As the magical night of the Oscars nears, I find myself rooting for one individual and individual only: America Ferrera. I have my reasons. To begin, she is just so relatable; the home video of her recounting her initial reaction to her first-ever Oscar nomination for best supporting actress is incredibly endearing. More importantly, through roles like “Ugly Betty” and Carmen in “The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants,” fans trust her to embody characters who speak to a truth from which others shy away. Her role as Gloria in Barbie is no different.
Yet her Barbie successes continue to be obscured. When she was given the SeeHer Award at the Critics Choice Awards in mid-January, she reflected in her acceptance speech: “receiving [this] award for my contributions to more authentic portrayals of women and girls couldn’t be more meaningful to me because I grew up as a first-generation Hondurian-American girl in love with tv, film, and theater, who desperately wanted to be a part of a storytelling legacy that I could not see myself reflected in. But now, I can see her… To me this is the highest and best use of storytelling to uphold the truth that we are all worthy of being seen.”
But in the media following the event, her moving message was lost among the outpour of feminist critique that “I’m Just Ken” had won for Best Song. Gosling’s reaction—one of stunned confusion—went viral. How had this silly ditty, intended for a bit of comedic relief, beat out “What Was I Made For?,” a “bleakly gorgeous” ballad with an “existential crisis vibe” that left movie-goers sobbing as it masterfully captured Barbie’s plight, her fear of failure mixed with a strong desire to feel “real.” Gerwig had personally asked Billie Eillish and Finneas O’Connell to write “Barbie’s heart song—the song that is deep inside her core that she doesn’t even completely know is there but that she starts to hear more clearly throughout the film.” They had delivered a masterpiece that was being glossed over. The frustration was understandable, but in the uproar, Ferrera’s achievement was glossed over, as well.
Later, when Oscar nominations were announced in late-January, instead of an explosion of applause for Ferrera’s nomination for Best Supporting Actress and the movie’s nomination for Best Film, all my various feeds were flooded with exasperation that director Greta Gerwig and lead actress Margot Robbie failed to make the list. Ryan Gosling received a nomination for his role as Ken, while Margo Robbie’s performance in the titular role did not. The consensus seemed to be that the selection was “so on the nose it hurts.” After all, a huge theme for the movie was pointing out the ways in which the patriarchy placed unfair expectations on women, never allowing them to feel they are enough.
Even Hillary Clinton felt the need to contribute a dedicated post, weighing in: “Greta and Margot, While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you. You are both so much more than Kenough. #HillaryBarbie.” Like much of the press around Barbie, the post emphasized a feminist bent; it suggested a parallel between Clinton’s 2016 campaign in which she had won roughly three million more popular votes than her opponent but lost in the electoral college. It was an opportunity to make a point.
Clinton was certainly not the first or the last to use Barbie’s popularity and place in the public eye to draw attention to evidence of sexism and misogyny on a wider scale. Feminist thought-leader Liz Plank responded via TikTok: “The Barbie movie was a test. We failed. While the highest grossing movie of the year did get a nomination for Best Picture, the woman who was responsible for pulling off that great feat didn’t. The only explanation for Greta Gerwig being left out of a category in which she overperformed is that in the Academy Award voters believe the movie directed itself, like, you know, the dishwasher just unloaded itself or the kids were raised by themselves. You know, the entire way we invisible-ize female labor in our society and our economy.” Gerwig’s lack of recognition was indicative of the unrecognized, unthanked labor of all women in fields ranging from the boardroom to the home. After all, her film made over $1.4 billion in the box office, making her the first female director to ever do so; only 53 films have ever reached $1 billion in the box office.
My issue with all of this is not feminist critique pointing out the obvious: blatant sexism still exists and can sometimes feel like a never-ending onslaught. But are we maybe so focused on proving this point that we sometimes pass over major wins when we should be celebrating them and allowing them to soak in as fuel for the next time we need to go to battle? Being a feminist in a world full of misogyny is exhausting. Without pausing to enjoy the wins, we are destined for burnout.
Ferrera has long been a major “win”—both for the Barbie movie and the feminist movement— all along. Still, her role in the film has been obscured from day one. Trailers led me to believe that Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were the stars of the film, but I left the theater having identified America Ferrera as the obvious heroine. Her relatable feminist monologue in Barbie is the plot’s turning point. So where was she in all the hype leading up to the release?
Ferrera was nowhere to be seen in the teaser trailer (released December 2022) and appeared for no more than five seconds in any of the trailers to follow (released May 2023). For a movie that clearly kept diversity in mind, why wasn’t such a key character more visible in its extensive marketing campaign?
Perhaps the intention was to keep the feminist-bent of the movie under wraps in order to appeal to a mainstream audience and get as many butts in seats before revealing possibly controversial elements of the plot. If this was the strategy, it worked in terms of dollars; the Barbie movie went on to become Warner Brothers highest-grossing domestic release in its 100 year history.
Still, immediately after seeing the film, I was left wondering: how many people of color – who might have appreciated this blockbuster with a loveable and relatable Latinx heroine – saw two white, blonde leads in the foreground of all the trailers and assumed the movie wasn’t meant for them? After all, racial issues are embedded in the Barbie brand’s past. So why not highlight Ferrera’s role more prominently in its marketing?
I was on the fence about seeing the film, myself; that is until commentary started to flood my social media feed feeds suggesting the film was more nuanced than I’d originally been led to believe. I laughed out loud when Twitter users turned one-star reviews from (presumably) angry men into viral memes wherein comments like “An alienating dangerous and perverse film,” “They won’t be happy until we’re all gay,” and “A pink acid trip that feels like being slapped by lots of confusingly attractive people” were repurposed into satirical posters promoting the film. And again when there were reports the movie was apparently being used as a “litmus test” on first dates; men who could not emphasize with the plot were decidedly not dating material. And again when a tongue and cheek TikTok claimed that Barbie was “Black Panther for white b**ches”.
