"Barbie" Is All About A.I.’s Assimilation Into Human Society
Listen to my track-by-track review on the podcast.We can depend on Greta Gerwig for two things: consistently topping herself with each film she directs and delicately handling the various hurdles women have to overcome in a male dominated world — something she herself is actively doing in Hollywood. Ladybird (2017) deals with the inner world of a 21st century not-a girl-not-yet-a-woman. Little Women (2019) takes us through the literary lives of a group of 19th-century sisters. Barbie (2023) takes us on a fantastical adventure with the larger than life branded entity, dismantling the male gaze and its affect on young girls limb by plastic limb. Barbie tackles themes of feminism, the patriarchy and toxic masculinity in a rudimentary way for all ages to ingest, keeping true to its bubblegum disposition. I initially said this is why at times the message can understandably come off as preachy, but I stood corrected by my sister: “We (i.e. women) really feel that way though. Of course a man would think it’s preachy!” So I’ll recant that critique. What’s not as indubitably didactic is the more subtle interpretation of the text that, admittedly, may or may not have been intentional.
To recap, Barbie’s message of female empowerment and how corporate greed can corrupt even the purest of sentiments such as “men and women deserve to be seen as equals in society” is what makes the film important and is what we’re all walking away with. But the aforementioned underlining reading of the text remains latent throughout most of the film, save the opening and closing scenes. Barbie is bookended with sequences that point to a more transcendent meaning: that of human evolution, specifically transhumanism and the integration of AI into everyday society. (The irony is not lost on me that, as a man, my ultimate evaluation of the film has strayed away from its potent message of the ongoing existence of sexism throughout the decades, but hear me out.)
Barbie’s opening scene is an almost shot for shot recreation of an iconic scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in which a major step of human evolution is depicted — cavemen discover weapons and, by proxy, hate, murder and war. Barbie mirrors this by depicting little girls throwing aside their rag and porcelain dolls in exchange for the modelesque and chic Barbie doll (i.e. Barbie was a major evolutionary step in the manufacturing of toys for girls). Additionally, Barbie’s semi-final scene also alludes to 2001’s final sequence but in a more ambiguous way. In 2001, (spoiler alert) the protagonist learns that an artificially intelligent computer has awoken to be truly sentient and willful and is attempting to sabotage the humans’ expedition to the outer reaches of space. The protagonist eventually finds himself in a time-warp where he is advancing through time and space, and as a result, experiencing human development and the cycle of life at an accelerated (and somewhat looped) velocity.
In Barbie’s semi-final scene, which sticks out like a sore thumb in the climax of the final act, Barbie finds herself seemingly outside of actual time and space where she chats with her real-life creator Ruth Handler, who has long since passed away. Ruth implores her: “Humans will die. Ideas will live forever.” Barbie is at peace knowing she will live forever and far surpass us all and goes into the light. The movie ends with Barbie in the real world arriving at her gynecologist appointment, which alludes to a physical transformation of sorts as it’s made clear early in the film that Barbies and Kens have no genitalia. Barbie has somehow evolved and is living among humans as somewhat of a cyborg unbeknownst to them.
The parallels are stark: Barbie has lived in an intangible world spending decades trying to empower girls in the outside world, however, she’s been manipulated and corrupted by men. It’s not until she breaks free from their control that she can make choices that are magnanimous but also autonomous. Ultimately, she really just wants to live a normal life. Now re-read this paragraph and replace “Barbie” with “AI” — see what I mean? A deeper reading of the reading of the text (yeah we’re getting meta here) is that the advancement of the human race (i.e. peace on earth, civil stability and interpersonal harmony) can be achieved with women at the helm of our progress, as it can be argued they are the more advanced gender of our species. (Exhibit A: women create and nurture life while men watch.)
The World Economic Forum reports that 90% of AI experts believe human-level AI could exist within the next 100 years, and with the eerie leaps in advancement in ChatGPT and other AI engines, we’re seeing these themes in entertainment media more and more. For example, in this year alone we’ve seen the release of the movie M3GAN, the Black Mirror episode “Joan Is Awful” and The Creator movie set to be released next month.
AI has been shining brightest online though, via usage by the general public. For example, the barbieselfie.ai promotional tool has been used over 13 million times, and fans responded to Barbie by using AI to celebrate it, e.g. via an AI-generated “Barbenheimer” mash-up trailer and an AI-generated "Barbie 2" script. Ultimately, Barbie the movie artfully points out a dark but honest truth — we’re primed and ready for the integration of truly intelligent AI into our society, and probably have been for many years. The same way old-world values, fueled by corporate greed, has obstructed our amelioration in history, we can only grimace at what an AI-generated future will look like living under the patriarchy. Unless, of course, we dismantle it.
