oh my god this movie made me cry the first time i watched it and it made me cry this time too. watching it in theaters with my friends was awesome because we were all caught up in the hype and pure joy of a silly movie that took us off guard with how much it hurt. watching it in the final class meeting of an course examining the ideal woman throughout television history, having seen where we started and where we've ended up, with all the cultural history of donna reed and my living doll and dead mothers and career women and homemakers and everything that led to this stupid toy marketing movie was INCREDIBLE. my professor made a great choice rounding off the course like this; we got to see how far the portrayal of women in media has come and see what has changed and what has remained the same. it's just really an excellent film.

scenes at which i cried:

• barbie looks around at the park and witnesses human emotions
• when she tells the old lady at the bus stop that she's beautiful
• barbie talking about how she's just not enough
• america ferrera's speech about womanhood
• the montage of memories she sees at the end

and even if we ignore all the themes and messages and critical thinking, it's a really fun movie! the colors and music and acting and costumes and dua lipa in that ugly wig next to john cena with somewhat real-looking hair... it's all so fun! te ending is beautiful in an unexpected way, and despite the weighty moments it can really be a feel-good movie in the end. and like yes of course it is a shameless marketing tool and basically a 2 hour advetrisement for a plastic toy line but in this day and age what is not an advertisement? i feel like us americans are nearly immune to advertising; chevrolet commercials and "accept our cookies" pop-ups run in my blood. at least this advertisement says "yay feminism."

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