The ‘Barbie’ speech defeated pretend patriarchy. This one’s for the real world.

The Speech articulates the ridiculous, conflicting standards that women are expected to meet: physically, professionally, socially and emotionally (“always be grateful”). When one of the Barbies who hears The Speech wakes from her empty-headed submissiveness as if from a dream, Barbie marvels aloud to Gloria: “By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you robbed it of its power.”

What follows is a troops-into-battle montage in which Gloria treats each Barbie to one-on-one consciousness-raising, and, one by one, they realize the patriarchy is bad.

But for our world? The real real one? It’s not enough. I like to think that Barbie is right: Naming the problem can break the spell. As a writer, I have to believe this is at least the first step. So with the Oscars — and the 2024 election — ahead of us, I’ve written an adaptation of The Speech, inspired by (and sometimes quoting) the one written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach.

May the next scene in the real world be a troops-into-battle montage that ends when we get our reproductive rights back. I’ll begin as Gloria did:

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