Barbie on her way to you

The cinema experience was disappointing. Visiting a cinema complex so close to Hollywood, I had expected an experience that would stay with me forever. But the opposite was true. We were greeted by a dirty, sad lobby with the sticky smell of popcorn. Walls were adorned with overflowing trash cans, sweet Coca-Cola leaking at the bottom. There was no advertising for Barbie in the form of posters or Instagrammable cardboard cutouts of Margot Robbie. Teenagers, with sleep in their eyes, explained the 4 different popcorn flavors, and of course, the more expensive Oreo flavor was their recommendation. Only my youngest fell for this cheap marketing trick. You buy your empty drink cups that you have to fill yourself; you’re allowed to line up twice. The auditorium was soulless and barely cleaned. And after a lot of commercials and a whopping 8 trailers for other movies, the liberating Warner Bros logo appeared in Barbie pink.

The movie started, and the theater never got quiet. There were loud laughs at the jokes the movie presented, and there was loud applause at the monologue that heals all the Barbies from ‘Ken.’ That’s right, that’s what the movie is about: Barbie has to include Ken in her Barbie world, and men have to include women in the real world. Mattel handles this incredibly intelligently and rides a trend that has been increasingly felt for several years: the new feminist wave.

For those who have been sleeping in recent years: feminism is sorely needed but reaches the media, the public, and policy in waves. Traditionally, there’s talk of a first wave: obtaining suffrage for women. A second wave is characterized by demands around politics, work, and, among other things, abortion; remember the Dolle Mina’s in the Netherlands: ‘Boss in your own belly.’ A third wave is characterized, among other things, by the #MeToo movement. And the fourth wave (the current wave) is characterized by social media and emphasizes objectives that were not achieved in the second wave.

Feminist waves often go hand in hand with other movements, such as those for gay rights in the second wave and the LGBTQI+ movement in the fourth wave. Add to these Western waves the current emancipation protests from Iran, and you know: Mattel is playing it safe. The fact that the film is banned in Islamic countries like Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia will not surprise Mattel. But also residents of Russia, Vietnam, Pakistan, and the Philippines will not discover Barbie and Ken on the big screen.

And that’s exactly why it’s a good movie. A banned film, a censored film, … a film that addresses taboos and packages them in a plastic doll. But it’s more than a movie. It’s a movement that has now also been given a face. A manifesto. Barbie is the Dolle Mina 50 years later.
No male character in the film is portrayed as being intelligent. This stands in stark contrast to the female characters who come across as intellectually strong: Barbie, Weird Barbie, Gloria, Sacha, and Ruth make one strong quote after another:
“Women hate women. And men hate women. It’s the only thing we all agree on,” Sacha.
“It is literally impossible to be a woman,” Barbie.
“You saved Barbieland from the patriarchy,” Ruth.
And it’s especially Barbie’s own quote: “There’s not even a single woman in a position of power at Mattel.” that resonates with me. Mattel is not portrayed positively in the film. On the contrary, the film ends with a greedy scene where the proposal to make an “ordinary Barbie” is only approved when it turns out to be profitable enough.

Yet it is in the workplace that the fourth feminist wave will take place. And Barbie has given that wave a push. Barbie is onher way to you. Employee activism is already on the rise. Young employees dare to look at the diversity in your boardroom and let their application be influenced by it. Companies will have to do more than just have gender-neutral toilets.

Man or woman, young or old: you have to see the Barbie movie.

When discussing my keynote ‘taBOOH,’ I often get asked: “Is it also intended for men?” From now on, I can answer: “Is the Barbie movie exclusively for women?”
We leave the sad cinema complex located in a now deserted shopping center. Four young twenty-somethings were walking ahead of us. They giggled about the movie. They were ecstatic. The 2 girls wore pink, and the 2 boys both wore a pink tulle skirt. Their evening couldn’t get any better.