The Barbie movie’s first weekend has gone well. And, in many ways the movie deserves the attention, but not for what might matter most to the women who made it. Conservatives have conceded the movie’s good production values but disliked its moral ones. The real problem, though, is that it’s not a very good movie.

Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in a safe and beautiful world where houses need few walls and every day is great.

But even with president, lawyer and judge Barbies wearing midriff-baring clothing without shame, elements of that very human emotion begin to appear.

First, Ken (Ryan Gosling) feels the need to hide his love for Barbie, because she is still in the phase of life where her girlfriends are more important to her than is romance with a boy. Second, Barbie develops intrusive ideas about death. Finally, and to her greatest shame, Barbie wakes up to flat feet and the possibility of having cellulite show on her thighs.

The other Barbies advise her to visit Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who is the sadder, but wiser, Barbie for having been played with too much. Weird Barbie sends Barbie on her way out into the world of humans, with that world’s concomitant objectification, shame and anxiety....

...Not so much so for Ken, who joins her, and who sees men’s faces on dollar bills and discovers beer, golf, videos and horses which men can ride. Plus, people refer to him as “sir.”

Self-centered patriarchy seems to work for Ken just the way that self-centered matriarchy was working for Barbie back in Barbieland. Ken races back to Barbieland to seize possession of Barbie’s dream house while Barbie continues her poignant adventure in the human world as she encounters two grandmotherly figures (Ann Roth and Rhea Perlman), a bevy of sad and angry schoolgirls, and a middle-aged mom (America Ferrera), who seems much more concerned about her feelings and Barbie’s safety than about her own daughter’s feelings and safety. (Note to such real-life mothers: pull your children from bad schools; homeschooling is a beautiful and multiply-blessed option, with which most children are very happy!)

Image: Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie interview. YouTube screen grab.

Barbie flees corporate bigwigs, who wish to box her, and she returns to Barbieland. There she psychologically debriefs the other Barbies who bought into patriarchy. Then all the Barbies divide and conquer the Kens through intentional romantic manipulation! (How’s that for feminist problem-solving?)

In the end, Barbie apologizes to Ken for not sharing her stuff as much as she could have, and she returns to the human world under the care of the middle-aged mother and her family. First stop: a visit to the gynecologist, with the implicit message that abortifacient contraceptives are necessary for a young adult woman to have a happy life.

I saw this movie with seven older teens and twenty-somethings. An early gen-X, I laughed the loudest at many of the sight gags, which went over the heads, especially of the younger gals and the fellow in our group. Also I seemed to enjoy the color-saturated filmography even more than did the professional artists in our little party. (Here is the professional take: since around 2005, filmmakers have been color-saturating otherwise grayish movies with orange and teal. The Barbie movie’s coloring, especially the use of pink, marks a welcome addition to film coloration.)

In fact, the young people’s commentary after the show focused on two points: the quality of acting and the utter incoherence of the story. Every actor mentioned above, including the unnamed child actors, were excellent. Margot Robbie was outstanding for staying in character as a toy doll come alive, with a great mix of humor and pathos. The young adults felt the same about Ryan Gosling’s acting, which I thought captured the pathos, but which played Ken more effeminately than necessary. And this was Rhea Perlman’s best little role yet, even better than her work in Matilda. (I never cared for Perlman’s interpretation of Carla the waitress on Cheers.)

Unfortunately the story was incoherent in several ways. First, it used words incorrectly. For example, the words matriarchy and patriarchy were actually used in the movie. However, we never saw the mothers or fathers that are de rigueur required in matriarchies and patriarchies. Rather Barbieland, before, during and even after Ken’s coup, was merely a realm of prolonged adolescence, teetering on becoming an orgy-infested hellscape. And never in this movie would there be a consideration that patriarchy (in the self-sacrificing use of that term) has the positive benefit of including men in the rearing of their own children, to the benefit of mothers and their offspring.

Second, even though a good movie either asks questions for the viewer to ponder answers, or asks questions and then provides true answers, Barbie asked questions and corollaries of those questions and then provided false answers. Can the safety of childhood (under the protection of thoroughly ignored, invisible parents) be carried into adult life? Answer: sure, with the help of a liberal gynecologist. Can men and women ever truly get along? Answer: sure, if they just share their stuff and leave each other alone as they travail through their valley of tears in solitary march.

The true answer was just screaming to be loosed at many times in this movie: people need to respect each other and to be willing to put others’ needs ahead of their own wants.

The obvious incoherence, given the obviously simple solution, brought to mind many Woody Allen movies, which feature admirable cinematography and acting, but also devolve into an over-intellectualized avoidance of simple morality. (My favorite Allen film, Crimes and Misdemeanors, tackles the problem of refusing to see the other and of selfish pursuit of pleasure head on.) It should surprise no one that the writers of Barbie, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, both cite Woody Allen as an inspiration for their work.

Nor is it surprising that Greta Gerwig is the daughter of an OB-GYN nurse, which is a sad commentary itself on the field of medicine. The first scene shows, once given a Barbie doll, little girls bashing their baby dolls’ heads to smithereens. Throughout the movie is an underlying subtext that motherhood is awful. Also evident is the notion that the Supreme Court must be reclaimed by the pro-Roe faction.

With good acting, colorful cinematography, and some funny but unmemorable jokes, the Barbie movie preserves the modesty of its actors, who necessarily must wear some body-baring clothes to present the story. It is a fine movie for an older crowd of women who don’t mind dropping a few hard-earned dollars into the coffers of those who despise parents, motherhood, and particularly children.

But this movie is not for the under-14 crowd. It is a tableau of violent offense against the child, from infancy through the sweet age of simple, imaginative play. Its design must frighten anyone still anticipating adolescence. The battle of the sexes is downright Marxian. And, even though early in the movie, the Barbie characters celebrate that women have emotions and rationality, the actual, incoherent storyline belies the very messed-up, unaddressed psychological profile of this movie’s makers.