Barbie | 2023 | PG-13 | – 3.3.4

Why is “Barbie” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “suggestive references and brief language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a couple of near kisses, several discussions of gender roles, a few hugs, discussions of sexuality and attraction, a couple of fight scenes, a few implied injuries without visible wounds, a car chase with some dangerous driving, several arguments, and at least 1 not fully enunciated F-word derivative and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

---

When Barbie (Margot Robbie) starts feeling sad and uncomfortable in the seemingly idyllic Barbie Land, her existential crisis leads her to the Real World in order to try and mend the rip in the temporal fabric that keeps the two realms distinctly different and yet coexisting. Also with Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Sharon Rooney, Ana Cruz Kayne, Ritu Arya, Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan, Emerald Fennell, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans and John Cena. Directed by Greta Gerwig. [Running Time: 1:54]

Barbie SEX/NUDITY 3

 – A man leans toward a woman to kiss her (they do not kiss) and he says that he thought he would stay overnight since they are boyfriend and girlfriend (she sends him away). A man on a beach slaps a woman hard on the buttocks (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A man grabs a woman, dips her, and then slaps himself in the face.
► Two men kiss a third man on the cheek, and several men hug in a dance sequence. Several men tickle each other and laugh, one man hugs another man and he pushes him away saying, “Don’t hug me.”
► A woman tells a group of men, “I do not have a vagina and he [Ken] does not have a penis.” A scene includes several men arguing and threatening each other, seemingly to fight using the term “Beach off” (as in, “Beach you off,” “Beach yourself off,” etc., until a woman intervenes. A woman remarks about wondering what a man is “packing” (implying anatomically). A man says, “I do not feel ogled, I feel admired” as he and a woman rollerblade on a beach and men make suggestive remarks to them both. A man asks if he is a man with no power, “Does that mean I’m a woman?” A man describes a building as being “phallic-shaped.” After being asked by her tween daughter about how she learned to drive so aggressively, a woman says, “There was this guy…” the girl asks, “Was it Dad?” and the woman says, “Yes,” while smiling sheepishly (implying that it was another man). A man tells a woman, “You’re so cute when you’re confused.” A man remarks about leading a life of “blonde virginity.”
► Women dance at a party and we see them wearing outfits that reveal cleavage, bare backs and legs to the upper thighs. A woman showers and we see her bare shoulders and cleavage when she comes out of the shower wearing a towel wrapped around her. A giant woman wearing a bandeau swimsuit (cleavage, bare shoulders and legs to the hips are seen) appears and young girls move toward her mesmerized (reminiscent of obelisk in “2001: A Space Odyssey”). A woman wears a sundress that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders. Several men are shown shirtless or with their shirts open to reveal bare chests, abdomens and backs in a number of scenes. A man and woman rollerblade on a beach wearing skin-tight outfits (the woman is shown from the back and we see a thong over a bike-short type pants accentuating her buttocks). A woman wears a low-cut vest that reveals cleavage and part of her bare abdomen.

