Barbie (eBook)

EXT. A DESERT-LIKE-LANDSCAPE. DAY

Like Kubrick’s 2001, but with little girls, not apes. And with baby dolls, not sticks and stuff.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls.

These little girls rock their baby dolls, they burp them, they cuddle them: They pretend to be Moms.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls. The girls who played with them could only ever play at being MOTHERS. Which can be fun, at least for a while anyway... Ask your mother.

(pause)

This continued, until...

One of the girls looks UP.

Something has appeared in their midst. Something NEW. It’s a GIANT BARBIE DOLL - BARBIE MARGOT, the 1950s Barbie, with her black and white swimsuit and lipstick.

The girls react with awe.

They’re stirred up and excited by this Barbie Margot not unlike the apes in that Kubrick masterpiece.

They try to touch her, and one little girl starts smashing her baby doll against the ground until it breaks into pieces. She lets out a child’s howl!

One by one the little girls follow suit: whooping, screaming, throwing their baby dolls away in fits of joyful anger.

A final little girl throws her baby doll up in the air, and it is spinning, spinning - with a match cut to:

INT. WHITE SPACE

Barbie stands in a empty space of the soon-to-be formed Barbie Land - it’s a void, a limbo - but clearly in a film studio. The World of Barbie is a Technicolor Soundstage.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

Yes Barbie changed everything! Then she changed it all again!

We go through all the changes to Barbie Margot, as she moves through the decades.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

All of these women are Barbie, and Barbie is all of these women. She might have started out as just a lady in a bathing suit, but she became so much more.

We see a row of Barbies. As we move back we see that “Barbie” is a EVERY different kind of woman -- every profession, every ethnicity, every body shape, every different ability and every gift. As we pan by each one, we hear:

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

She has her own money, her own house, her own car, her own career. Because Barbie can be anything, women can be anything.

We see a Map with Barbie Land on it and a long red arrow is drawn across a split screen to the Real World.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

(triumphantly)

And this has been reflected back onto the little girls of today in the Real World.

Girls playing with the different dolls. The girls all mirror what their Barbie is. So the doctor is the doctor, the ballerina is the ballerina, etc.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

Girls can grow into women who can achieve everything and anything they set their mind to.

Finally, we see a vast sea of Barbies. All in different outfits, different hairstyles, adding new friends, speaking different languages. And now Barbie’s world gets continually multi-faceted and wide-ranging and diverse and interesting.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

(triumphantly)

Thanks to Barbie all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved!

(with a knowing smirk)

... at least that’s what the Barbies think.

We float above the Barbies into the clouds, then we descend to earth, to see, just below the clouds and above land, the heart-shaped BARBIE LAND.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

After all they’re living in Barbie Land. Who am I to burst their bubble? And here is one of those Barbies now, living her best day every day.

INT. BARBIE DREAMHOUSE. BEDROOM. DAY

Barbie Margot wakes up in her pink Dreamhouse. Everything is perfect. Of course. This whole sequence is like a movie-musical of the best life ever.

There are no walls just like the toy so Barbie Margot can wave across to another Barbie waking up in her Dreamhouse next door.

In every OTHER Dreamhouse, all the Barbies are having their perfect morning. It’s a Barbie Ballet.

INT. BARBIE DREAMHOUSE. BATHROOM. DAY

Barbie Margot steps out of her heels, revealing her permanently arched feet.

Barbie Margot stands under the shower head, but nothing comes out, she turns her head this way and that, as if there is water but there is nothing. Her hair looks amazing anyway.

She opens an AMAZING closet and then magically steps out with a new, perfect outfit!

INT. BARBIE DREAMHOUSE. SLIDE. DAY

Barbie takes her slide down to the pool. Because she can!

INT. BARBIE DREAMHOUSE. KITCHEN. DAY

She eats a nothing breakfast, drinks a big glass of nothing.

EXT. BARBIE DREAMHOUSE. DAY

Barbie Margot stands at the top floor of her house, waves to her friends and then improbably sails through the air and lands in the driver’s seat of her car.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

When you’re playing with Barbies nobody bothers to walk them down the stairs and out the door etc... you just pick them up and put them where you want them to go -- You use your imagination!

Behind her, Barbie Alexandra ALSO sails through the air and lands in HER dream car.

