The New York Times reported that “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig was unhappy with movie character Ken into an icon
Greta Gerwig does not look at Mattel’s iconic doll, and her "boyfriend" Ken, strictly as archetypes of women and men. Barbieland seems like an idyllic haven for Margot Robbie’s Barbie and her friends, but when thoughts start to get heavy, and she finds herself faced with the real world, she realizes that nothing is as perfect as it seems. This film could have coasted by on being a silly comedy, or been a girl power adventure, but Gerwig and Noah Baumbach want to dig deeper into the ways in which society pigeonholes both women and men while also making a delightfully energetic comedy. The ways women can take different messages from Barbie as an icon, and how Ken represents both internalized and externalized forms of toxic masculinity, are profound thematic takeaways from this film, and Gerwig is a born filmmaker capable of juggling all of them in a film as beautifully visualized, and delightfully enjoyable, as this one.