My Favorite Super Bowl

 

 

 Allegedly, some 200 million people will watch the Super Bowl today. I suspect millions will be girls and young women hoping for glances of Taylor Swift, but still…. I will not be watching; I find gridiron football boring. It’s too slow, too hyped, and non-strategic for my tastes.

 

I do, however, have a tale about my favorite Super Bowl. I was a Fulbright scholar posted in Wellington, New Zealand, when George W. Bush was about to take office in the United States. Back in New Zealand, Dubya’s team was throwing its weight around and trying to erase the presence of outgoing U.S. Ambassador Carol Braun Mosley. She was enormously popular among New Zealanders, so the Bushwhackers were anxious to show some good ‘ole Texas hospitality. Let’s just say they started off on the wrong boot.   

 

The New Zealand staff was—key word—ordered to attend a Super Bowl party at the United States Embassy. So too were all American Fulbright recipients in the country, both senior scholars such as me, and those undergrads and graduate students designated as junior Fulbrighters. By gum, everyone was going to be treated to hot dogs, beer, potato chips, hamburgers, and all the fixins. All flown in from the US of A.

 

Among New Zealanders, football is soccer and they didn’t know gridiron from a waffle iron. In January, a summer month Down Under, attentions are focused on Union Rugby and the fate of its national team, the All Blacks–named for their uniforms. Jonah Lomu was the big star there and, at 6’4” 265 pounds, he was literally a big one. Nor is a group of academics and wannabes exactly your average red-meat gridiron crowd. The Bush advance team was ensconced in a side room watching the game on what was then  a rare big screen TV. They were screaming their heads off, while the rest of us awkwardly milled about by the food and wine table.

 

I decided to break the ice by walking into a crowd of New Zealanders and introducing myself. I was charmed when one senior liaison asked me, “Whom do you prefer in the gridiron match?” I replied that I didn’t care for U.S. football, didn’t know who was playing, and had come to learn about and from New Zealanders. The ice melted. Soon, other Americans joined in and a lovely transnational conversation broke put. We were having so much fun that we strategically decided that we would pair up and take turns entering the TV room to make our presence known. This would mask the “jolly good chinwag” we were having at the expense of the clueless Yanks engrossed in the game.

 

One of the topics of hilarity was the food. Hot dogs are not a thing in New Zealand and, as it transpired, the rolls didn’t arrive in time so the embassy ordered what they hoped would be an approximation from a Wellington bakery. Epic fail! They were about two inches too long on each end, had about a five-inch diameter, and an overbaked biscuit-like texture. My new friends declared that the “sausages” were “interesting,” but wondered if Americans always placed them in “buns.” That was their polite way of saying they were terrible. We explained the miscalculation and had another good laugh.

 

I had no idea who won that day, though I was surprised that the team from Baltimore was called the Ravens, not the Colts. My highlight was meeting New Zealanders, hearing about Jonah Lomu, and discussing politics and lifestyles. Later, a gentleman I met there took me to a rugby match to see Lomu in action. He was everything he was cracked up to be, as dominant in rugby as Secretariat was in horse racing. Outside of the America, many have called him the greatest athlete in sports history and I surely not dispute it. (Lomu tragically died of kidney disease at age 40.)  

 

Let the record show that the Ravens won that Super Bowl, a fact I looked up on the Internet as I didn’t see a score in the Wellington Post. No matter, no one at the National Library where I posted said a word about the “match.” Actually, I’ve not seen a  football game since the early 1970s. Nevertheless, every Super Bowl day I smile and think of my trip to the U.S. Embassy in Wellington, where I learned the magic that comes from making cultural connections rather than presuming an Americentric world. Go All Blacks!

 

Rob Weir

 

Here’s a highlight video of Lomu in action.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsXTa7UCGlk&t=2s

 

The haka, which is performed before each All Blacks match. I’d be quaking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiKFYTFJ_kw

Orbital: Welcome Aboard the ISS

 

Orbital (2023)

By Samantha Harvey

Grove Press, 209 pages.

