Barbie: a film about fashionable feminism

Weirdly the new type of feminine hero is more similar to very ancient ones that feature women on a physical journey, but that journey is often seem as an obstacle not an opportunity for growth. These stories treat women more like a state of nature and whatever leads her to make a journey is a corruption of that state of nature where the world needs to be returned to how it should be. I am thinking here about the classical poem of Mulan - which both the new and old Disney versions seriously deviate from. In the original poem, Mulan's journey of going to war takes up very few words, instead the focus is the fact that she went to war and returned to the home to be completely feminine (as indicted by the last image of her brushing her hair). This is a story arch is actually very similar to the ones given to women in the movies now but the clear difference between the two what is considered the state of perfection that is being left and returned to. For the original tale of Mulan it is her role as women in the home for Barbie it is her role in this utopia called Barbieland.

It seems like we are returning to a view of women as nature to be preserved in their role rather than to grow and develop, I am not sure what this indicates for the culture more generally. Whilst it is not as inspiring as feminine hero that undergoes hardships and grows, there is a truth hidden in this new type of feminine journey, a journey of return rather than discovery, which perhaps explains the popularity of films like Barbie.

At least for me, the main issue with the Barbie film is that the state of nature being restored is no utopia. Barbieland is no place I'd actually like to live in.