Issa Rae is on the cover of Time Magazine along with her fellow cast of the upcoming film, “Barbie.”
The “Insecure” star was pictured on the cover posing with her head raised, wearing a sheer gown. She stands alongside fellow cast members including the film’s star Margot Robbie. Robbie plays the titular Barbie in the highly anticipated, Greta Gerwig film. Also on the cover with Rae and Robbi are Hari Nef the Barbie who plays a doctor, and Alexandra Shipp who plays a Barbie who is a writer.
The accompanying piece discusses how Robbie and Gerwig brought Barbie to life, as well as the hurdles the duo faced in convincing producers and power players to stand behind their creative vision. As the writer of the piece, Eliana Dockterman noted, “If you are wondering whether Barbie is a satire of a toy company’s capitalist ambitions, a searing indictment of the current fraught state of gender relations, a heartwarming if occasionally clichéd tribute to girl power, or a musical spectacle filled with earworms from Nicki Minaj and Dua Lipa, the answer is yes. All of the above. And then some.” The piece also touches on how the filmmakers attempted to subvert tropes and offer a different possibility to what Barbie – as a cultural phenomenon- can come to mean for and say about women and girls.
Subverting Tropes
While speaking with Dockterman, Rae revealed that she had initially harbored reservations about how Gerwig and Robbie would approach the feminist statements they were sure to make through the film.
“My worry was that it was going to feel too white feminist-y, but I think that it’s self-aware,” she explained.
“BarbieLand is perfect, right? It represents perfection. So if perfection is just a bunch of white Barbies, I don’t know that anybody can get on board with that.”
Rae also argues that the fulcrum of the film is primarily about decentralizing ideality, and ensuring that it comes in different formats.
The Barbie movie has been garnering excitement since the release of its trailer. The film’s official tracklist has featured original music from acts such as PinkPantheress, Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj. The film is set for a July release.