If the basic premise of the claim that the Barbieland of “Barbie” is based on Plato’s writings doesn’t sway you outright, that’s fine. The aforementioned Redditor has compiled plenty of evidence to support it.
Notably, Platonic forms are eternal and unchanging, according to u/aslfingerspell. That goes a long way toward explaining why the many Barbies never age or experience things like cellulite in Barbieland. Additionally, Plato’s forms are immaterial abstractions that cannot exist in the real world, hence the division between Barbieland and the real world. That immateriality also explains why nothing in Barbieland is real. Even the ocean is made of plastic. u/aslfingerspell continued, “Ken cannot actually do anything associated with Beach, because to actually swim would be an imperfect realization of the concept of Beach.”
Other evidence includes how there is only one copy of each Barbie and Ken in Barbieland, which is important because Platonic forms are singular. There can only be one “most ideal” version of something or someone. And so, despite the fact that there are perhaps millions of Stereotypical Barbies being nostalgically played with in the real world, there’s only one of her in Barbieland.
The theory’s writer offers plenty more support for their claim, and the post is worth reading in full. We’re going to mark this theory up as possibly true, mostly because it seems characteristic of Greta Gerwig and her writing partner Noah Baumbach to imbue everything they touch with deeper layers of meaning. Baumbach, in particular, is known to layer philosophy into his work. His writing credits include two Wes Anderson movies (“The Life Aquatic” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox”), and his most recent solo outing, an adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel, “White Noise,” makes little sense until watched from a philosophical perspective.
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