Barbie has no shame

The power of women's friendships

I went to see Barbie on opening weekend. Friends and I booked out a whole row of seats in the cinema, and of course we dressed up! We had a few Kens, a few Barbies, a lot of pink. My teenage son borrowed my sequinned blazer and got on board with the vibes of it all. I loved it. I’m just one small voice in the huge chorus of people who felt validated and uplifted and also just… so entertained.

I’m second from the right, wearing glasses.

This movie has been widely discussed, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a moment that I haven’t yet seen talked about in the many memes and reviews and thought pieces on the film. Perhaps because, in a film that flips our world on its patriarchal head, it is the most ordinary of moments. It is a moment so familiar to many of us, so womanly, for lack of a better word, that it almost goes unnoticed. (I don’t want to exclude those who don’t identify as woman and who are also familiar with these moments, but not-masculine and not-patriarchal doesn’t feel like a sufficient descriptor.)

I don’t think this is a spoiler? It happens early on and so many millions of people have seen and subsequently dissected the movie by now that I feel like if you haven’t seen it yet, you probably won’t?

Anyway, it’s this:

It’s the moment where Margot Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie discovers something has gone wrong with her body, and she turns to her friends for help. She has suddenly developed an alarming physical abnormality, something that breaks the laws of nature as Barbies know it, and horrifies them all.

And yet, despite the *shock horror* of it, Barbie doesn’t hesitate to reach out to her friends for support. There is a complete absence of shame and alienation in this scene that I didn’t realise until after I’d left the cinema. (I may not recall the play-by-play—unlike Ben Shapiro I didn’t take a notepad and pen with me to study the movie—but I certainly remember the vibes.)

Because here’s what happens in so many stories and in real life: something goes wrong with a character, and she stays quiet about it, especially if it’s something physically abnormal. She hides it. The problem must be her, and it reflects some fundamental flaw that she should be deeply ashamed of. She can’t let anyone else know. This is her problem to fix, and hers alone. The only thing that could make the situation worse would be for someone else to notice that something is wrong with her.

Barbie doesn’t hide her new physical deformity. She immediately goes to her friends, shares with them, and they support her. This is, in my experience, the best thing about being a woman: the friendships, the openness, the shared experiences. It’s one of the things media have so often gotten wrong about what it’s like to be a woman, when stories are told that pit women against each other, especially when it comes to shallow friendships.

Don’t get me wrong: I know shallow friendships exist. I’ve had them too. I know women in real life are afraid of being vulnerable and sharing about intimate problems or disabilities. I know we have societal beauty standards and cultural expectations that plague us whether we try to live up to them or opt out. That’s partly why it’s so refreshing to see a supportive experience on screen, particularly when it comes to a group of Barbies who appear to lead a somewhat shallow existence.

The Barbies rally around Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie. They listen to her. They look for solutions together. She doesn’t get ostracised, she gets taken to see Weird Barbie—who is yes, weird, and intimidating—because they know that’s where Barbie will get help.

They don’t suggest yoga. Not one acai smoothie bowl was mentioned. Barbie wasn’t expected to read a book about the habits of leaders or carry on with life as normal while trying to force her new body into its old way of being.

Barbie speaks from a place of vulnerability, and she gets held by the group of women around her. So does Gloria. They open themselves up and share their pain, and that’s where the healing begins.

Barbie’s quest starts out small and becomes an existential question that affects everyone else around her. She doesn’t have her friends holding her hand every step of the way, but she does have their support. Barbieland is a community full of powerful women. Barbie has to ask herself “who am I?” and then, “who are we?” and the other Barbies answer, “whoever we are, we’re in it together”. They build each other up.

Women supporting each other. Oh yeah, and Allan is there too, I guess.

This is my experience of female friendships, especially as I get older, and it’s something I treasure deeply. The vulnerability, the openness, the community, and the connections we form when someone says, “I feel this way and it hurts” and other women respond to say, “I feel this way too,” or, “I don’t know what that’s like but I’m here to listen”.

The real heart of this movie is friendship. It’s the community women feel as a when we connect over the shared experiences that are a product of our existence, and the communities we intentionally build as a way to survive and to thrive. While there are of course powerful individuals of all genders, the true power in being a woman comes from the collective. That’s where our healing begins.