★★★★★

 

Do you ever imagine yourself on a spaceship speeding through the universe at warp speed? If you've ever watched Star Trek or Star Wars, I suspect you have. The closest thing we have to that kind of experience today is service aboard the International Space Station (ISS). What would it be like to spend months floating 250 miles above the earth?

 

Samantha Harvey gives us as good of an idea of what all but a few will ever experience. Her book Orbital is officially a novel,  but it's a well-researched one that jives with accounts of what those who have been aboard the ISS say. Like the old TV show Dragnet used to proclaim, “only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

 

Floating is the wrong word. The ISS streaks across the sky at a clip of 17,000 mph, though near-zero gravity inside makes it seem like a gentle drift. Orbital gets its name from the fact that each 24 hours those on the station witness16 different sunrises and 16 different sunsets.

 

Harvey's remarkable novel reads like an extended prose poem. I call it “remarkable” because in many ways, life aboard the ISS is one of repetition and tedium. Her invented crew consists of two Russians (Anton and Roman), two Americans (Sean and Nell), an Italian (Pietro), and a Japanese woman, Chie. Harvey imagines what goes on in their minds and how they cope with what happens back on earth as they orbit. For instance, Chie’s mother dies unexpectedly and her grief is magnified by not being able to attend her cremation. Sean and Nell engage in an ontological debate. When she looks out of the portal at the vastness of space it makes her doubt the intentionality of any sort of creator. When she asks Sean how he can still believe when he looks at what she sees he replies, “How can I not?” Another watches an enormous typhoon gathering in the Indian Ocean and worries if a kind fisherman he befriended can survive it.

 

Being aboard the ISS commands mental and physical courage as well as the ability to adjust levels of awe, desire, and acceptance. Imagine donning a spacesuit to exit the station to spend hours doing repairs while wearing thick gloves knowing that one wrong move or the tiniest piece of space debris could puncture your pressurized suit and asphyxiate you before you could be reeled back inside. Most are nonchalant about that possibility and speak of their willingness to die to advance science. They know also that returning to earth has its perils. There are more than 200 million pieces of space junk–lost tools, cameras, rocket stages, exhaust particles–orbiting our planet at 25,000 mph. Not to mention that the crew are, in many ways, dying for science. The toll of weightlessness ages their bodies 5 to 10 years for each six months they are on board, cancer risks rise dramatically, and muscles atrophy though they vigorously exercise.

 

Even the mundane challenges. They must recycle and treat their own urine for drinking water, tether themselves in order to sleep, and box their waste to send back to earth on resupply ships. Flying across the ship to fetch a dropped chopstick or spoon requires dexterity and there’s no real way to tell up from down.

 

My admiration for such brave men and women soared as I read Orbital. So too did my regard for Harvey; she made her novel heart-throbbing thrilling, though not much actually happens. Above all, it made me think humans better start taking care of the planet. Those board the ISS saw themselves as training for the possibility that humans might one day need to abandon earth. I don't think many of us could handle such a journey.

 

Rob Weir

 

Mark Twain and Fashion

Modesty Died When Clothes Were Born:

            Costume in the Life and Literature of Mark Twain

Catalogue by Lynne Bassett

Lincoln Financial Group Foundation, 64 pages.

 

 

 

I seldom review an exhibition catalogue, but I make exceptions when Samuel Clemens, aka/ Mark Twain, is concerned. In my mind he is the most “American” of all authors and Huckleberry Finn is the quintessential great American novel.

 

I won’t rehash his extensive biography except for a few spartan details. Clemens–always “Sam” to his family and friends–was born in Missouri to a father who churned through money, a harbinger of Twain’s own problems holding on to it.  As most know, he was a man of the frontier West for much of his youth. He acquired his pen name from his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, worked for several papers of minor renown, performed manual labor, dwelt in a cabin for a time, and lived up (or down) to the title of one of his earliest novels: Roughing It.

