Barbenheimer Goes to the Gynecologist

I saw the movie Barbie during the catastrophic heat of last summer, drawn in by the power of marketing that linked it to another movie, Oppenheimer, that was released at the same time. How had these two movies—one about a doll, the other about a nuclear physicist—become merged together as Barbenheimer in the collective consciousness? After watching Barbie, I wondered if the key to understanding this connection might be found in the baffling last moments of the movie. Barbie is in a way a standard coming-of-age movie, but it concludes with a triumphant visit to the gynecologist. This final moment of the movie surprises, and then confuses, like an off-color joke that falls flat. Although the reason for Barbie's visit to the gynecologist is not made explicit, the movie seems to imply that Barbie's newfound possession of a real female body, in particular a vagina, signifies her transformation into becoming a real woman, the culmination of her journey. Yet despite the movie's feminist intentions, Barbie's visit to the gynecologist cannot overcome an underlying message of deep ambivalence toward mothering and fears of the female body, and it is precisely because these conflicting messages have not been addressed in the movie that the final scene is so disturbing. We are left to wonder if, once again, a woman is being ultimately defined by her body and its dangerously powerful capacity to bear children. In these final moments, the movie gives in to the forces of unconscious conflicts about mothering and the female body. These conflicts appear in the movie from its very beginning.

Barbie opens with a scene that parodies the opening moments of 2001: A Space Odyssey. As in that movie, we see a desolate landscape, deliberately ambiguous as to whether we are in a prehistoric or post-apocalyptic moment. In the classic movie, apes are playing with a found object that ultimately leads to conflict and murder among themselves. The object is a harbinger of their own self-destruction.