Barbie Margot drives and waves at Skipper, in this thing:

Midge appears in Skipper’s yard, aggressively waving at Barbie Margot:

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

(butting in)

Midge was Barbie’s pregnant friend.

Oh let’s not show Midge actually... she was discontinued by Mattel because a pregnant doll is just too weird. Anyway... Barbie has another BIG day ahead of her.

EXT. BARBIE LAND. DAY

Barbie Margot waves happily, sometimes with both hands, to other Barbies as her car silently drives itself through a bustling town. It’s like Richard Scarry’s Busy Town for Barbie. It’s a wonder of color and shape. The houses are all see-through, like the toys, it’s a Noah’s Ark of doll-tastic magic.

It’s also completely run by women. They hold every kind of job. Barbie Margot waves to a Barbie mail carrier, and an all Barbie construction crew. There is the occasional Ken, but mostly it’s Barbie.

Barbie Margot drives past the Barbie White House which is, of course, pink.

INT. BARBIE OVAL OFFICE. LIGHT PINK HOUSE. DAY

Barbie Issa Rae, president (maybe in a ball gown?!) signs a bill into law, surrounded by Barbie Congresswomen. Barbie Margot stands with the press, proud.

BARBIE ISSA

Everybody - turn to the Barbie next to you, tell her how much you love her. Compliment her! Reporter Barbie, you can ask me any question you want.

BARBIE RITU

How come you’re so amazing?

BARBIE ISSA

(giggling)

No comment! No seriously, no comment.

Barbie Issa looks to the Barbies around her:

BARBIE ISSA

I love you guys!

Hugs, sweetness, support. It is REALLY great here.

INT. NOBEL PRIZE THEATRE. DAY.

A big ceremony, very official, proper. A Barbie Dignitary (in another flouncy ballgown) presides:

BARBIE DIGNITARY

The Nobel Prize in Journalism goes to “BARBIE!”

It’s Reporter Barbie! Woohoo! Barbie Margot leaps to her feet, deeply proud.

BARBIE RITU

I worked very hard, so... I deserve it!

BARBIE DIGNITARY

The Nobel Prize in Literature goes to “BARBIE!”

It’s Barbie Alexandra Shipp! Barbie Margot claps and hoots from the audience. She’s so proud of her friends.

BARBIE ANNOUNCER

(bestowing the prize)

You’re the voice of a generation.

BARBIE ALEXANDRA

(no false modesty!)

I know.

INT. SUPREME COURT. DAY

Barbie Sharon argues a case passionately in front of the Supreme Court, all Barbies.

BARBIE SHARON

Only Barbies are Barbies, and we would argue that corporations have no “free speech” rights to begin with, so any claim on their part to be exercising a right is just their attempt to turn our democracy into a plutocracy!

The Gallery erupts into rapturous applause. Some Kens are there for support.

BARBIE SHARON

This makes me emotional! And I’m expressing it. I have no difficulty holding both logic and feeling at the same time. It does not diminish my powers, it expands them.

The Chief Justice Barbie hits her gavel, but she can’t help but smile. Barbie Margot is there, always cheering on, always the supporter.

EXT. BARBIE LAND. DAY.

Barbie Margot drives past the BAX airport and an airplane passes overhead, we move up, and the female pilot waves down -

BARBIE PILOT

Hi Barbie!

- the airplane wipes and we keep moving up to find:

EXT. SPACE. DAY

Astronaut Barbie floats around in space. High fives with another Astronaut Barbie. Wave down to Barbie Margot, too!

BARBIE ASTRONAUTS

(in unison)

Hi Barbie!

EXT./INT. BARBIE CAR.

Barbie Margot waves up at the astronauts.

BARBIE MARGOT

Yay space!

Finally she passes and salutes Barbie Mt. Rushmore.

Remember this!

EXT. BARBIE LAND. BEACH. DAY

Barbie Margot drives up & hits the beach. This is semi-epic, almost somber in it’s initial grandeur.

Ken Ryan Gosling holds a surf board and stands atop of a dune. He’s waiting for his Barbie, Barbie Margot.

HELEN MIRREN (V.O.)

Barbie has a great day every day. But Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him.

KEN RYAN GOSLING

(courageous)

Hi Barbie!

Barbie Margot turns...