 

When he moved East, he fell in love with Olivia “Livy” Langdon, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and married her in 1870 after two years of determined courtship. Livy’s parents were not in favor of the match. They viewed him as uncouth, bombastic, and uncivilized. They were not entirely wrong! Sam promised Livy he’d wear decent clothing, and quit swearing, drinking, and smoking; he (mostly) managed three out of four. But not even Livy could tame Sam entirely. She adored him, but Sam had a positive knack for embarrassing her. Livy was a Victorian clotheshorse who loved fashion, new frocks, and all the trimmings. Sam fell into the category of you can dress him up, but you can’t make him take it seriously.

 

Bassett’s catalogue for a show at Hartford’s Mark Twain House is both a serious and mirthful look at fashion illustrated with photographs and several drawings of either actual dresses or types of dresses worn by Livy and daughters Suzy, Jean, and Clara, and accoutrements worn by Sam. (Some come from collections in Northampton.) Sam could put on airs, but his often unkempt red hair and sometimes unruly mustache betrayed him, as did the fact that his two favorite costumes were an Oxford academic robe awarded when he received an honorary degree and, of course, his famed white linen suits. 

 

Those interested in couture will enjoy reading about Victorian gowns, though they’re likely to cringe at what elite women had to go through to be fashionable–the bustles, corsets, layers, and changes of clothing up to four times a day. Livy was slight, but do you think she had a natural 18-inch waist?

 

Because Sam loved Livy he tried to show an interest in clothing, but this witticism pretty much sums up his attitude: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.” That’s among the barbs you’ll find in this slim volume. He paid enough attention to be able to discourse on clothing and their particulars, but he could only go so far. Who but Twain could write of that “Miss C. wore an elegant Cheveaux de la Reine …and a Garibaldi shirt” set off by a head-dress “crowned with a graceful pomme de terre,” or assert that the Empress Eugenie “dresses in buckskin?” When wry comments failed him, he simply invented terms that presaged Dr. Seuss. One of my favorite puckish moments came when Livy berated his coarseness for calling upon neighbor Harriet Beecher Stowe without wearing a cravat. He promptly had a servant deliver a box containing a cravat to Stowe with a kind request that she pen a note acknowledging that she observed that he actually owned one. Stowe perhaps understood wily Sam better than Livy on this score, as she played along.

 

As noted, Twain had a complicated relationship with money. He liked having it, but managed to lose it in bad investments such as his own publishing house, a typesetter that never worked, and plasmon, a milk food product that by all accounts was awful. It must have been hard on Livy and the girls when he invested away a fortune and they could no longer afford luxuries. Suzy died in 1896 and Livy in 1904. In 1906, Sam donned white suits all year round simply because he wanted to. As the expression goes, pick up this charming book and read all about it.

 

Rob Weir

After Annie Explores How Individuals Deal with Grief

 

 

 

 

After Annie (2024)

By Anna Quindlen

Random House, 304 pages.

★★★★

 

It’s not easy to pen a novel in which the protagonist is AWOL, but Anna Quindlen pulled it off with aplomb. The titular character of After Annie is Annie Fonzheimer Brown, a 37-year-old Pennsylvania “super” wife and mom to husband Bill and their offspring: Ali (Alexandra), Ant(hony), Benji, and Jamie. She is a natural organizer who orchestrates the chaos of living in the too-small house owned by her difficult (and often spiteful) mother-in-law Dora, provides care for residents at the nursing home at which she works, and birddogs her needy best friend Annemarie. But, one winter’s night right after dinner, Annie falls to the floor and dies of an aneurysm.  

