Among the many jokes and references in Barbie is one to "Proust Barbie", and here's the real meaning of the joke and if it's a real Mattel doll.
Summary
- Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie includes a reference to the Proust Barbie, which is not a real version of the doll, but a clever nod to Marcel Proust's novel.
- In the movie, Barbie finds herself in the real world and encounters Mattel executives who mention the unsuccessful sales of the Proust Barbie.
- The reference to Proust Barbie in the movie creates a secret connection to Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and has become a pop culture phenomenon. The audience is left to imagine what a Proust Barbie might be like.
Warning: spoilers for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie.
Barbie is full of references to a variety of Barbie dolls, both well-known and obscure versions of the famous doll, but one in particular has caught the attention of viewers: the Proust Barbie, and here’s its true story and connection to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Directed by Greta Gerwig, Barbie took the famous Mattel doll and sent her on a journey of self-discovery, though not without some very real commentary on various real-life issues, such as patriarchy, gender inequality, and capitalism.
Barbie sees Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) go through an existential crisis when her perfect life begins to change. After seeking guidance from Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), Barbie, along with Stereotypical Ken (Ryan Gosling), travel to the real world to find the child playing with her and fix the portal between her world and the real one. Throughout her journey, Barbie presents a variety of dolls and drops references to many others, some of them quite obscure and forgotten, but a specific one has made viewers question how far Mattel has gone with its Barbie dolls: the Proust Barbie, but unlike the rest, this isn’t a real version of the Barbie doll.
Mattel Has Never Made A Proust Barbie Despite Movie Reference
Barbie and Ken’s arrival in the real world puts Mattel executives on high alert and they order their capture. Ken makes his way back to Barbieland by himself after exploring more of the real world and learning about patriarchy, while Barbie is found by Mattel’s agents and taken to the company’s headquarters. There she meets Mattel’s CEO (Will Ferrell), who’s waiting for her with a huge Barbie box. Barbie gets in the box and mentions that the smell is a Proustian memory, with the CEO mentioning how badly the Proust Barbie sold. While Barbie features discontinued, controversial, and obscure Barbies and Kens, Mattel never made a Proust Barbie.
Greta Gerwig spoke about this specific scene in Barbie with AP News, sharing why she added a reference to French novelist Marcel Proust. Gerwig explained that in Swann’s Way, the first volume of the novel In Search of Lost Time (first translated as Remembrance of Things Past), the Narrator is thrown back into his childhood through the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea. Stereotypical Barbie had a similar experience of involuntary memory when she entered the box, which Gerwig seized to make a joke about the many failed Barbie dolls that have been made over the years.
Proust Barbie Gives The Movie A Secret Oppenheimer Connection
In the above-mentioned interview, AP News shared with Gerwig that Marcel Proust was J. Robert Oppenheimer’s favorite, with Gerwig playfully saying that Oppenheimer “would have loved Proust Barbie”. Proust has now become an unexpected connection between Barbie and Nolan’s Oppenheimer, two of the biggest movies of the summer (and surely of 2023 as a whole), which were already linked as they share the same release date. "Barbenheimer" has become a pop culture phenomenon, but one that has greatly benefited cinema as it has brought back the excitement and interest of watching movies in theaters. Back to Proust Barbie, what she would be like is up to the imagination of the audience, and it’s definitely one of the cleverest and most interesting references in Barbie.
Source: AP News.
