evidence: Advertisement 'Barbie' director Greta Gerwig explains how the movie deconstructs a toy icon [...] Greta Gerwig’s "Barbie" takes on the iconic doll and all her issues — with a bit of seriousness and a whole lot of camp. [...] "I want the movie to make people feel somewhat relieved of the tightrope. We ask ourselves — not just as women, men too — that we walk this impossible tightrope of being perfect," Gerwig says. "Barbie has always been a symbol of this thing that you could never reach because she physically couldn't stand up if she were a human being. So I wanted it to almost invert that formula and find a way that it gave you permission to just be yourself and know that that's enough."