How the Barbie movie could set the record straight

The upcoming Barbie movie, directed by Greta Gerwig, has already garnered an audience thanks to the abundance of intriguing set footage captured earlier this year. Finally, the first official footage for the film was released earlier this month.

Featuring only a few shots and no dialogue — save for an introductory voiceover by Helen Mirren — this preview didn't give fans much to parse from the film itself. However, it did give people a taste of the film's tone, including its approach to the source material.

Most of the trailer consists of an intro paying homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The aforementioned narration plays on a group of little girls with their dolls, explaining that these dolls have been a girl's staple since the dawn of time. Margot Robbie's titular Barbie herself then makes her debut, wearing the same black and white bathing suit that the original 1959 Barbie doll wore. Finally, a few clips from the film featuring Robbie and a few other featured cast members, including Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae and Simu Liu, are briefly featured, along with the film's logo.

The few brief glimpses we have of the film make it clear that Barbie draws a lot of inspiration from the toy line, from the outfits to the brightly colored world itself. But it's not just Barbie's aesthetic that will be in the film - it's her spirit, or rather, the spirit of her creators. Barbie is widely considered the quintessential "girl's toy", and the brand has been criticized for being too conformist to society's beauty standards. But as the trailer points out, Barbie was and is a pioneer in the toy industry, which is often overlooked these days.

Before Barbie, as the trailer shows, the "standard" toy for little girls was the doll. In addition to giving them something fun to carry and dress up, the underlying message of these dolls marketed to girls specifically reinforces the traditional gender roles of women responsible for raising children and being caregivers. society in general.

So when Barbie came on the scene, she ticked another box. The character was older than her target demographic, meaning she was something to aspire to rather than care about. She was a role model, which turned out to be both good and bad, but it provided an alternative to dolls and the expectations of care that came with them.

Yes, Barbie ended up promoting a whole different set of gendered expectations – mostly in the looks department – ​​but the brand also ended up being much more progressive than is often believed. Beyond the mere existence of an adult doll in a sea of ​​babies, Barbie has continued to feature women taking on roles far beyond motherhood (although there have been Barbie dolls focused on motherhood , including pregnancy). She has played nearly every sport, from those traditionally considered "feminine" like gymnastics and ice skating, to those like hockey, basketball, and boxing. She has had countless careers, such as a doctor, chef, director, dancer, news anchor, entrepreneur, teacher, farmer, military officer, firefighter, astronaut, scientist, pilot, cowgirl, and beekeeper, to name a few. -unes.

Barbie has also become more inclusive over the years for those who don't fit her original look of being white with blonde hair and blue eyes. First, dolls have become more racially diverse, and more recently, they've also rolled out a wider variety of body types...