerging from the theater. “I cried.”Accessorizing, à la Barbie.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesRocking the orange midriff look with a little pink purse.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesStephen Solomon, Ezra Weingartner, Katy O’Connell, and Xandra Abney show off Barbie-inspired outfits outside the AMC Lincoln Square theater in Manhattan on July 20.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesMasselli, who wore a hot pink tank top with sparkling pink pants, was one of many New Yorkers who turned out for the opening weekend of “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster film starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken.Starting Thursday afternoon, at theaters across the country and even overseas, seats were sold out to crowds brimming with color — one color in particular. Some clutched their favorite dolls, while others greeted friends with, “Hi, Barbie,” grinning.Many fans also chose to see a double feature by watching both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the making of the atomic bomb. The unlikely pairing of these two smashingly successful films resulted in the movie event of the summer and the biggest box office weekend since 2019.“You could just feel the excitement, the energy and the joy in the theater,” said Stephen Solomon, 24, who saw “Barbie” at the AMC Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side. “It felt like an event.”Mary Albus, 28, entered the AMC Kips Bay theater holding a vintage Barbie doll, which she got on her 21st birthday. Albus shares the doll with her group of friends — the “sisterhood of the Traveling Barbie” — passing it around from friend to friend. Vintage Barbie was at one friend’s wedding in North Carolina; she has also been to Chicago, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.Mary Albus, 28, carries a Barbie doll outside the AMC Kips Bay theater.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesIt just happened that the “Barbie” movie premiered during Albus’s turn with the doll.“They were like, ‘You have to take her to the Barbie movie,’” Albus said.May Haaf said seeing the movie with her 9-year-old daughter, Arya, was a bonding event and a way to celebrate female empowerment. Both wore matching white and pink “Barbie” T-shirts.“It’s like a new generation of movies where women can be individuals and not be married, and you don’t have to settle for anything,” Haaf said.Other fans who watched the movie also related to the film’s themes of female empowerment.Zoila Morillo, with a President Barbie sash, outside AMC Kips Bay theater.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesMay Haaf saw the movie with her 9-year-old daughter.Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times“You could just feel the excitement, the energy and the joy in the theater,” one fan said. “It felt like an event.”Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times“The movie especially was a really great commentary on the difficulties of being a woman but also how beautiful it is at the same time and the dichotomy that exists in womanhood,” said Sadie Veach, 23, who was wearing a pink pantsuit and pink eyeliner. Veach’s friend, Taylee Mathis, 25, was wearing a pink shirt and pants and carrying a skateboard. She said she grew up loving Barbie dolls, watching the Barbie animated movies and dressing like Barbie.“She’s more than just pink,” Mathis said. “With Barbie you can be anybody you want to be.”Maansi Srivastava contributed reporting. More

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      ‘Barbenheimer’ and a Film Critic’s Perspective, in Review

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      Manohla Dargis, the chief film critic for The New York Times, shares her thoughts on the movie event of the year and an industry still reeling from the pandemic.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Manohla Dargis’s notebooks are full of illegible words and phrases.The chief film critic for The New York Times, Ms. Dargis takes note of memorable scenes while watching films she intends to review. In the darkness of a movie theater, her notes are rarely coherent, she admits, and distractions are inevitable.“Every so often when I’m watching a film, my pen drifts onto my shirt and I ruin it,” she said. “This is one of the great tragedies of being a movie critic.”This week, Ms. Dargis reviewed two much-talked-about movies new to theaters, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — nicknamed the “Barbenheimer” movie event of the year on the internet.This highly anticipated film pairing comes at a fractious time for the American film industry, as 160,000 actors represented by SAG-AFTRA went on strike last week. They joined the thousands of television and film screenwriters already on the picket line over issues including pay and the use of artificial intelligence in creative capacities. The strikes have brought Hollywood productions largely to a standstill.In an interview, Ms. Dargis shared her thoughts on the industry’s recovery from the pandemic and what the strikes may bode for the imminent future of film. This interview has been edited.How does one begin to cover two of the most highly anticipated movies of the year?I’ve been at The New York Times for about 20 years, so I’ve experienced similar moments when two huge movies open on top of each other. Around Christmas time, movie studios release their big, so-called prestige movies, for example.I try to avoid reading about the movies before I write about them, but I do background research. I just want to have my own experience with a movie and know that a review is made up of my thoughts.How do you decide which films to write about?I try to find a balance that works for readers and what they expect from a film critic. I also have to be interested in the film. I reviewed an array of movies the other week, like the new “Mission Impossible,” a big studio movie, and “Earth Mama,” a smaller independent film.That week in some ways represents my ideal mix, where I’m really covering the field. I think if you only cover the spectacle blockbusters, you’re really missing out on the splendor of cinema.Can you take me through your review process?I try to see movies about a week in advance of their release date. I go to screenings; some are called all media screenings, where there are several hundred people in a big room at a commercial movie theater or at a movie studio. There are also smaller private screening rooms scattered across Los Angeles, where I live. I like seeing movies with other people. There’s something very special about the kind of energy that you have from being with others, particularly when you’re watching a comedy or horror movie and there’s a crowd dynamic.I always bring a notepad and a pen and write in the dark. Writing helps me remember things later because I try to absorb as much as possible while watching a film.You wrote in January about your optimism about women in film amid a range of movies centered on female characters. Are there other trends you are seeing in film right now?I mentioned that I reviewed a film called “Earth Mama” by a woman named Savanah Leaf; it’s her first feature film. It’s exciting to me that she’s one of a number of Black women filmmakers. We’re nowhere near where it needs to be, but there is a diversity of women who are making movies.Has there ever been moment like this in the movie industry?One of the funny things about the American movie industry is that it has lurched from crisis to crisis over time. Part of my optimism and hope is hanging onto the idea that the industry has managed to survive its transition to movies with sound, for example. Then TV came along and everyone thought it was the end. And then the internet happened.The American movie industry is built on crises. Right now, the streaming bubble has passed. We don’t know what happens next. That’s my greatest concern.Which film did you screen first, “Barbie” or “Oppenheimer?’I saw “Barbie” first; I saw them a few days apart, so I could be in the right head space. “Barbie” is enjoyable, but it didn’t linger with me. It wasn’t something where I came back home and said to my husband, “I just need to talk about ‘Barbie’ and its deep impression on me,” because it didn’t have one. I enjoyed it and then I had to figure out how to write about it.After a heavy film like “Oppenheimer,” do you need a film palate cleanser? How do you come down?Right after a movie, I often don’t want to talk to anyone about it. Except maybe my husband. When you leave a movie that really affects you, you’re still in the bubble of the movie for a while. That can be a joyous experience sometimes. I remember seeing a “Fast and Furious” movie and really enjoying it. But I also remember driving home a little too fast that night.A film like “Oppenheimer” — a smart, thoughtful movie talking about profound issues of great philosophical meaning — is pretty damn special. Even though I was shocked by the movie, I was happy to say that the film made me think about life. I am grateful for that experience. More