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it is honestly insane how half the criticisms about the Barbie movie are that it's too feminist, and the other half that it's not feminist enough. add to that the film having an entire monologue about women not being ever able to win, because the patriarchy is full of contradictions and I'm convinced we're living in a TV programme.
do you see these hot takes about marvel? the Lego movie? the batman films?
... yeah
wonder why
I hate that Barbie review post going around - not because there aren’t fair criticisms of the movie, but because any fair criticism in that post is diminished by a blatant aphobic viewpoint:
What is utopian about a world without sex?
Sex doesn’t have to exist in a fictional world, especially one that depends on the imagination of young children.
Without sex, what is the material difference between Barbie and Ken being boyfriend girlfriend of just being friends? What is the nature of the desires Ken has that Barbie can’t match?
Sex is not a requirement for a romantic relationship. You can also “just be friends” and have sex with someone. We assign meaning to our own relationships. That is beside the point that when young children are playing with dolls, they are developing their own idea of what the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” mean. That doesn’t often include sex.
Ken’s entire drive throughout the movie is based on the fact that the Ken doll is seen as an accessory to Barbie. He doesn’t have his own identity, and that becomes problematic as he bases his purpose around being with Barbie. He begins to believe that Barbie owes him for his dedication, which is something real men do all the time to real women. Instead of finding themselves on their own and unpacking why they measure themselves based on the attentions of women, they get mad at women for not reciprocating and they create a culture to punish women. Ken’s “desire” is Barbie’s attention, but Barbie has her own life and interests that do not include him. It’s not that she can’t “match” his desires. It’s that she doesn’t want to.
It does not have to be explicitly about sex, but even if it was about sex, again, it’s not about being unable to “match” that desire. It’s about not wanting to, and people who don’t want to have sex for whatever reason are punished for it by a society that tells us sex is necessary and owed in a meaningful relationship.
Why do the dolls have no genitalia in the real world, given that they are otherwise turned into flesh? Why did you make a point of specifying this?
You are obsessed with a doll’s genitals, which feels like a TERF dog whistle. They’re still dolls in the real world. Barbie chooses to become “human” in the end. That’s why there’s a joke at the end about her going to the gynecologist. Still, their lack of genitals is not only a joke but a reminder that Barbie and Ken are dolls who are enjoyed by children in a fantasy land that doesn’t revolve around sex.
This isn’t the only part of the post that grinds my gears, but the whole thing reads as specifically hostile to people with different lived experiences regarding sex and gender. I absolutely hate it.
No offense to anyone who makes these posts but I'm not interacting with any Barbie posts that suck Greta G's dick about Ken's """"MRA/incel"""" arc without acknowledging how fundamentally stupid it was to give it to someone canonically oppressed on the basis of their gender. Patriarchy wasn't appealing to him because he's losing his power it was appealing to him because Barbies have all the power but in patriarchy he's in control I'm beating every last one of you with a copy of Judith Butler I am making you read Bell Hooks like it's clockwork orange I am sneaking into your house and putting Angela Davis audio books and speeches on while you sleep I'm exposing you to real feminism by any means necessary until you understand that patriarchy about fuckin POWER not who has long hair and boobs.
Like I just want you to imagine how fundamentally stupid it would be to give any character played by Ryan Gosling other than Ken the speech that Gloria gave Barbie and have it have the same effect on him that it has on the Barbies. That is the level of idiocy we're operating on here
I'm just.... Hm... It's not even how dumb it is that makes me mad it's how everyone just seems to think it's genius when it's the dumbest shit I've seen in a while. My problem is that I'm the only one I see casting doubt on this MRA thing and I'm the only one who immediately thought "oh he's like terfs and the terminally online rad fems who brag about doing misandry" and was surprised when the internet brought up the manosphere.
Tumblr locked me away bc my hot take was the barbie movie was visually stunning but the plot was an absolute mess and i was fine with the plot being a mess until i saw everyone trying to defend it as like. Being for imaginary children? A pg-13 movie? No one mentioning that an enormous part of the plot's problem was bc mattel clearly had a huge hand in it so for some reason the entirely male flock of executives are all... totally cool actually? People wanting a barbie girlboss ending when the film was already so girlboss heavy??? Thankfully i'm back now and i'm going to fix all of you
I didn't like the Barbie Movie. Here are (some of) the reasons why:
(Keep in mind, these are all my opinions, etc etc)
First and foremost, it felt performative as fuck. Like sure it address sexism, beauty standards, consummerism; with a tone that ranges from "sarcastic" to "genuine". But to me, every time it felt like they were reciting a lesson. When the teen (I don't remember her name) "tells it like it is", she might has well have been reading off a list of buzzwords.