Barbie VIOLENCE/GORE 3

 – Men approach a car where two women, a tween girl and a man are seated and the man gets out of the car and fights them with punches, throws, and kicks (no injuries are seen). An introductory sequence shows young girls playing with baby dolls as we are told that playing “mother” was the prescribed activity for girls for generations, until Barbie was introduced and the children are shown destroying their baby dolls (reminiscent of a scene from “2001: A Space Odyssey”), hammering them on the ground (the dolls shatter). A man holding a surfboard runs toward a wave, crashes hard into it (it is a prop) and is thrown through the air; we see him being attended to by medical personnel and he recovers. A young girl plays with a doll and cuts its hair, colors on its face with markers, then burns its hair, pulls on its limbs, kicks it and throws it. A man on a beach slaps a woman hard on the buttocks, she punches him hard in the face and we see her and another man being arrested and fingerprinted. Two groups of people fight on a beach using tennis rackets, balls, suction cup arrows and they push each other to the sand.
► A man and a woman are arrested when they leave a clothing shop without paying for clothes they wear out of the shop. A man collapses out of his chair in a meeting when he is given bad news. A woman steps into a giant doll box and two men tighten wrist restraints from the back of the box; the woman jumps out of the box and runs away, chased by many men through a building. A woman jumps into the back of a car and the driver speeds away, chased by men in other cars. A man yells at a woman and throws her clothes out of a house that used to be hers.
► A woman asks others if they ever think about dying at a dance party and the music stops and everyone looks at her as though something is wrong with her. A woman says that she has had a double mastectomy. A man leans toward a woman to kiss her (they do not kiss) and he says that he thought he would stay overnight since they are boyfriend and girlfriend; the woman sends him away saying, “I don’t want you here.” A woman says that she has had thoughts of death and she is told that she has opened a portal between two worlds that needs to be closed. A woman is shown pregnant and people discuss that her model was discontinued because it was “too weird” to have a pregnant doll. A man explains that he does not have a purpose if a woman does not acknowledge him. A man speaks to a woman dismissively and condescendingly and she cries. A man yells at a woman saying, “You failed me.” People argue about changing their government constitution. People talk about a “depressive Barbie” line and we see dolls with painted tears on their faces and describe them having panic attacks and feeling unwanted. A woman cries and says that she is not pretty anymore and that she is not smart enough to be interesting. A woman makes remarks about how difficult it is to be a woman and straddle all the societal expectations. A song contains misogynistic lyrics that include, “I wanna push you around.” A man cries and says, “I’m a liberated man, I know it’s not weak to cry.” A man says, “It’s so hard to be a leader.” A woman says, “Being human can be uncomfortable. And, then you die.” A woman tells another woman, “You’re malfunctioning.” A woman says, “I don’t want to touch a foot.”
► A woman wakes up sad and disheveled, she seems to have bad breath, her shower is cold, her waffle is burned and she falls off the roof of her house instead of floating (she hits the ground hard but does not appear injured); later her heels touch the ground when she takes off her shoes and her feet don’t stay on tiptoes and when she shows other women and tells them what happened they all scream, one woman gags and a man gags (neither vomit). A woman screams when she sees cellulite forming on her thigh. A woman floats off the roof of a house and lands in the driver’s seat of her car. A man and woman scream at each other when the man pops up out of the backseat of the woman’s car, she steers the car off the road and it flips (no injuries are shown). A man is told that he cannot perform an appendectomy just because he is a man. A man swings a golf club hitting a plant and pulling it out of the ground.
► A man vomits into a bag (we hear retching; we do not see goo). A toy dog defecates plastic feces on the floor as it walks through a room.

Barbie LANGUAGE 4

 – 1 not fully enunciated F-word derivative, 4 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms, 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (too weird, protein pod, baby girl, rude, sad, bad, complicated, catastrophic, hornet’s nest, White Savior Barbie, selfish, crass, insane, stupid, disrespectful, superfluous, messed up, shovel heads, damsel in distress, reality challenged, nut job, tiny baby, object, brainwashed, Jezebel, fascist, stereotypical, weirder, ugly, uglier, bummer, crazy, sweetie, professional bimbo), exclamations (gosh, frickin’, oh yay, gee, shame on you, oh my gosh, oh no, bummer, geez, wow, thank goodness, up the wazoo, shut-up, freaking, wake up), 4 religious exclamations (e.g. thank God, oh my God). | profanity glossary |

Barbie SUBSTANCE USE

 – Several men hold bottles of beer and a few drink from them in a couple of scenes, some men appear inebriated in one scene, and a man says that he is “blotto face drunk.”

Barbie DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Barbie, dolls, gender roles, prescribed roles, real world vs. imaginary worlds, change, hate, patriarchy, empowerment, bravery, accomplishments, logic, feminism, sexism, misogyny, equal rights, beauty, cultural appropriation, tax evasion, being liberated, autonomy, existential crises, Mattel, sexualized capitalism, alternate realities, fear, anxiety, shame, agency, cognitive dissonance, imagination, control.

Barbie MESSAGE

 – You have to try for progress or nothing will change.