I haven’t seen the Barbie film, though I probably will eventually. What I have seen is reactions to it by nearly every opinion writer and pundit. These are all over the block, from love to hate and more than a few somewhere in the middle. Liberals have loved it for reasons conservatives hated it, except others on the right liked it.
My conclusion from reading somewhere north of a dozen spoiler-laden reactions to the film is this. Barbie has much in common with a Rorschach ink blot test; reactions to it tell us more about the person reacting than about the film itself. Viewers seem to project onto it whatever is important in their own lives.
It apparently contains elements of a fairy tale, a morality play, a satire, and a confection, with coming-of-age elements. What the viewer sees in the film has much to do with what he or she brings with them to the theater.
When comparison are made, expect The Wizard of Oz to feature prominently, Barbie has a similar mixture of fantasy and reality. Both films don’t clearly tell us how we are supposed to react, what our takeaway(s) should be.