 

In other words, Quindlen’s novel is exactly as its title implies: after Annie. It is a winter-to-winter tale that closely parallels the five stages of grief famously outlined by Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The problem with such easy-to-comprehend formulae is that they fail to tell us how and when individuals manifest those stages. Quindlen appreciates the messy complexity of grief and that no two people experience it exactly the same way. Bill, for example, is an in-demand plumber who depended on Annie to keep the family and his business running smoothly. (He also never wanted four children!) His denial shows in his feelings of hopelessness and in his reliance on his barely teenaged daughter Ali to step into Annie’s shoes. Benji, though, maintains the fiction that his mother is in the hospital and will be home soon.

 

The stages of grief also fail to consider other external pressures­–like Bill’s imperious mother who dislikes pretty much anything and anybody that is contrary to her preferences and solipsism. This includes her older daughter-in-law Kathy, Annie alive and dead, and Annemarie. Bill isn’t too sure of Annmarie either. She and Annie have been bonded since girlhood, but in ways that only close friends understand or share. It would be safe to say that no one grieves for Annie more than Annemarie. Annie was literally her lifeline, the person who cut through her self-delusion, was the rock solid counterpart to Annemarie’s addictive personality, and wasn’t afraid to apply tough love when necessary. Even Annie’s patients who regularly observe death are shattered by her passing.

 

In a nutshell, the problem for the survivors of all ages is that a person as beloved as Annie seems irreplaceable. Quindlen subtly heightens the sense of loss via flashback conversations and present tense prose. Bill tries to disappear vocationally and emotionally, while Annemarie­­–who built a business of acting as a middle person in retailing and distributing Amish and Mennonite handicrafts–struggles to remain engaged in either her work or her marriage. Nor are the children thriving; Ant is angry, for instance, and Ali, though externally evolving to mirror her mother’s competence and physical features, has too much on her plate, including the gnawing fear that her best friend is hiding a dark secret.

 

How long does one grieve? There’s no magic formula for that, but tell it to the young widows, divorcees, and singles who see Bill as a hunky standup guy who would make a good partner. He certainly embodies those characteristics, but it’s safe to say that he also has unresolved issues. One of them involves the need to nurture his children, not just provide for them. Another is to redefine his life on his own terms, a process that entails accepting help without biting off more than he wishes to chew. Can he, for example, prevail upon realtor Liz Donahue to extricate him from Dora’s house without giving her false hopes? Ali faces similar pressures. She knows she needs support her father can’t give, but what could possibly be more problematic among peers in an insular town than speaking with a counselor? Especially Mena Cruz, a small Filipina woman who grew up in Puerto Rico. (Ali has to remind Grandmother Dora that Puerto Ricans are Americans!)

 

One could tag After Annie as five stages of grief in five seasons. But if you’re expecting any sort of conventional happy ending, Quindlen has written a tragic drama, not a fairy tale. Most people recover from loss, rather than overcome it. Put in Kübler-Ross’ terms, they come to acceptance, not amnesia. To reiterate, Annie Brown remains a living presence, even after death.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yellowface: The Good and the Not-So-Good

 

Yellowface (2023)

By R. F. Kuang

Harper Collins, 323 pages

★★★

 

 

 Given that Babel is one of my favorite novels of recent memory, the next novel by R. F. Kuang had to be a letdown. That happened with Yellowface, though not for the reasons I anticipated.

 

There is still much to recommend, so let's start with that. First, it blows the lid off the viciousness of the publication business, especially agents, editors, marketers, legal teams, and social media trolls who can make or break a book. Yellowface details how the previously mentioned invent more than the writers. In other words, not all the fiction is on the page.

 

Is a writer’s life glamorous? Kuang presents it as a lonely profession of toil, rejection, self-doubt, turf protection, endless rewrites, negotiation, and for the chosen few, ephemeral success. The book that gets published is seldom the one that the author set out to write; it is shaped by market-driven publication teams that claim mystic knowledge of what readers want, what's unique, and what's too outré. As is often the case, they want books to conform to the world they helped create.

