Many viewers might not have had high expectations for Barbie, considering it a typical doll-based movie, anticipating another Hollywood popcorn flick. However, Barbie seems to be more than that, offering something that previous doll movies haven’t. Remarkably, the film has achieved widespread acclaim, with both audiences and professional critics praising it. Industry experts even predict it could surpass The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the highest-grossing film of the year globally.
This naturally raises the question: What is the source of Barbie’s commercial success?
Balancing Control and Inclusivity
Barbie’s commercial success stems from its offering of a new cinematic form that resonates with our times. Drawing from the theoretical insights of film theorist Thomas Elsaesser, I call it an “undecidable” film. Undecidability refers to the inherent multiple layers and even contradictory elements within such films, making it difficult for viewers to form a clear judgment about their viewpoints and meanings. For instance, if we view Barbie as a critique of capitalism, it is, in fact, serving capitalist expansion. If we believe it actively criticizes patriarchy, the glamorous Barbies in their various outfits are still providing more beautiful objects to be viewed within a patriarchal framework. This self-contradictory and undecidable nature of Barbie has paradoxically fueled its box office success.
In these undecidable films, everything is open to ridicule. Barbie mercilessly mocks capitalism, with the comical and hypocritical Mattel CEO portrayed as a clown throughout the film. For example, upon learning that Barbie Land has become a Ken-dom, he feigns concern, saying, “You think I’m in this just for the money?” while constantly revealing that money is likely his primary concern. A particularly amusing detail occurs when Gloria suggests that Mattel could create “ordinary” Barbies. The CEO initially dismisses the idea, but when the accountant behind him calculates and informs him that it could be highly profitable, he immediately changes his tune, exclaiming, “That’s a great idea!” Viewers likely laughed at his hypocrisy. The film also subtly mocks the production company, Warner Bros., suggesting that they are willing to produce any subject matter as long as it’s profitable, even if it means making fun of themselves.
The film cleverly uses Ken, a male character who exists as a “second sex” in Barbie Land, to depict his complete journey from “second sex” to “first sex” and ultimately to finding his true self by breaking free from patriarchal constraints. This also mocks the patriarchy that oppresses both genders. Barbie doesn’t forget to mock and deconstruct itself. When Robbie, playing the classic Barbie, sits on the ground and laments, “I’m not pretty anymore,” a voice-over chimes in, “Producers, if you want the audience to believe that, you’d have to cast someone else.” This self-deprecating humor is quite clever. The audience knows that the film won’t recast, because this beautiful actress is the film’s main draw.
The interesting thing is that this indiscriminate mockery allows everyone to find something they want in the film. Mattel gets its desired image makeover and a boost in Barbie sales. Warner Bros. may be able to start a new type of cycle with this hit movie and profit handsomely from cross-media operations and intellectual property sales. Professional film critics can find clever ideas and irony in it. And the audience is, of course, very happy with the movie, as can be seen from the box office and reviews.
Female viewers, needless to say, not only understand the film’s jokes about male preaching and toxic masculinity, but are also moved by Gloria’s three-minute monologue of golden lines, because it does reveal some truth about the situation of women under patriarchy. Male viewers also get something out of it. Not only is Ken so handsome and stylish in the film, but it also provides a lot of film-loving peepholes for them to dig up, research, show off, and talk about. Aren’t The Godfather, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Top Gun, The Shining, and The Matrix all favorites of male viewers? No wonder this film is able to please everyone.
This type of undecidable film is a product of Hollywood’s restructuring and transformation of the film industry.
The Modern Film Landscape
From a media perspective, today’s films must cater to the needs of multiple media platforms. They must still be visually appealing on the big screen with clever storytelling and dazzling spectacles, but also complex enough to withstand multiple viewings on personal computers. They must also provide sharp viewpoints and memorable golden lines for social media dissemination, while providing enough information and peepholes to attract fans’ indexing and research fun.
From an audience perspective, today’s films need to gain more recognition in an environment where everyone is their own media outlet and opinions are extremely divided. The volatility of internet word-of-mouth, the unpredictability of social media reactions, and the ratings on film review websites have almost become critical forces in determining the success or failure of a film after its release.
In such a complex environment, a film with a blurred structure and undecidability may become an insurance policy. Undecidability is no longer a shortcoming of the film, but a standard that the film must have, because it can ensure that different media and different audiences can find what they need in the film.
In fact, this type of undecidable film began to appear in the mid-1990s, initially led by the mind-game films of Nolan, Lynch, and others. The complex narratives, excessive information, and multiple variables in these films were not only designed for multiple viewings, but also made it extremely difficult for viewers to find definite meanings and true answers, which is what constitutes the audience appeal of these films. Nolan’s Inception is a classic example. But these more avant-garde film ideas are slowly permeating into various genres, especially into big-budget mainstream film and television productions.
For example, the fantasy genre Game of Thrones is in stark contrast to the previous The Lord of the Rings. The appeal of this series is based on disagreement, undecidability, and a lot of disharmony. It divides the audience from beginning to end, providing its fervent fans with the enjoyment of multi-angle debate, rather than focusing on a goal and task that all audiences agree on, as in the classic fantasy genre The Lord of the Rings. From Barbie, it is clear that this undecidable trend has blown into the originally simple doll-type film. We only need to compare Barbie with the classic doll film Toy Story to immediately see the difference.
Game and Thought Experiment
This undecidable film contains two seemingly contradictory but complementary elements: game and thought experiment.
From a game perspective, the ability to bring stimulating creativity and imaginative viewing pleasure, while maintaining a distance from real life, being able to advance and retreat, defend and attack, is indeed a clever move to create undecidability. Careful viewers will notice that the most intense “revolutions” and “struggles” in Barbie all take place in Barbie Land, which serves as a game space. Therefore, whether it is the patriarchal kingdom established by Ken or the female struggle for Barbie to regain control, they all have a strong game nature. In addition to the game space, Barbie also cleverly draws on the story structure of classic Hollywood musical films. In the musical genre, a dual-focus narrative strategy of alternating, confronting, and paralleling men and women is usually adopted, with each gender representing different cultural values, but the musical ultimately achieves a comedic ending through the love combination of both men and women. This highly playful comedy genre can further soften the originally very sharp social issues in the film, bringing the audience a relatively relaxed viewing experience.
In addition to games, undecidable films also contain a certain amount of exploration and reflection. As director Greta said, she can also put some very personal things into Barbie, a film that has no personal color at all. Because undecidable films allow for a certain thought experiment. A thought experiment is a way of exploring dilemmas or exploring situations that are obviously impossible but imaginable by asking “what if…”. The assumptions set in Barbie, such as “What if men become the ‘second sex’?” and “What if women become rulers?”, partially bring about the effect of thought experiments, prompting the audience to break away from familiar gender roles and relationships, accept more complex gender realities, and thus have a stronger agency in gender issues.
It can be seen that the common point of games and thought experiments is to inspire the audience to discover the rules and reflect on them. Moreover, they change the way of expressing social issues that are diametrically opposed and tense, and attract different audiences through vague undecidability, raising questions from another perspective. However, we cannot overstate the “revolutionary” nature of this type of undecidable film, because as Barbie presents, in order to profit, Hollywood may lower its posture to mock itself, but their control over the film has never been relaxed.
Does this new undecidable film like Barbie form an ideological critique or present a postmodern carnival? We can only say it is undecidable. This type of undecidable film represents a certain development direction of Hollywood commercial films, but it also has the potential to reveal Hollywood and various power operations by playing with our perception of reality through games and training our ability to reflect on the post-truth state through thought experiments. And because they operate within Hollywood, they may have a certain effect. Let’s wait and see.