‘Barbie’ Offers Unproductive Moral Message

The opening of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie depicts “Dawn of Barbie,” a nod to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rather than an evolution from ape to human, little girls abandon baby dolls for Barbie dolls after an encounter with a giant, life-size goddess. But the Barbie doll, we soon learn, isn’t true progress.

Upon seeing the giant Barbie (Margot Robbie), the little girls begin smashing their baby dolls — a detail conservative commentator Michael Knowles suggests shows that “feminism makes girls kill babies.”

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Madeleine Kearns

Madeleine Kearns is a former staff writer at National Review.

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The opening of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie depicts “Dawn of Barbie,” a nod to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rather than an evolution from ape to human, little girls abandon baby dolls for Barbie dolls after an encounter with a giant, life-size goddess. But the Barbie doll, we soon learn, isn’t true progress.

Upon seeing the giant Barbie (Margot Robbie), the little girls begin smashing their baby dolls — a detail conservative commentator Michael Knowles suggests shows that “feminism makes girls kill babies.”