 

Yellowface also makes us contemplate the definition of plagiarism, as well as who has the right to tell a particular kind of story and who was guilty of cultural appropriation. Enter jealousy, the cancel culture and just plain nasty troublemakers.

 

And its heart are two 27-year-old writers, Athena Liu and June Song Hayward. Athena had a book deal before she even graduated from college. She is hailed as a generational voice in Asian American literature, is attractive, owns classy digs in Georgetown, and has money galore. What she lacks is friendship. She is a self-absorbed loner with cloaked contempt for critics, readers, and publishers. For some reason, Athena occasionally wants a girls’ night out with Hayward. June doesn't really like Athena much, but she appreciates her talent and her complimentary remarks about June's writing.

 

Secretly June envies Athena's success, as her own writing has garnered decent reviews but not much gain. One soiree at Athena’s apartment ends with a bout of laughter in which Athena chokes, June's attempts at the Heimlich maneuver fail, and by the time ET's arrive, Athena is dead. On impulse, June lifts a completed manuscript from Athena's desk and spirits it away.

 

It's not quite what you think. June is shocked that Athena considered it finished. There are a few golden sentences and there is possibility in the story of Chinese conscripted labor in World War II, but it’s a boring, rambling mess filled with asides and dense detours few readers would wish to navigate. June painstakingly does her own research, creates characters, imposes narrative coherence, and completely rewrites it until all that's left is the general idea.

 

Whose book is it? June shops as her own, has a spat with one publisher, and lands another who promises it will be the year's literary sensation. But if you think June did surgery, the publishers have much more in mind, including adding romance and heroic white characters. They also decide to put the name of Juniper Song on the cover because it sounds faintly Asian. June never pretended to be Asian, but she's cowed into going along with dropping her surname. (Her middle name Song is merely a melodic  family name.) Her publisher assures her all will be fine.

 

The book is indeed a big hit, but her photo leads trolls to question where a white chick gets off donning yellowface to write about Asians. The publisher doesn't care as long as the sales roll in, but social media explodes when proprietary trolls insist that nobody who isn't Asian could write such a book. They drop the charge that she stole it from her dead friend. Did she? As the sharks circle, things get very complicated.

 

Yellowface shifts from conscience-wrestling to a thriller and it's not a smooth transition. Kuang is a skilled storyteller but–and it’s big but–the tale she tells is very analogous to Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot (2021). The externals are different, but the manner of reworking a dead author’s ideas are quite similar. To be clear, I’m not suggesting the P-word, as Korelitz didn't exactly invent the scenario. However, The Plot is more consistent in tone and the psychology of its protagonist. I was, however, disappointed that Kuang published her book so soon after Korelitz’s novel appeared.

 

Rob Weir

Best of 2023 Concerts and Art Exhibits

Best Concerts:

 

Okay, so I got a little preoccupied, forgot to fix a broken link, and didn’t get around to finishing my (personal) best of 2023 lists. Belatedly, here is my list of favorite concerts  and favorite art exhibits.

 

Tom Paxton

 

 

I saw numerous concerts last year, but several stood out. First, a shout to one at the end of 2022 at the Whately Town Hall. Tom Paxton turned the packed venue into a giant living room that felt so much like a farewell tour that there were many moist eyes as audience members sang along to their favorites from an icon of the Folk Revival.

 

Mary Chapin Carpenter

 

 

The best show by far came from Mary Chapin Carpenter, who appeared at Northampton’s Academy of Music in August. The AOM is not a great venue for amplified music, but MCC’s sound crew squeezed out the best sound I’ve ever heard there. She is also the consummate pro who knows how to sing a song, not just scream it. 

