Though not an official product of Mattel, ‘Weird Barbie’ is definitely a cultural side product of the kids who played with Barbie, and it was great that we actually got to see her represented in the Barbie film.
Talking to Rolling Stone, director Greta Gerwig explains the inspiration behind Kate McKinnon’s less-than-stereotypical Barbie, and says she was modelled after her own experience with the doll. She explains:
“We grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls older than me. So I had a lot of hand-me-down Barbies that had already gotten a haircut by the time I got them. It was like, ‘Well, we have to do that.’ It felt almost like a spiritual conduit to the world of play through that Barbie.”
Besides being some solid comic relief for the film, Gerwig also likens the character to The Giver in Lois Lowery’s novel. Gerwig continues, “Remember that book The Giver, by Lois Lowry, where the giver has all the colors and the feelings and stuff? That’s sort of what I thought about Kate’s character. She would be like the giver in a way like she had the knowledge that everyone else didn’t have.”
Though Barbie was expected to be a commercial product for kids to enjoy, anyone who has been following Gerwig’s career was already expecting something with very strong feminist themes and social commentary—that’s why there was so much hype with the movie releasing alongside Oppenheimer; another movie from a critical darling.
Naturally, the ‘alpha male’ community has started to rally on the film for touting ‘man-hate’, but so far, the box office has been pretty great for Barbie. Hopefully it will cross a billion in a few weeks.
Catch Barbie now showing in theaters.
