greta gerwig’s barbie and insecurity by Aiden H. '28

As of this weekend, I have watched Greta Gerwig’s 2023 blockbuster Barbie six (6) times. I have also cried to Greta Gerwig’s 2023 blockbuster Barbie five (5) times, almost always multiple times during the movie. Although the “I’m Just Ken” memes and bright pink were shoved down everyone’s throats enough for society to collectively forget about the movie after last fall, my obsession continues. 

So when walking back from dinner at New Vassar with my roommate, I was appalled to hear he missed out on the Barbenheimer craze. That same night, we hunkered down in the Maseeh basement media room and watched the movie. He thought it was fine, but I naturally rekindled my love of the movie and feel inclined to revisit it.

Now I know I’m far from the first person to talk about Barbie, and its importance to modern feminist movements is something I cannot comment on nor relate to. Still, like any piece of art, I find it impossible not to pull out my own interpretations and personal connection to the movie–how it perfectly encapsulates my feelings of self-doubt and attitude towards the “real world”. So having revisited the movie in my first month at MIT, the themes were stark and unavoidable reflections on how I’ve been feeling once again.

So here’s the (very long winded) beginning of my college experience, through Barbie.

***

“The real world isn’t what I thought it was.” — Barbie

Like a lot of high school students, I spent the majority of my senior year both stressing over and romanticizing college life. After my admission and with a summer countdown in full swing, this romanticization felt tangible. I spent hours watching MIT vlogs on Youtube, researching potential classes I could take, looking at majors I knew I would never pick (mechanical engineering) and comparing dorm options. Soon enough, MIT was the picturesque landscape for the indie movie I convinced myself I was starring in. And for the most part, I would argue these moments have existed for me at MIT.

What I forgot about was everything in between.

In Barbie, it’s unknown where the Kens go when the Barbie’s aren’t around–they merely sit and wait for Barbie to be in a plot relevant enough to need them there, too. In my head, I was yearning for the shiny, fake, and unattainable, too. So the moment I noticed that my life here would not be constant parties, trips to quaint Boston cafes, and doing world-changing research, my perception shattered. MIT, despite all its glory, is also just another place I live now. I’m still sitting in bed doom scrolling on my phone, binge watching sitcoms, and doing homework at my desk. Somehow, I’ll have to swap the idea of MIT for what is actually is–somewhere I love, but not in the ways I expected.

***

“I’m not pretty anymore” – Barbie

Just like anything that stays in its environment too long, I grew accustomed to the “role” and personality designated to me. In middle and high school, as pretentious as it sounds, I was always used to being close to the top of my class. After a while, I intentionally strived to maintain that not because I felt a fundamental necessity to, but because I wouldn’t know who I was if I weren’t that guy. It was the shiny box I put myself into not because I wanted to be contained, but because I was hoping people would notice me. 

As both everyone could guess and everyone did tell me, I am very far from the most talented person at MIT. And shockingly, I feel like I’m doing very well handling this newfound academic insecurity. Even though I took the high school equivalent of three of my classes this semester, I have already found myself a) lost on campus, b) crying over code, and c) demoralized at my inability to solve problems with the grace or speed of my peers. Suddenly, I was not the person people turned to, but the person begging for help. 

My insecurity stems less from not being able to ace every assignment, but from arriving in a new environment where suddenly the starting point to introduce my personality to others is lost. 

In high school, I would make jokes with friends that once in college I could completely change who I am–I could speak with a fake accent, dye my hair, and tell everyone I’m distantly related to a famous TikTok star. It turns out that in a weird way, I am being forced to reinvent my personality–to find a point of basic connection outside what classes I’m in or extracurriculars I joined because everyone here is in the same boat. This isn’t to say I think the only aspect of me in high school was my academics; however, it was the only part of me that most people knew.

Stereotypical Barbie is known for being just that: her stereotypical, picture-perfect self. Who are we if not what we are called by others? What happens when we lose the one thing we’ve attached to ourselves to put us apart? What happens when, in the middle of everything we could’ve ever wanted, we don’t feel special anymore?

***

“That’s life. It’s all change.” – Gloria

My beige flag is that I don’t really move on from things, for better or for worse (as proven by my continual use of ‘beige flag’). Like a lot of people, I act like I love to embrace change and go on crazy adventures, and then as soon as I’m confronted with it I become devastatingly nostalgic. At every corner, I look for the opportunity to become pessimistic and prove to myself that my decision for change was stupid and that I should retreat into the life I had. 

I got COVID the weekend before classes started (almost definitely from a frat party that wasn’t entirely worth it). With little options, I sat in my room demoralized and as melodramatic as ever waiting out my symptoms. mixed with the two-weeks-since-moving homesickness, it felt as if my decision to embrace change was being tested, like I was being shown I had made the wrong choice. 

But what about all the changes I’ve needed, and just decided I wasn’t going to focus on? Walking around Boston is far more entertaining than my street in Colorado, and sitting in classes with the most enthusiastic professors I’ve ever seen has reinvigorated a sense of passion for classwork that senioritis effectively killed. 

I have to remember that in 4 years, leaving MIT will be the change I dread, wanting to return to the life I have now. 

***

“Even if you can’t make it perfect, you can make it better.” — Sasha

Despite Barbie’s attempts to fix her dreamland after seeing it destroyed by the Kens, Barbie remains notably apathetic and disappointed at the end of the movie. She created the world everyone else wanted, but after seeing through the facade, decided she couldn’t move on blissfully ignorant of what it truly was. 

This is a lot of what aging and being a person has felt like–becoming aware of awful shit and doing my best to tolerate it. My family calls this pessimism; to me, it’s my sincerest form of optimism. In being tested in my ability to extract what I can out of situations that inevitably will never meet the expectations I put forth in my head (whether it be for myself or the situation around me), everything begins to level out. The trophies and the punches are equal. 

While at MIT, I hope that I don’t treat it as a landscape where my level of perfection is tested, parading myself around to fit into a system I created in my head. I also hope that I find the balance of realism about how life will be and also an innate satisfaction about the beauty of being here. 

I guess all I’m trying to say is, I’m still trying to learn that I am Kenough, whoever and wherever I am. 

My Barbie-themed high school parking space