Why did Gloria have a mid life crisis in “Barbie?”
In the technicolor, plastic world of "Barbie", we're introduced to a dynamic character known as Gloria. Though seemingly just another part of the film's backdrop, Gloria's character serves a central role, contributing significantly to the plot and its underlying thematic layers. Gloria's midlife crisis is an instrumental device that initiates Stereotypical Barbie's existential journey, intertwining their lives in a way that leads to a unique perspective of womanhood, motherhood, and societal expectations.
As a Mattel employee and a mother, Gloria inadvertently imparts her own worries and anxieties to Sasha's Barbie toys. While this is a critical plot point, it also serves as a metaphor for how parents might unconsciously project their fears, aspirations, and insecurities onto their children. However, Gloria's relationship with these toys transcends traditional parental influence; it mirrors the pop-culture trope we've seen in movies like Pixar's "Inside Out," where internal emotions are personified, creating a narrative within a narrative.
In "Inside Out," Riley's emotions—Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust—are anthropomorphized, becoming characters with their own story arcs. Their interactions and battles directly impact Riley's external world. Similarly, Gloria's inner struggles, her doubts, her fears are given form through her interaction with the Barbie toys. This unique parallel with "Inside Out" offers a profound look into how our internal dialogues can materialize in our external world, significantly impacting those around us.
A more esoteric, less immediately apparent parallel can be drawn with Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". In Carroll's literary classic, Alice embarks on a fantastical journey, navigating a surreal world that mirrors her struggle with the confounding realities of growing up. Gloria, like Alice, grapples with a reality that feels increasingly absurd and frustrating. Her interaction with the toys symbolizes a form of escapism, a rabbit hole that allows her to grapple with her midlife crisis in a fantastical, albeit unusual, manner.
In this light, the Barbie toys serve as a warped "Wonderland" of sorts. They allow Gloria to process her fears and worries, just as Wonderland provides Alice a way to confront and navigate the unsettling truths of adulthood. Both narratives use the fantastic to explore personal transformation and growth, manifesting internal struggles in an external, tangible form. But, unlike Alice's self-realization journey, Gloria's internal turmoil unintentionally becomes the catalyst for Barbie's existential crisis, leading to a fascinating role-reversal: The toy becomes the one to confront and navigate life's unsettling truths.
Gloria's character also offers a poignant look into the struggle of managing societal expectations, especially for women in their middle age. This parallels the societal criticism we often see in dystopian fiction, like Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale". Gloria's frustration and crisis serve as an allegory for women's struggle in a society that demands perfection—perfect mothers, perfect employees, and perfect women. This pressure is subtly infused into Sasha's toys, essentially molding Barbie into a mirror image of Gloria's internal struggle, further emphasizing the film's feminist underpinnings.
In conclusion, Gloria's midlife crisis in "Barbie" serves as a multi-dimensional narrative device that shapes the film's overarching narrative while also grounding it in relatable human experiences. Drawing unconventional parallels with "Inside Out", "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", and "The Handmaid's Tale", we see how Gloria's journey adds depth and nuance to the film, touching upon themes of motherhood, societal pressure, and self-identity. Gloria's relationship with the Barbie toys proves that even in the most fantastical narratives, the complexities of real-life struggles and the human psyche cannot be escaped, making "Barbie" a vivid exploration of feminism, womanhood, and the undeniable strength of the female spirit.
