We dissect the surprising, powerful connection between Toy Story 2 and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, two films about dolls being abandoned by their kids.
Warning: mild spoilers for Barbie! And all the spoilers for Toy Story 2!
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie wouldn’t be a story about a toy without a nod to Pixar’s Toy Story franchise. With her own film, Gerwig seems to pay homage to the rag doll who has been holding up the metaphorical girls toy-story fort since 1999, Jessie. The striking parallel between the two characters blooms in a sentimental montage in Barbie that mirrors Toy Story 2, both of which muse on nostalgia for the all-encompassing joy found in make-believe as a child. In Barbie, Gloria (America Ferrera) is woefully burdened down by adulthood. As a mother-of-one, she’s overtired, overlooked (even by her own daughter, Sasha), underestimated and unappreciated all while she tries, uncomfortably, to straddle the impossible expectations placed on women in a patriarchal society. She even delivers a searing monologue on it later on in the film. Gloria’s depression causes a seismic shift in Barbie Land, one that rips the seams of the matriarchy, and threatens to destroy all the Barbies with cellulite and feet that ache in heels. The horror! In order to mend the rift, stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) leaves her pink-perfect life to go on a journey of self-discovery to find the human whose thoughts are affecting her.
READ MORE: Barbie vs Oppenheimer | Who won the box office?
Once Barbie arrives in the far-off patriarchal lands (also known as Los Angeles), she scours through her own memories for a clue to find the child she’s connected to. She experiences flashes of a little girl running to her mother for a hug and a secret handshake. Barbie looks on at this happy exchange, yet before she can rejoice in all the great work she has single-handedly done for feminism, the vision shifts. The now-teen shrugs away her mother’s affection, and intends to throw out her once-cherished Barbie doll. Robbie’s Barbie sheds a tear, her first experience of real human emotion, as she processes the sting of lost innocence, and sharp rejection of nearly being thrown away like trash. For the first time, Barbie is confronted with the reality that children often grow out of playing with toys, and by extension, grow out of her, of Barbie dolls. Barbie’s childish fantasy of being a feminist icon that all women credit for their empowerment in the real world falters. In this moment Barbie is forced to grow up, her optimism wavers and her naive perception of the world is shattered. In Pixar’s 1999 film Toy Story 2, cowgirl doll Jessie recollects her own experience of being a girl’s favourite doll in a montage similar to the one in Barbie. Emily and Jessie are inseparable, but as Emily inevitably grows up, Jessie ends up in the graveyard of forgotten things under the bed for years before ultimately being donated away. The scene and its accompanying song, ‘When She Loved Me’, remain one of the most heart-wrenching sequences in the four-film franchise, as the confused doll comes to terms with Emily moving on without her. Both of these montages focus on the pain of shedding childhood joys as you grow up. If there was any doubt about the connection between the two films, Robbie’s Barbie is also dressed in pink stolen cowgirl gear and a white Stetson, to really hammer home this Jessie energy. Like the Toy Story films, Barbie reminds us it’s never too late to embrace that forbidden, long-lost joy of childish play. Gloria held onto Sasha’s doll in hopes that this age of happiness would return, and in a be-careful-what-you-wish-for turn of events, she manifests Barbie (quite literally) into her life.
It’s a thrill for Gloria to meet her daughter’s Barbie, the doll she believes to be the reason for her wonderful relationship with her daughter in the past. So when Barbie shows up at Mattel headquarters, where Gloria works, it’s go time.
If a life-sized version of your favourite childhood toy appeared outside your corporate, soul-sucking office, we all hope we’d have the gumption to tell them to get in our car. Whisk them away, no questions asked, just like Gloria does in the film. Suddenly, Gloria transforms from a downtrodden Mum to mean getaway driver, an inspirational speaker who helps brainwashed Barbies escape the power-drunk, oppressive Kens, all because she embraces her inner child again.
READ MORE: The best Barbie movies ranked in order of Pinkness
She tosses logic and society’s expectations to the wind, in favour of acting on her childish rebellion and her adult desperation to have fun. Gloria reconnects with Sasha as they storm the Kendom and liberate the Barbies in a way they could never free themselves from their own oppressive society. Sure, nostalgia for the past can be depressing and trigger an all-consuming despair if we dwell too long on what’s gone, and lost. Yet, Gerwig reminds us the story doesn’t have to stop there. Jessie’s sure didn’t. The root-tootin’-cow-girl gets a whole new family, and even bags herself another kid in the ultimate happy ending.
