Note: This essay contains spoilers about the “Barbie” movie.
I expected to enjoy Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” ― to come out of the experience with a rekindled love for pink and with ’90s songs taking up headspace. What I did not expect was to see a version of my own toxic “relationship” in Ryan Gosling’s Ken and Margot Robbie’s Barbie.
“Relationship” is in quotes, because what I experienced was not, in fact, a relationship, but a campaign of sexual predation by a male supervisor at work, someone who initially perplexed (even annoyed) me but who managed, through love-bombing and confidences designed to elicit sympathy, to convince me that he was misunderstood and was a friend. In short, he made me feel like Robbie’s Barbie while he played the part of Gosling’s needy Ken.
Our working relationship — which at its best felt like a light, fun and creative collaboration — devolved quickly as he chipped away at every boundary. I remember the first time he brought up his sex life in the office, how shocking it was, how I pressed into the couch on which I was sitting, trying to make myself small, while he sat across from me, cross-legged and nonchalant.
“I’ve never told anyone this before,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m telling you — it’s just, I never expected for us to get this close.” I imagined my back falling through the cushion behind me, so visceral was my “flee” reaction. Yet, inexplicably, I stayed. “Barbie” helped me understand why.
After I saw the film with my husband, he confessed to being bewildered — bothered, even — by the Barbie Land ending, specifically when Barbie apologises to Ken for taking him for granted, saying “not every night had to be a girls night.”
“Oh, I get why she did that,” I said. “I did the same thing.”
Barbie doesn’t like or want to be with Ken, and that should be OK. But she still winds up apologising, because she knows that Ken’s frustration means he’s going to do real damage to others or himself (e.g., take over Barbie Land or jump off the Dreamhouse) if she doesn’t pacify him in some way— in words, if not the way he wants physically.
And it gets even more complicated, because Barbie recognises Ken’s awfulness— yet she still hopes he likes her, a desperate desire of women everywhere (articulated in the film as “so tiring” only moments before). America Ferrera’s Gloria, Barbie’s real-world mentor, assures her that he does and is just mad that she doesn’t like or want him the same way. And even though Barbie doesn’t like Ken, she still doesn’t want to “hurt” him. Gloria has to remind her that he stole her house and took over the government. Notably, Barbie ends this conversation with “I’m like a real woman already” — acknowledging this need to be liked and fear of causing harm as a particularly female experience, because it is.
I had this same conversation, nearly verbatim, with my therapist in the aftermath of my workplace abuse. “But ... he said I would hurt him, and I don’t want to hurt him” — i.e., what if he jumps off the Dreamhouse? My therapist was Gloria, reminding me: He was your boss; he continued to harass you after you said no; and he said, “No one will believe you because of the short dresses you wear” — like something out of a “Mad Men” episode.
As a woman, you have to force yourself to detach and look at the situation like you’re watching a film to recognise the villainy, because we’re so conditioned to believe in our failings and feel subsequent guilt. At one point, Ken screams at Barbie that she failed him, and she really seems to believe him. She does so much work afterward to make amends for something that she shouldn’t have to make amends for in the first place.
If she wants every night to be a girls night, then that’s what she should have. She doesn’t owe Ken anything. It’s not her fault that he doesn’t have anything else to do other than stalk her because he’s obsessed. It’s actually kind of scary, just like it’s scary that there’s been so much Ken love from audiences because he’s just so harmless and affable (also an adjective used to describe my abuser) — until he’s not.
Those most critical of “Barbie” are right-wing men who accuse the film of being too “woke,” whereas I’m arguing we’re not woke enough if we’re not cringing during Barbie’s apology to and caretaking of Ken.
At first I did not report my boss for sexual harassment, because he voluntarily resigned from his position (after my “no” became increasingly desperate) and I chose to believe him when he said I was the only one with whom he had crossed lines — and that he would go to therapy. But when I began to talk to other women about what had happened, I discovered that someone else — younger and in an even more vulnerable position — had made previous allegations that were dismissed, after which she left the workplace.
This changed everything, because it is easier for me (maybe for all women) to advocate for others rather than myself. I worked with a lawyer to submit a letter to put my workplace on notice. I requested a Title IX investigation. It has been months of silence, and no real-world version of Rhea Perlman’s Ruth Handler — a divine feminine creator in “Barbie” (named after the actual Mattel executive who made the iconic doll) — has emerged to offer tea, to point me in the direction of stairs leading to a way out, or to provide illumination, via a magical hand grasp, about such an opaque process.
“Ken’s the real villain of the film,” my husband concluded. Yes. And the feminist utopia that audiences are looking for appears at the beginning of the movie, when Barbie feels no compunction at telling Ken she’d like him to leave — and when he just does.
In the end, I’m glad that “Barbie” exists. The film has helped me both to understand and to communicate my most traumatic and confusing experience to my husband, a man who is even more of a feminist advocate than — and as rare as — Michael Cera’s Allan. I wish there were multiples of Allan, who actively helps overthrow Kendom in Barbie Land because he recognises its toxicity. And I wish that Barbie’s apology to Ken felt as uncomfortable to them in the film, and to real-life audiences, as it did to my husband.
Here is the truth: I would not have been able to heal from my experience as quickly as I did without my husband’s solid, gentle support. When I told him about the abuse, he listened. He also urged me to get a therapist — “someone who you can tell everything to,” he said, knowing that my affection for and fear of hurting him would cause me to hold back. I felt vulnerable in a scary situation, and he never once made it about him or his ego. And he read books like “The Body Keeps the Score” to help himself (and me) understand why I was exhibiting physical symptoms of narcissistic abuse syndrome.
It’s this work, a year of listening and perspective-taking, that caused the discomfort he experienced while watching “Barbie” — and this discomfort is the transformative power capable of making the best Allans out of the worst Kens. Note to Greta Gerwig: That’s the sequel I’d most like to see.
Colette Foy (a pseudonym to protect the privacy of the author) is an educator, writer and traveler. She’s lived in the same state her whole life but frequently leaves it to adventure with her husband or visit her sister, often on a train.
Help and support:
If you, or someone you know, is in immediate danger, call 999 and ask for the police. If you are not in immediate danger, you can contact:
- The Freephone 24 hour National Domestic Violence Helpline, run by Refuge: 0808 2000 247
- In Scotland, contact Scotland’s 24 hour Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline: 0800 027 1234
- In Northern Ireland, contact the 24 hour Domestic & Sexual Violence Helpline: 0808 802 1414
- In Wales, contact the 24 hour Life Fear Free Helpline on 0808 80 10 800.
- National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0800 999 5428
- Men’s Advice Line: 0808 801 0327
- Respect helpline (for anyone worried about their own behaviour): 0808 802 0321