The opening scenes of Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster “Barbie” feature multiple young girls, each of them dressed in drab, mid-’50s frocks, playing with baby dolls.
A narrator (Helen Mirren) notes, prior to 1959, babies were the only doll option for kids, implying that little girls were being trained for their eventual expected role as housewives and mothers.
Surreally, the girls are playing out in a vast, prehistorical desert, with no homes or parents anywhere to be seen. Then, she appears. Standing about 15-feet tall, Barbie (Margot Robbie) manifests in the dirt nearby.
She stands there, statuesque, presenting the young girls with the next step in their playtime evolution.
Baby dolls are instantly a thing of the past.
Barbie, an adult doll, is now going to be the girls’ whole world.
The girls wander in idle awe up to Barbie, touching her leg, making sure she’s real.
One of the girls…
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