The Barbie movie, directed by Greta Gerwig, is a critically acclaimed success making over 1.38 billion dollars and has an 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie follows the fashion icon, Barbie, as she faces some of the main conflicts in the movie. The movie covers the oppression of women living in today’s generation. It also addresses the beauty of growing old and the heartfelt relationship a mother and daughter have with each other.

The movie is heartfelt and touching, speaking to the viewer on these issues and how they affect everyone. In the movie, stereotypical Barbie is thrown into the real world and experiences a lot of real-world issues: growing old, un-described sorrow, inescapable thoughts of death, and not being good enough.

She deals with the sexism present in the real world and by the end of the movie she realizes she wants to be human; she wants to feel everything life has to offer.

The reason Barbie has these thoughts and feelings is because of the mother who used to play with Barbie with her then-young daughter. The mother is dealing with a strained relationship with her now-teen daughter and their strained connection.

The movie touches on the dynamic in a mother-daughter relationship not only in the present mother-daughter relationship but also the relationship between Barbie and Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie. It shows how she originally made Barbie to spark inspiration into little girls to be who they want to be.

The movie tells how important it is for a mother and daughter to have each other and how mothers and daughters have a special deep-rooted connection with each other. “We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they have come,” Ruth Handler said.

Ken also ventured with Barbie to the real world and returned earlier than Barbie did just to establish the patriarchy in Barbie land.

The thing about Ken is he was made to be the prime example of what men think a man should be, strong, not emotionally driven, the “alpha.” The thing is, Ken isn’t that. Ken is sensitive, he has a passionate love for Barbie and struggles to find who he is without Barbie by his side.

Ken struggles with the notion of being Barbie and Ken but also deals with the fact that Barbie can be Barbie without Ken, she doesn’t need Ken to be who she is. She doesn’t like Ken in that way and Ken must learn by the end of the movie on how to deal with that.

Ken learns how to be just Ken. The film doesn’t just cover how the patriarchy affects women but how men, who created the patriarchy, are also affected by it.

The Barbie movie at the end of the day is touching. It’s an amazing film, I would recommend watching the movie with a mother figure in your life or someone who you connect to on that level.