 

Breabach

 

Close on MCC’s heels were five  Celtic shows at Bombyx in Florence: Altan has been around since 1987, but the band breathed new life into their performance rather than just mailing it in like so many veteran acts do. I had heard recordings of the Scottish band Breabach, but I was pleasantly surprised by how energetic and exciting they were on stage. Speaking of which, Ireland’s Lunasa has long been an instrumental group but they’ve added singer/guitarist Colin Farrell (no, not that guy) who allows the band’s repertoire to expand. It was a great show. If you’ve never seen fiddler extraordinaire Eileen Ivers, you don’t what Celtic music sounds like when it melds with other musical forms. Ivers plays with passion and fire. I also caught the farewell tour of Clannad, who are coming off the road after 52 years. You’d never know they’re in their geriatric years!

 

That’s a segue to mentioning Judy Collins who appeared at the AOM. She’s 84, but still sings like an angel. Every now and then you hear her shift to a lower register, but she recreated her album Wildflowers and transported us back to 1967. How she can still sing like that is like asking how Catherine Deneuve still looks gorgeous.

 

The AOM saw another goodbye in its John Prine Tribute lineup as part of the Back Porch Festival at the AOM. A solid lineup of local musicians formed a band that fronted various guest artists to celebrate Prine’s life and amazing repertoire of songs poignant and funny.

 

Finally, Lisa Bastoni’s show at the Parlor Room was simply a warm throwback to the days when folk music didn’t need more than a guitar and a sweet voice.

 

If you’re wondering if I saw any bad shows, yeah, one. Lisa Lambert at the AOM, which was like an LGBTQ version of Hee Haw. She has some chops, but her voice also audibly broke and strained.

 

Best of the Art World:

 

This needs to be broken into several categories. Some of our most joyous moments took place behind our computer listening to the amazing talks from Jane Oneail, founder Culturally Curious (https://iamculturallycurious.com/ )Jane makes you understand and care about art you never thought you’d like.

 

 

 

But I really need to parse the shows because we were lucky enough to be in Europe in May. It’s hardly fair to compare our favorite experiences to gallery shows Stateside. If you’re ever in Lucerne, Switzerland, a must go is the Sammland Rosengart. (It’s not the city art museum.) In the private Rosengart Collection you will see voluminous numbers of canvasses from Pablo Picasso (above) and Paul Klee (below) and I liked both immensely. In fact, I liked the Klees in Lucerne more than what I saw in Bern’s Paul Klee Museum.

 

 

 

If you consider medieval churches art–and you should–Chartres might be the best of France given that Notre Dame is still under reconstruction. If not Chartres, then certainly the jewel box Ste. Chapelle in Paris.

 

 

Chartres

Ste. Chapelle

 

The above said, of all the repositories I’ve ever entered, Musée D’Orsay in Paris might be my favorite. If you like Impressionism, Fauvism, Post-Impressionism, or pretty much any other kind of art, sculpture, or photography from the years 1848-1914, it is the place to go. Even the revamped train station that houses it is spectacular. The only thing restricting your enjoyment is that it’s so rich that your brain might explode from trying to take it all in.

 

Cezanne

Monet

 

 

 

Paul Signac

Van Gogh

 

There are huge galleries on both sides & 3 floors

 

We saw some fine shows back home as well. Three stood above the rest. A show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts devoted to John Singer Sargent and fashion was sprawling and amazing. A trip to the Cloisters in New York City, where I hadn’t been in decades, was almost as good as visiting Cluny in Paris. But I give a slight # 1 nod to a show of Edvard Munch and Nature at the Clark Institute of Art.  

 

Edvard Munch's "Starry Night"

 

 

We didn’t actually see any disappointing exhibitions, large or small. As for the latter, if you’re ever in the area, pay a visit to the Brattleboro Museum of Art in Vermont. When you don’t have a huge endowment or permanent collection, clever curators can do a lot with limited resources. Few do it better than, in New England parlance, the folks “up to Brat.”  

