2023: The Year of the Doll

Megan McLachlan takes a look back at 2023: the year of the doll.

If we remember 2023 for one movie, it’s actually two movies — Barbenheimer. The double-feature film experience was all anyone could talk about for months leading up to the July 21 release date, and with SAG and the WGA on strike for both premieres, it was up to film audiences to drive the Barbie versus Oppie narrative, including which film you should view first (the correct answer is Oppenheimer). Both films broke records, with Barbie reclaiming a bit of her anti-feminist rhetoric by presenting a staunchly pro-women film. The rise to a billion dollars at the box office was an amazing feat for director Greta Gerwig, producer/star Margot Robbie, and the 64-year-old doll herself (she’s killing that women-can’t-do-anything-in-Hollywood-past-40 myth).

Yet strangely enough, Barbie wasn’t the only doll to rear her pretty little head this year. Dolls were everywhere in 2023, from the Cabbage Patch documentary Billion Dollar Babies to the psychotic doll that kicked off the year…M3gan.

Yes, 2023, of course, started with the Kid Sister of your nightmares. As the sentient AI with an inclination to harm barking dogs and nosy neighbors, M3gan was the perfect appetizer for Barbie — fun and without an agenda. There is no feminist message in Akela Cooper’s savvy script, unlike so many recent horror films that aim to unpack trauma. M3gan exists, she torments, she dies (or does she?).

In September, Saw X hit theaters, with a teaser featuring a parody of Nicole Kidman’s AMC ad, with everyone’s favorite vigilante doll, Jigsaw, riding on his bike in an empty theater. AMC forced Saw X to take down the spot, but an iconic pop culture moment was born nonetheless.

Over the summer, America’s real-life doll, Taylor Swift, presented her different “eras” on stage across the country, eventually turning her sold-out tour into a sold-out theater-going experience in the fall. At the same time, the world readied for pop star Britney Spears’ memoir The Woman in Me to hit bookshelves and give us a glimpse at what really happened during the 15-year conservatorship when she was under the puppet-like control of her father Jamie Spears. (There’s already a bidding war for the movie rights.)

And then there was this fall’s Priscilla. From director Sofia Coppola, Priscilla follows the relationship between Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) and his only wife Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) and dismantles many of the beliefs long-held by fans (or those who didn’t read Priscilla’s memoir). No, Elvis didn’t have sex with a 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu; instead, he kept her in his room like a doll, only bringing her out to play when he felt like it.

Finally, 2023 ended with Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, where Willem Dafoe’s crazed scientist Godwin takes an infant’s brain and puts it into the body of an adult woman, effectively making her a real-life doll come to life. She moves like one of those stilted life-size Barbies and even wets herself like Betsy Wetsy. Eventually, she even becomes a man’s sex doll, working at a brothel in Paris where she discovers how unfun “jumping furiously” can be when it’s a job.

There’s no clear reason why dolls were popular in 2023, even if last year’s overturning of Roe v. Wade certainly drove many women to feel like they were under someone else’s control. But 2023 movies couldn’t have known how 2022 was going to be (most likely, these films were in production in 2021!). Mattel has plans for more doll movies, including Polly Pocket, but it’s unlikely that it’ll be as big as Barbie or come out in a year as supportive of these narratives. 2023 truly was the Barbie dreamhouse for dolls.