Do you remember the summer of Barbenheimer? That was the time when people would buy tickets for both The Barbie Movie and Oppenheimer for a cineplex double feature. What did the films about a posable doll and the man who was part of the creation of the atomic bomb have in common? Not much except they both made amazing amounts at the box office. Barbie did better. The film about how a living version of the plastic doll proving she’s inspirational and empowering hauled in $636 millions at the US box office. Over $1.4 billion worldwide. And figure out the hundreds of millions that must be coming in from home video and streaming, the film could have made $2 billion. This is startling when you figure Mattel, the company that makes Barbie is worth $6 billion. CEO Ynon Kreiz was brought in to turn around the company in 2018. He didn’t merely want to make a movie about their biggest brand. Mattel was out to create a cultural phenomenon. Barbie’s Dirty Secrets: Exposing The Reality of a Cultural Phenomenon questions the image Mattel gave itself in The Barbie Movie.
Reporter Isobel Yeung comes out to Hollywood to see the impact of Barbie in popular culture. She asks locals if Barbie is a feminist and a champion of women’s rights. But this isn’t merely a feel-good movie. She goes to the core of Barbie’s creation: the factories in China. There have been complaints about what’s going on inside the factories. Mattel claims it will address these concerns. She doesn’t take Mattel’s press release at face value. She also doesn’t just repeat the human rights group that initially exposed the conditions. She sends an undercover reporter with a hidden camera into the factory. The person is hired immediately and gets her welcome orientation. There is zero training or safety talk when she’s assigned work the machine that makes the plastic legs. There are no safety gloves given to the workers. The worker is supposed to reach in the machine and grab the hot plastic. After complaining a bunch, they’re given a single glove for the wrong hand. Burns and blisters continue with their shift. The lunch break is 30 minutes that includes a long walk to the cafeteria space. It is a dash, dine and race back to burn your fingers more. They send in another undercover reporter to clue heads on plastic Maui dolls from Moana 2. This person finds out that the job requires them to work overtime so they have to “voluntarily” check the box that they’ll gladly work overtime. Otherwise they’re back on the street. This means 11-hour workdays. The job barely pays above minimum wage for China. An 11-hour shift pays around $23 for the entire day. Even with those long hours and low pay, the Mattel Factory wants a higher quota. After a few days, the employee’s supposed to increase his output of Maui heads by 50%. We do get to see the manager threaten to fire those who can’t make their quota. The quota will be going up the next day too.
There is “fun” such as a visit to a Barbie online influencer who own over 600 dolls (mostly still in the box) with an overwhelming pink interior. But things get back to being serious. We learn about the time Mattel sued the band Aqua over the song “Barbie Girl.” Mattel has sued over 200 people, artists and companies in recent years. Mattel is currently suing a guy who made the BarBee app that’s for bars. There’s a piece on Fisher-Price is owned by Mattel. This is where a mother recounts her nightmare about losing her two-week-old baby to a Fisher-Price “baby sleeper.” Fisher-Price didn’t seem to care about the safety of the product when they put it in stores. CEO Ynon Kreiz refuses to admit the baby sleeper was dangerous even with nearly 100 infant deaths linked to the device.
Barbie’s Dirty Secrets: Exposing The Reality of a Cultural Phenomenon shows the human toll of making the fun toys you buy your kids. We forget there’s human hands involved at the factory. It’s not fun knowing someone burned their fingers so you can get a special edition Taylor Swift Barbie Doll. Seeing what goes on in the toy factory gives a sense of the true conditions. While you think the company might be able to make conditions better for employees in China, their attitude on the baby sleeper seems to signal that it’s not a priority on the spreadsheet.
The Video is 1.78:1 anamorphic. The pink does pop on the screen when we’re seeing all the Barbie product. The Audio is Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. The movie is subtitled in English.
Trailer (1:27) shows us how the movie Barbie has changed the world with a message of empowerment. But are the women who make Barbie dolls empowered?
MVDvisual & All3 Media present Barbie’s Dirty Secrets. Directed by Alasdair Glennie. Hosted by Isobel Yeung. Running Time: 47 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: July 14, 2026.