 

Rob Weir

Barbie: Fun 10, Story 5

 

 

 

Barbie (2023)

Directed by Greta Gerwig

Warner Brothers, 114 minutes, PG-13

★★★

 

If you told me on January 1 of last year that I would watch a film about the doll Barbie, I would have suggested you check yourself into rehab. But, as almost everyone on the planet knows, Barbie the movie actually happened. It had a big budget–more than $125 million–but Greta Gerwig as director and cowriter (with Noah Baumbach) made a film that has raked in $1.4 billion and counting.

 

How to review such a cultural powerhouse? I know practically nothing about Barbie beyond what I saw in TV ads that interrupted my boyhood Saturday morning cartoons. In my generation, any boy with a Barbie invited ostracism and even those with a G.I. Joe were suspect. No apologies or regrets, it’s simply the way it was. Thus, I am not qualified to say what Barbie dolls meant or did not mean to little girls of my era or to the women they are now.

 

I can comment on Barbie as a piece of filmmaking. The set designs of Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer are fabulous. They took inspiration from the mid-century modernism of Palm Springs and built a Barbie fantasy land bathed in pink with aqua accents. The sets tiptoe the line between toy world and the sort of sharp lines-meet-garish colors often associated with 1950s architecture.

 Equally impressive were the costumes from Jacqueline Durran and the hair/makeup efforts of Ivana Primorac. I have no idea how many Oscar nominations Barbie will garner, but I’d not be surprised to see it sweep all things production and style related. (I hope that doesn’t happen with music, much of which I found annoying. Then again, it’s not the sort of thing you’ll find on my playlists.)

 

A surprising admission: I found Barbie fun to watch. Its two leads­–Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Beach Ken–were well cast and clearly enjoyed chewing up the scenery. Robbie was especially an inspired choice. At one point in the movie she is so depressed that she feels “ugly.” We hear Helen Mirren’s snarky voiceover telling Mattel that if they want someone to look ugly, “don’t cast Margot Robbie.” That’s for sure! She’s simply stunning physically, but also throws herself into her role and isn’t afraid of self-deprecating humor. (Ditto for a buffed up Ryan Gosling, who apparently can sing.)

 

Here's the rub. It’s simultaneously a satire, an extended commercial for Mattel, and has a storyline that is too often cloying. After we revel in Barbieland–where every female not named Skipper is a “Barbie” from Mattel’s evolving product line (Black Barbies, professional Barbies, plus-sized Barbie)–the movie confronts the need to impose a story of some sort.

 

Some sort indeed. All the males are named Ken, except for the dumped product Allan (Michael Cera), and most are in love with Stereotypical Barbie, especially Beach Ken and Tourist Ken (Simu Liu). It’s futile, of course, because every day is exactly the same in Barbieland and nobody has genitals. (There are some funny, if cheap jokes about that.) But when Stereotypical Barbie asks if anyone ever thinks about “death,” it’s an indication that there is a rip in the barrier between Barbieland and the real world that Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) insists must be fixed.

 

Robbie and Gosling set off to the real world, a shocking and awkward encounter that will involve going to Mattel headquarters in Los Angeles, where CEO Will Ferrell and his all-male board are horrified to see Barbie. This sets off a heavy-handed caper/chase film that covers terrain such as Ken’s discovery of patriarchy, a tween who hates Barbie (Ariana Greenblatt), her mother who doesn’t (America Ferrera), philosophy lite, meeting Barbie’s creator (Rhea Perlman), major trouble in Barbieland–rebranded as Kenland–a showdown between Kens, dealing with the rupture, Barbie’s Pinocchio-like desires, and a hysterical ending line. It sort of/kind of works, but it’s also undeniably hackneyed.

 

To its credit, Barbie raises themes and questions about patriarchy, femininity, feminism, materialism, mortality, the meaning of beauty, and a few other things. But don’t worry; like Barbie dolls it’s more gloss than substance. This is in part because Mattel Films was involved in the production. Mattel deserves credit for poking fun at itself, but like all things in the movie, it’s a gentle jibe designed to help its bottom line.

 

Rob Weir