Why Barbie Calling Out 'Women Who Hate Women' Is Vital For Young Girls To Hear
By Ava Barnes
Sasha is unrelenting when she attacks Barbie, but this is a common thing — especially with teenage girls. Another movie with a hyper-feminist monologue, "Gone Girl," details this thinking midway through the film, when Amy Elliott-Dunne (Rosamund Pike) goes off about always having to be the "cool girl" to impress men, changing your skin like a chameleon constantly so that men will think you're "chill" and "fun" and, above all, "cool." Sasha is falling prey to this exact thing when she goes for Barbie's jugular, thinking that hating something as feminine as Barbie will make her seem cooler.
When Sasha realizes just how powerful Barbie is — and how she and the other Barbies have crafted an incredibly successful matriarchy in Barbie Land — her perspective changes, and instead of putting Barbie down, she lifts her up and helps quash a "Ken-bellion" rising in their cotton-candy colored utopia. Not only that, but Barbie becomes a human at the end of the movie, and Sasha and Gloria are her support system as she makes her way into the real world and becomes a human woman.
Pitting women against women happens all the time — and shouldn't — and Sasha was swept under the influence of the "cool girl," which afflicts teenage girls far too often. When she opens up her mind and realizes all that Barbie has to offer, she's able to put those internalized, misogynistic prejudices aside, and it's a perfectly crafted message by Gerwig and for teenage girls still learning to love themselves.
"Barbie" is in theaters now.