But what really got my butt into a theater seat was the outpour of content applauding America Ferrera’s monologue wherein she responds to “Stereotypical Barbie” bewailing that she’s “not good enough” by asserting: “It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.”
Leaving the theater, this monologue was what gave the movie its punch, its power, its glow. The way Ferrera manages to capture the dichotomous nature of women feeling they are simultaneously “too much” and “not enough” is cinematic gold. She laments:
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood…
Her speech captures the contradictions placed on today’s women with beautiful precision. It would be one thing if the expectations were obvious, if we had a clear path to follow. Instead, we are being pinched between two paradigms that often make it impossible to succeed in compliance with one school of thought without failing in another. Inevitably one is made to feel, as Ferrera astutely asserts, “that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.”
As feminist author and speaker, I have worked to make this dynamic more apparent to women in a number of ways. Most commonly, I ask my audiences two questions, sequentially: Who here has ever felt like “not enough”? Who here has ever felt like “too much”? The response is always that the women in the audience raise their hands twice, which leads me to pose two more philosophical questions: Ever wonder how it’s possible to feel those two feelings at once? What does it say about the pressures we experience as female-identifying individuals that such emotions are often simultaneous?
I thought about this odd paradox, and others, when writing my book The Effortless Perfection Myth. Effortless Perfection is a term that was coined at my alma mater Duke University in 2003 and has since been used to describe the cultural climate on campuses all across the US, especially by women. It is the expectation one is supposed to have the perfect grades, perfect body, perfect love life, perfect everything, but it’s not supposed to look like it takes any visible effort. In many ways, these are the same requirements for being a Barbie.
One of the biggest issues with Effortless Perfection is how it manages to make women feel like they are “not enough” but also somehow “too much” – the same dichotomy Ferrera addresses in her monologue. Effortless Perfection makes us feel like we are “not enough” by telling us that we must “have it all” and be it all. This dynamic causes women to feel that respect, love, and acceptance are things that must be earned by transforming oneself into a valedictorian, MVP, sexy pin-up, or my personal favorite, all of the above. Simultaneously, it makes us feel like “too much” as it gives us a very precise mold to fit into and commands we whittle ourselves down until there is nothing left to criticize.
The craziest part is many of us are doing all this in the name of feminism! Author and academic Deborah Spar writes in her book Wonder Women that members “of the post-feminist generation have misinterpreted feminism’s call for liberation for a much more subversive quest for control.” Feminism was intended to expand women’s opportunities, giving them access to roles and choices allowing them to participate alongside men as equals for the first time in history. Yet somehow women’s lib has been misinterpreted, or hijacked, to focus on the narrow and personal. Spar concludes, “Rather than trying to change the world, too often women are obsessed with perfecting themselves.”
For all that the Barbie movie may have gotten wrong, it undeniably got one part right by rejecting the backwards notion that female empowerment is some 12-step program toward perfection.
Perfection demands fitting into the tiny non-existent space between the “too much”/“not enough” paradox Ferrera draws so prominently to our attention. That space is tiny by design. As one of my interviewees for The Effortless Perfection Myth so articulately states: “There’s societal pressure as women to be good, smart, skinny enough, but also pressure not to be too smart, too funny, too anything; so this notion of being ‘Enough’ is just finding that spot society wants you. It’s finding a way to be visible and important enough for people to consider me, without having negative connotations attached.” In other words, the struggle to land in between “too much” and “not enough” is tied to maintaining the status quo and the restrictive gender norms that come along with doing so. I don’t know about you all, but I have more important things to accomplish with my life than figuring out the “spot” where society wants me.
America Ferrera, and the Barbie movie by extension, remind us that feminism was meant to provide the freedom and flexibility to pursue any number of aspirations – not to enforce a duty to flawlessly perform and conform. It was meant to be about banding together to form a strong collective focused on group goals like furthering opportunities for all female-identifying individuals – not to turn inward and micromanage and pick ourselves apart according to unrealistic gendered expectations.
Ferrera’s character Gloria, a mother preoccupied with everyday concerns like death and cellulite, is the one Barbie character the large majority of women can actually see themselves reflected in among the rest of the seemingly Effortlessly Perfect cast. In the last two sentences of her famed monologue, she captures the heart of the movie and the heart of moviegoers watching: “I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.”
As such a pivotal character, I can’t help but wonder why she was so underutilized in the lead-up to the film’s release. Or why the achievements she accrues this award season continue to be overlooked? Isn’t the point of feminism is to connect women – to defend each other when we are down, yes, but also to celebrate each other when we are up? And isn’t it especially important in intersectional feminism to pay attention to women of color who are doubly discriminated against, making their wins even more monumental?
Gloria is the heroine today’s women deserve – one whose power derives from defying the tenets of Effortless Perfection and gives us all permission to authentically grow into our own agency. We can thank Ferrera for being the one to bring that character to life. So, when the Oscars air on March 10th, you best believe Ferrera will have my full attention. Hopefully, she’ll finally have America’s, too.
About the author: Caralena Peterson is a speaker and writer educating both students and their parents on the “Effortless Perfection” Myth and the mental health crisis it has spurred on campuses across the United States, especially amongst women. Known as the Effortless Perfection expert, she has written about the Myth for places like Inside Higher Ed, The Week, She Knows Media, Ms. Magazine, Rewire News, and Bustle and dives deeper into all of its effects and solutions in her book, The Effortless Perfection Myth: Debunking the Myth and Revealing the Path to Empowerment for Today’s College Women. Check out more of her work at www.caralenapeterson.com.
