During Labour Day weekend this year, I bit the bullet and saw the movie Barbie at a local movie theatre–mostly because I saw a couple of videos on the Internet responding to right-wing pundits talking trash about the movie and how they interpreted what it said about Ken, men, masculinity, and ‘women running the world and subjugating men,’ and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Like the vast majority of women in the northwestern hemisphere, I grew up with Barbie: I had Barbie dolls and other paraphernalia when I was a child (I got rid of them while I was still in elementary school, along with –regrettably in some cases–some other toys), and I was just surrounded by anything and everything Barbie–try as I might have (and did from time to time), I just couldn’t get away from it. Then as now, Barbie was ubiquitous. But the fact is, for better or worse, Barbie is an icon of not just popular culture, but culture in general.

I won’t give away any plot points (as I have when giving my impressions on other movies I’ve seen), but I will say that, if any right-wing pundits on the Internet have seen Barbie, they’ve half-understood it. I will also say that the movie reflects the real-life–and very real–disconnect between the real world and the world that Mattel, through the Barbie brand, sells to girls. To give you an idea of what I mean: the first Barbie jingle I ever heard was, ‘We girls can do anything–right, Barbie?’–and Barbie dolls have been made to represent a lot of careers, and thus career choices for girls; however, Mattel has had two female chief executive officers throughout its history, and–if the movie is to be believed–the people at the table at the very top of Mattel’s corporate chain are men; also, let’s not ignore the fact that men still occupy most positions of power in politics and the business and corporate worlds and beyond, and most women who do succeed in those worlds do so by playing by rules made by–drumroll, please–men.

I think Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach did quite well with the constraints they were under (Mattel and Warner Brothers signed off on the film), but no doubt the aforementioned companies think Barbie makes for excellent PR, especially when you consider that the men in the in-universe boardroom are portrayed as buffoons and the human Ken dolls subscribe to a cartoonish version of patriarchy after Ryan Gosling‘s Ken learns about it in the real world after stowing away in Margot Robbie‘s Barbie’s car to accompany her there. (OK–I realize I just gave away a plot point in this particular movie.)

At the end of the day, Mattel and Warner Brothers are businesses–corporations at that–and their chief raison d’etre is to make money, Barbie–the dolls, the movie, the paraphernalia, the tie-ins, and other sundry items–is merely a brand, a collection of products to be bought and sold, and all of the pronouncements of what Barbie is supposed to offer and represent to girls are to get people to buy said products. That said, Barbie the movie is an enjoyable bit of summer fluff with a storyline that was actually compelling.