The teaser for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, starring Margot Robbie, has just landed and the internet is absolutely loving the Oscar-winning actress in the role of a walking-talking Barbie.
“Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been… dolls,” the voice of Helen Mirren starts the teaser of Barbie, the script of which has been jointly written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach.
If the visuals look eerily familiar, it’s because the opening scene of the teaser pays homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey to chronicle the birth of the iconic doll. The 1968 sci-fi film’s opening showed an early man greeted by a mysterious monolith. In the Barbie teaser, Robbie enters the frame, a long and slender doll unlike any other, as the opening track Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, plays in the background.
Beyond the visual nod to the Kubric classic, the teaser follows the master filmmaker on a deeper level. Kubrick’s opening shot gave us glimpses into how the collective worshipping of a monolith fuelled aggression among early men. It’s exactly the same in the Barbie teaser, with a vital difference. The monolith was deemed to be a masculine presence in 2001: A Space Odyssey; Gerwig replaces it with an icon of femininity — Barbie.
Another significant part of the teaser is the throwback to the first ever Barbie doll launched on March 9, 1959.
Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the US with adult features. Margot’s Barbie also wears the exact black-and-white monokini that was seen on the first Barbie doll. From the pin-up curly hair to the golden hoops, the details have been maintained with astonishing accuracy. Even the doll houses are all Barbie Dream houses — pretty and pink.
The film also stars Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Ncuti Gatwa as different versions of the Ken doll. Will Ferrell plays the CEO of a toy company, while Issa Rae plays the president of Barbies. Other members of the cast include Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, Emerald Fennell, Rhea Perlman and Michael Cera.
The teaser ends with Barbie in a full glam look, while Simu gives a glimpse of a dancing Ken doll. Barbie is set for a July 2023 release. Watch the teaser here:
