Greta Gerwig has the right reply to each query about Barbieland

There are a thousand densely layered visible and verbal jokes in Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s script for Barbie, however one specifically stands out, as a result of it’s a light-weight gag with such large story implications that it appears like an ethos. When Aaron (Connor Swindells), a low-level Mattel worker, finds out “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie) has escaped from the fantasy world of Barbieland and entered Actuality, he instantly alerts Mattel’s CEO (Will Ferrell) and the company’s board of administrators. However then Aaron takes a second to ponder the ontology of the world he lives in.

“So… is Barbieland an alternate actuality?” He begins to ask. “Or is it like a spot the place your creativeness—” In absolute unison, all the board cuts him off with a powerful “YES!”

The message is obvious: Do not take into consideration the underpinnings of this world. Simply cease asking questions proper now. Additional, due to the best way Aaron will get lower off with a sure earlier than he’s even executed itemizing the probabilities for what Barbieland is perhaps or may imply, there’s an additional layer to all of it: a suggestion that certain, all theories about Barbieland are equally legitimate, and equally meaningless. And since all the Mattel board delivers that verdict in emphatic refrain, there’s an additional trace of impatience and authority to all of it, an air that claims We’ve addressed this query a thousand occasions already, we’re uninterested in it, and we’ve come to a consensus. We simply need you to toe the celebration line on this and transfer on.

Photograph: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros. Footage

It’s a humorous second each as a result of it’s so abrupt, and since there’s a lot nuance to the best way Gerwig shoots and presents it. However it’s additionally gratifying in a method that’s fairly uncommon for films, as a result of it’s a pleasant, jokey invitation to simply settle for the metaphor, and never fear in regards to the particulars of Barbie’s cosmic building in any respect.

Plenty of us like to consider the small print in films. A few of us can’t assist it. For individuals who’ve made a life out of analyzing and discussing movie, being advised “Simply flip your mind off and revel in it!” or “Don’t you understand how to have enjoyable?” is annoying and pointless. Occupied with films is enjoyable! If it wasn’t, why would there be so many on-line fora devoted to discussing and decoding popular culture? Why would wingnut concepts just like the Pixar Universe Principle get a lot viral traction, as followers mess around with ridiculous concepts about their favourite films or reveals and share them round for an viewers of like-minded armchair analysts?

That stated, typically we are able to all get too obsessive in regards to the particulars, in methods that may distract from a narrative. Simply have a look at the rise of the Reddit Detectives, the sort of people that band collectively on Reddit to share microanalysis and mysteries in popular culture, and choose them aside. The Reddit Detective is an idea, not a selected circle of individuals — a method of summing up the kind of on-line sleuths who obsessively pored over the proof within the Serial podcast, minutely decoded the web bread crumbs laid down for followers of Westworld as a part of that present’s viral advertising, or examined each attainable trace about who Jon Snow’s mom is perhaps on Sport of Thrones.

This sort of on-line sleuth — a detail-focused, collaborative fan, at all times racing to be the primary to note and put up about some Easter egg or secret connection — has executed a whole lot of useful work on behalf of the remainder of us, like mapping each story path and attainable ending in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, or in a much less pop-culture-focused sphere, monitoring down proof of malicious moderation fraud on Reddit. However the darkish facet of that analytical urge is the drive to choose all the pieces aside and root each secret out of each story — like, say, determining each huge twist in Westworld nicely earlier than it occurred. This sort of evaluation additionally takes each plot level to its logical excessive.

Picture: Warner Bros. Footage

Barbie invitations and defangs that impulse by saying that sure, all attainable theories in regards to the nature and implications of Barbieland are true, and also you’re allowed to spin out any choices you need. Does the existence of Barbieland recommend that each different in style toy or character that figures closely in youngsters’ imaginations has its personal precise, tangible alternate-reality universe? Certain, why not? Is there a Sonicland, a literal Mario World, a Legoland the place the motion of The Lego Film really happened? Yup, that’s high quality with us. However wait! Gasp! If Barbies can simply stroll out of Barbieland into Actuality, might Pikachu and Mewtwo do this as nicely, resulting in an precise Detective Pikachu scenario? We’ll permit it. Might all these IPs collide in a single large real-world crossover? When you can think about that, go forward! It’s as actual as the rest on this film.

Barbie’s “Certain, any idea goes” angle provides us all permission to dream, whereas absolving itself of any thought we give you. However extra importantly, the Mattel board is telling Aaron (and the remainder of us) that determining these particulars isn’t an necessary facet of this film. Does it make sense that, when Ken claims Barbie’s DreamHouse and turns it into Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa Home, that home abruptly and immediately manifests as a real-world product and begins “flying off the cabinets”? If Barbieland characters are simply reflections of real-world toys at present being performed with, why are there so many discontinued dolls and fashions nonetheless represented in Barbieland? Why is there just one Allan?

Did any of those questions matter within the writing of Barbie? As Roger Rabbit would put it, “Solely when it was humorous.” There isn’t some Transient Historical past of Time-degree guide to the mathematical guidelines of Barbieland on the market someplace, overlaying all prospects — you’re allowed to make up your individual guidelines.

Gerwig and Baumbach deal with Barbie’s weirder fantasy components with precisely as a lot lightness and momentum because the film wants. They don’t waste time on boring disbelief and debate. Will Ferrell because the Mattel CEO factors out that Barbie characters have leaked into Actuality earlier than — so there’s no want to spend so much of power on a bunch of characters questioning how Barbieland could possibly be actual, selecting by means of the metaphysical implications, or slowing the film down by complaining about its basic premise. They’ll simply transfer previous that, and get on with the humor and the trenchant evaluation of gender relationships.

Photograph: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.

And when disaffected teenager Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and her associates are confronted with a residing Barbie, they don’t spend a dreary chunk of the film asking how she might probably be actual, or what it implies that she exists — they only lay into her for all of the negativity she represents. It’s simple sufficient to argue that in that second, they don’t consider she’s the precise avatar of Barbie the doll, that they only assume she’s a perky bimbo styling herself after the toy. However the film doesn’t trouble splitting these hairs. You may learn the scene both method, and it really works high quality. Are they speaking to the doll, or a human girl who admires the doll? Sure, says the Mattel board, in unison.

This sort of breezy hand-waving doesn’t work for each film — in severe horror, science fiction, and fantasy, it’s rather more necessary to have some sense of what the foundations are, as a result of there are not any clear story stakes in any other case. However for a comedy that’s targeted totally on different particulars — precisely what the accoutrements of a Ken-dom macho man are, or why Barbie floats in every single place in Barbieland — pinning down the scientific particulars of the world simply doesn’t matter.

Barbie takes precisely the suitable path by means of its fantasy components by breezing previous the elements of study that will make the film extra actual than it must be, whereas giving viewers enthusiastic consent to fill in the remainder any method they need. Is that this a film for the Neil deGrasse Tyson-style nitpickers of the world? No. Is it a film that asks the viewers to think about who they need to be and what sort of world they need to reside in, whereas finishing the metaphor by leaving all the pieces else within the film as much as their imaginations? A hearty, resounding, choral Sure.