Barbie is making its mark in the entertainment industry by earning critical acclaim and making $500 million at the global box office within one week of its release. The film is full of satirical, humorous, dramatic, and emotional moments, due to which this PG-13 rated movie connects with a wide spectrum of audiences. Greta Gerwig seems to have handled every scene with great attention to detail, but there are 16 top scenes in Barbie that stand out and make it a must-watch movie.
16 The Opening Song
After a brief introduction of the Barbie doll and how these dolls have "solved the problems of feminism and equal rights, at least in the Barbieland," the movie opens with Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) waking up in her bed in Barbieland with "Pink" by Lizzo playing in the background.
The lyrics and the entire scene are perfectly synced as it depicts the grandeur of the Barbieland and makes the audience immersed in the pink world. Moreover, the viral foot scene from the trailer is also included during the opening sequence, and the scene's impact is enhanced by Lizzo's powerful vocals.
15 "Dance the Night" Song
The soundtrack of Barbie is an important factor in its success, as the album has many popular stars such as Ice Spice, Pink, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and Dua Lipa, who also features in the film as Mermaid Barbies. Dua Lipa's "Dance the Night" was the first song of Barbie to be released, and it can be heard in the film in multiple scenes.
The film also has a disco party scene based on the "Dance the Night" song. This is an important scene as it depicts how perfect Barbieland is and how everyone is living a seemingly perfect life full of parties, music, dance, and fun, at least until Barbie brings up the topic of death.
14 Thinking About Death
While everything seems to be great, and all the Barbies are discussing how all their days are perfect, and they all feel beautiful, Stereotypical Barbie suddenly brings up an existential question: "Do you guys ever think about dying?" This question brings a small pause to the Dance the Night party, and everyone around her also gets stopped due to the sheer shock of such a loaded question. Barbie recovers from the situation by saying that she's actually dying to dance.
Nevertheless, this question sets the foundation of the movie's plot and paves the way for Barbie to travel from Barbieland to the real world, so she can find out what's wrong with her. This moment also foreshadows the fact that, despite being a doll, human emotions are important for Barbie, which makes her take some big steps later in the movie.
13 Rollerblading Scene
A lot of people knew that a live-action Barbie film was in production, but it was in June 2022 when the pictures of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling rollerblading in neon at Venice Beach went viral overnight, and Barbie quickly became one of the most-anticipated movies. This particular scene has a lot of history behind it, as Greta has revealed that the viral pictures made the stars quite conscious of the entire process, and Margot also termed it the "most humiliating moment of her life."
Nevertheless, the scene is one of the best moments of Barbie. It shows Barbie and Ken entering (on their neon rollerblades) the real world for the first time and interacting with humans. The scene stands out not due to the eye-popping outfits Barbie and Ken are wearing, but due to the subtle way in which it handles the varying impact of unwanted attention on Barbie and Ken.
Ken enjoys that people are noticing him for the first time, and he feels "admired," while Barbie feels unease and "undertones of violence." because she, being a woman, is getting ogled, even if she does not use the specific word in the scene. This is an important message to give to the audience, and Greta has done a fantastic job of making the entire rollerblading scene much more than just a visual spectacle.
12 Barbie's First Tear
The purpose of Barbie entering the real world is to find the girl who owns her doll, but she has no idea where to start from. So, she sits on a bench to contemplate and figure out her next move while Ken goes his own way. Barbie closes her eyes and feels a plethora of human emotions for the first time as the life of the girl who has her doll flashes before her. This is a turning point in the movie that is made even better by the powerful performance of Margot Robbie. As Barbie experiences her first tear, she herself summarizes this scene as "that felt achy, but good."
11 The Bench Scene
Another great moment in Barbie is when Stereotypical Barbie interacts with an elderly woman (Ann Roth) when she is sitting on a bench and seeing the real world around her. Surprisingly, this particular scene has nothing to do with the movie's plot directly, but it is the "heart of the movie," as per Great Gerwig because it gives a deeper meaning to the entire plot.
The scene involves Barbie seeing an aged woman for the first time in her life and giving her a compliment that she's beautiful, and the woman accepts the compliment with full confidence, saying, "I know it."
While the exact meaning of this scene is left open to the audience's interpretation, it is a great moment that shows the interaction between women of different generations. It is also an emotional moment that plants the seeds for Barbie's decision at the end of the movie. Moreover, it also shows that beauty is meant to be appreciated in every stage and age.
10 "Barbie, you fascist."
As the world has become more aware and is focusing on body positivity and inclusivity, the Barbie dolls have become quite controversial in the last few years due to the unrealistic beauty standards they set in their initial years. This is the reason why, when a live-action Barbie film was announced, a lot of people were apprehensive about its plot and what kind of standards it would set for the younger generation.
This kind of hate towards Barbie dolls, especially Stereotypical Barbie, is perfectly shown through the character of Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). Barbie approaches Sasha, assuming that she's the one who is playing with her doll, and she would love to meet Barbie, as these dolls are bringing happiness to the world.
However, Sasha gives her a reality check and gives a long monologue about how Barbie has set the feminist movement back by at least 50 years. Sasha concludes her monologue by calling Barbie a "fascist," due to which Barbie ends up crying. This scene is one of the highlights of the movie as it directly includes the arguments against Barbie, and Greta has smartly addressed such arguments throughout the movie. Unsurprisingly, Mattel, who also co-produced the film, tried to get this scene cut from the movie, but was eventually convinced otherwise by the production team.
