The character of Gloria is the viewers’s avatar. She is the one enjoying with Barbie dolls in the true world, all in an effort to bond along with her teenage daughter (Ariana Greenblatt), who’s rising more and more estranged from her mom and shifting right into a cynical frame of mind. As a Mattel worker, Gloria will start idly drawing footage of Barbie dolls who take into consideration dying and melancholy, unwittingly shunting darkish thought’s into Barbie’s head. Gloria is torn between the idyllic world that Barbie dolls promote — women might be something! — and the cruel realities of residing as a lady in the true world. Close to the top of “Barbie,” Gloria unleashes on the Barbies a litany of recent female grievances, all of them about how a lot is anticipated of girls and the way she looks like girls won’t ever be capable of dwell as much as the world’s imaginative and prescient of them as a gender.
Ferrera noticed the speech as each a present and a problem. Actors usually dream of receiving vital speeches and “large moments,” and Ferrera was thrilled. She additionally, nevertheless, needed to be sure that she bought it proper. She stated:
“[The monologue was] one of many first issues Greta talked about to me even earlier than I learn the script. She stated, ‘I wrote this monologue for Gloria, and I’ve at all times imagined you saying this.’ Whereas that was flattering, it additionally felt like stress within the nicest manner. I learn the monologue and it hit me as highly effective and significant. It additionally felt like, wow, what a present as an actor to get to ship one thing that feels so cathartic and truthful. Nevertheless it additionally felt like this pivotal second that I clearly did not need to mess up. There was just a little little bit of wholesome stress round it.”