Barbie delivers a vibrant hope that life – however bleak and heavy it becomes – is not without the potential for joy. There’s a chance to find child-like fun in our daily life, when we don’t stay in the metaphorical boxes we’re all put into as adults and especially as women.
The choice is simple: let that inner child collect dust like that toy under the bed, or uncover it again. Brush off your childish sense of freedom, let the Kenergy run wild.
In short, be more like Gloria.
Barbie is now in cinemas and Toy Story 2 is available to stream on Disney+.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie wouldn’t be a story about a toy without a nod to Pixar’s Toy Story franchise. With her own film, Gerwig seems to pay homage to the rag doll who has been holding up the metaphorical girls toy-story fort since 1999, Jessie. The striking parallel between the two characters blooms in a sentimental montage in Barbie that mirrors Toy Story 2, both of which muse on nostalgia for the all-encompassing joy found in make-believe as a child. In Barbie, Gloria (America Ferrera) is woefully burdened down by adulthood. As a mother-of-one, she’s overtired, overlooked (even by her own daughter, Sasha), underestimated and unappreciated all while she tries, uncomfortably, to straddle the impossible expectations placed on women in a patriarchal society. She even delivers a searing monologue on it later on in the film. Gloria’s depression causes a seismic shift in Barbie Land, one that rips the seams of the matriarchy, and threatens to destroy all the Barbies with cellulite and feet that ache in heels. The horror! In order to mend the rift, stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) leaves her pink-perfect life to go on a journey of self-discovery to find the human whose thoughts are affecting her.
READ MORE: Barbie vs Oppenheimer | Who won the box office?
Once Barbie arrives in the far-off patriarchal lands (also known as Los Angeles), she scours through her own memories for a clue to find the child she’s connected to. She experiences flashes of a little girl running to her mother for a hug and a secret handshake. Barbie looks on at this happy exchange, yet before she can rejoice in all the great work she has single-handedly done for feminism, the vision shifts. The now-teen shrugs away her mother’s affection, and intends to throw out her once-cherished Barbie doll. Robbie’s Barbie sheds a tear, her first experience of real human emotion, as she processes the sting of lost innocence, and sharp rejection of nearly being thrown away like trash. For the first time, Barbie is confronted with the reality that children often grow out of playing with toys, and by extension, grow out of her, of Barbie dolls. Barbie’s childish fantasy of being a feminist icon that all women credit for their empowerment in the real world falters. In this moment Barbie is forced to grow up, her optimism wavers and her naive perception of the world is shattered. In Pixar’s 1999 film Toy Story 2, cowgirl doll Jessie recollects her own experience of being a girl’s favourite doll in a montage similar to the one in Barbie. Emily and Jessie are inseparable, but as Emily inevitably grows up, Jessie ends up in the graveyard of forgotten things under the bed for years before ultimately being donated away. The scene and its accompanying song, ‘When She Loved Me’, remain one of the most heart-wrenching sequences in the four-film franchise, as the confused doll comes to terms with Emily moving on without her. Both of these montages focus on the pain of shedding childhood joys as you grow up. If there was any doubt about the connection between the two films, Robbie’s Barbie is also dressed in pink stolen cowgirl gear and a white Stetson, to really hammer home this Jessie energy. Like the Toy Story films, Barbie reminds us it’s never too late to embrace that forbidden, long-lost joy of childish play. Gloria held onto Sasha’s doll in hopes that this age of happiness would return, and in a be-careful-what-you-wish-for turn of events, she manifests Barbie (quite literally) into her life.
Credit: Warner Bros.
READ MORE: The best Barbie movies ranked in order of Pinkness
She tosses logic and society’s expectations to the wind, in favour of acting on her childish rebellion and her adult desperation to have fun. Gloria reconnects with Sasha as they storm the Kendom and liberate the Barbies in a way they could never free themselves from their own oppressive society. Sure, nostalgia for the past can be depressing and trigger an all-consuming despair if we dwell too long on what’s gone, and lost. Yet, Gerwig reminds us the story doesn’t have to stop there. Jessie’s sure didn’t. The root-tootin’-cow-girl gets a whole new family, and even bags herself another kid in the ultimate happy ending.
Credit: Pixar
Barbie is now in cinemas and Toy Story 2 is available to stream on Disney+.