9 Dude with No Power
While some people and critics are finding Barbie to be "hyper-feminine" or "anti-men," the majority are appreciating the movie for having a balanced take on the patriarchy and smartly depicting it through the contrasts between Barbieland and the real world. There are no in-your-face, preachy messages in the movie. Instead, patriarchal issues are discussed subtly through humorous and emotional moments.
For instance, in one scene, when the Mattel CEO (played by Will Ferrell) and his team of male executives are interacting with Barbie for the first time, Barbie wants to meet the female in charge. However, Mattel does not have any female executives, so Aaron Dinkins (Connor Swindells), a regular Mattel employee, says, "I'm a man with no power. Does that make me a woman?" Such kind of edgy humor in a brief, but impactful scene, is a great way to put the point across.
8 Ruth and Barbie
It is highly unlikely that anyone would watch Barbie with the expectation of learning about the origins of the doll or Mattel, the company behind Barbie dolls. Yet, the film manages to give a nod to Barbie's creator, Ruth Handler (played by Rhea Perlman), who was also the co-founder of Mattel. The film even manages to give tidbits about Ruth's legal issues with the IRS and her tax evasion troubles.
She first appears out of the blue during the chase scene, when Barbie is trying to run from Mattel's CEO and his team. Barbie enters a strange room and is offered tea by Ruth's ghost. When Barbie expresses her disappointment in the real world, Ruth tells her that complexities make the world beautiful, and the urge to quit is part and parcel of being human.
7 Depressed Barbie Ad
When Barbie, along with Sasha and Gloria (American Ferrara), travels back to the Barbieland, they find that Ken, who has learned all about patriarchy from the real world, has taken over the Barbieland and turned it into Kenland. All the other Barbies have also fallen under the spell of patriarchal Kens, and Stereotypical Barbie gets all depressed because she has gotten used to feeling human emotions due to her travels to the real world.
This sequence is followed by a hilarious ad for Depressed Barbie, who cries all day and scrolls through Instagram for seven hours a day, keeps rewatching BBC's Pride and Prejudice, and has various conditions, including OCD and anxiety.
6 "I'm Not Stereotypical Barbie Pretty"
Once Barbie gets depressed, she tells Gloria that "I'm not stereotypical Barbie pretty," and immediately before the audience can even think of dissing this dialogue, the movie responds with Helen Mirren's narration that "Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point."
This is a hilarious moment in the film, as most people are likely to be thinking the same thing during this scene. This narration is also important to address the criticism that came with Margot Robbie's casting as the lead in Barbie because a lot of people thought that the film would reaffirm the stereotypes created by Barbie dolls. Nevertheless, the movie has clearly addressed such criticism directly in its plot to win over the audience.
5 Gloria's Monologue
American Ferrara, who plays Gloria in Barbie, has the most important scene of the movie riding on her shoulders. She delivers a powerful performance with her long monologue, which is much more than a simple speech about basic feminism. Instead, it dives deep into the details of what exactly it means to be a woman and the tightrope that women have to walk in the world. The content of the monologue is clearly designed to be a conversation starter. Gloria ends the monologue with the following powerful words:
4 Snyder Cut Joke
Gloria's monologue is quite heavy, with a lot of things to feel and think about. Nevertheless, it is immediately followed by a great joke about Zack Snyder's Justice League. It happens when Gloria's monologue starts working and wakes the Barbies up from their patriarchal brainwashing.
After coming back to her original self, Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp) describes her brainwashed state as: "It's like I've been in a dream where I was really invested in the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League." This is a brief comic relief moment in which WB got the opportunity to make fun of its own highly popular and controversial movie, and it definitely generated a lot of hype among Snyder fans.
3 "I'm Just Ken" Song
"She's everything. He's just Ken" has been the highlight of Barbie's marketing campaign representing that the film is mainly about Barbie, who holds important positions and titles, such as being President, Supreme Court Justices, Nobel Prize-winning author, and much more.
The existential crisis of Ken is beautifully captured in the "I'm Just Ken" song by Ryan Gosling. He sings about his frustration of being continually overshadowed by Barbie and how he remains unappreciated, despite doing everything he can to impress her.
2 Ken's Regret
The final scene between Barbie and Ken is a deep conversation about their places in society and how Ken feels ignored. He even admits that he didn't even like bringing patriarchy to Barbieland, which is a great message to the gatekeepers of patriarchy delivered in a humorous manner. Barbie also encourages Ken to find his own identity and apologize for making every night a girls' night. This conversation sums up the existential crisis that Ken is facing throughout the film, with the scene ending with Ken realizing that he is enough (Kenough) just as he is.
1 Barbie Becomes Human
Ruth and Barbie meet again, with Ruth telling her that being human can be very uncomfortable because humans tend to make up things like patriarchy. However, Barbie, having already gotten the taste of human emotions throughout the film, decides to take the leap and become "a part of the people that make meaning, not the thing that is made." Ruth shows her the vision of what it exactly means to be a human, and Barbie feels a variety of emotions in this scene that are perfectly depicted by Margot Robbie's performance.
The emotional montage is made from the footage of women who are a part of the lives of the cast and crew of Barbie. "What Was I Made For" by Billie Eilish plays in the background of this montage, and the entire scene has a profound impact on the audience as Barbie chooses to leave behind the Barbieland and join the mortal world with a simple but highly emotional, "Yes."
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