The first thing I noticed when I stepped into a Brooklyn movie theater at 4:30 p.m. on a Thursday, the day before “Barbie” opened nationwide, was the palpable buzz of anticipation.
Before the Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” even began, you could sense the hunger of the audience; the sense that we had been waiting for something just like this. When the lights came up about two hours later — after watching Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) leave Barbie Land for the Real World, discover the horrors of patriarchy, and the beauties of being a human woman, rather than an idea or an object — I was surrounded by a diverse group of people in varying shades of pink, with wide smiles and wet eyes.
As we were walking out of the theater, a man dressed in varying shades of pale pink turned to his friend and said matter-of-factly: “I didn’t realize how much that movie would fuck me up.” Same, dude. Same. A movie that starts with Helen Mirren opining about the history of baby doll…