Then, the tone. Oh my god. The tone. It never landed, for me. The line between self-awareness and parody and vulnerability were too blurry, and ended up feeling like a confusing mess of intentions.
Moving on, the pace. More than fast-paced, I felt it was hurried. Characters and references and jokes were thrown around over and over, at all times, barely allowing it to land. You know the scene when Ken takes a walk in the real world alone, and is bombarded by patriarchy propaganda? That's how the entire movie felt for me.
(Speaking of patriarchy. Oh my god. They said the word so many times, it felt less and less important every time.)
And I feel like the reason it felt so hurried and so busy is that they tried to do so many things, they half-assed everything. They made a frankenstein of satire and nostalgia and girlhood and patriarchy and toxic masculinity and self esteem and finding one's worth and relationships and and and.
Then there were smaller things that I disliked. Weird Barbie's sexual comments about Ken was so out of the blue and uncomfortable. The scene with Ruth at the end dragged on forever. Most of the scenes with the Mattel executives added nothing to the story.
I think what I most enjoyed was Allan's character. He was fun and sweet and did interesting stuff. And I did laugh at a couple jokes, of course. But over all, I was bored.
I didn't expect the movie to be a feminist masterpiece. I didn't expect it to have a deep plot or the most fleshed out characters or dramatic undertones.
I just expected it to be entertaining and nice to look at, and still felt dissapointed.
If your experience was any different from mine, if it resonated with you and you had a good time, I'm genuinely glad for you! This is my experience and these are my thoughts, and I wanted to share them.
Lastly, this youtube video gives an interesting, well articulated analysis! "The plastic feminism of Barbie" from the channel verilybitchie
okay, i saw barbie last night and it was very fun but the thing that was bugging me the whole time was the conflation (??) of real world women = barbie and real world men =ken when the kens are a marginalized minority class in barbieland?
like they make a joke near the end about how "maybe someday the kens will have as much power as women in the real world" (paraphrased) and its like, so you agree? the kens are opressed by the barbies? the only ken with a job in the whole movie is lifeguard ken afaicr so ofc the kens find out about patriarchy and see it as a liberation movement? like their treatment of the barbies under their patriarchy was absolutely wrong but eagh its kinda complicated. also understanding that makes you realize allan is kind of a bootlicker (high heel licker?) for the barbieland matriarchy. ALSO if women are supposed to be empowerd and able to be anything in barbieland why are there no masculine barbies? every barbie we see is very femme (not a bad thing fyi) so????????
tldr i liked it and had fun but looking deeper is a little confusing
Patriarchy vs. Barbiearchy
In the recent Barbie movie, the movie seemed to compare what was going on with the hierarchal structure in Barbieland to the patriarchy, but reversed where Barbie (and other femme presenting dolls) had the power while Ken was just an accessory to Barbie. While in the real world Barbie experiences the patriarchy and how she is seen through men’s eyes, men who have power over her. She even goes as far as to mention how uncomfortable and scared she is in those situations where she is around men. Barbie in the real world is seen essentially as a doll, as an object; however, Barbie in Barbie land never sees Ken as an object. She rather sees Ken as a friend, but someone who has their own identity and being. Meanwhile, Ken believes that his only purpose is for Barbie, and only lives for Barbie’s attention. But Barbie has a life outside of Ken and does not devote all of her time to Ken like he wants. Ken sees Barbie as a doll and they are a paired set. Ken also shows the other Kens what patriarchy is and turns the Barbies into brainless girls, who’s only purpose is to serve the Kens, a direct contrast to how the Barbies just kind of let Ken do their own thing, thinking the Kens had a life outside of the Barbies. Ken is a picture of how patriarchal ideas could establish itself in a women led/centered world, where men have/fein incompetence in order for women to support them. Barbie should have never apologized to Ken. She said no and even if that made Ken feel bad, she doesn’t owe him her time and energy; Ken is not entitled to that.
the barbie movie you want is fundamentally not going to be made because mattel is never going to let themselves fully be the villains in their own film that is, at it’s core, a movie that is for and about capitalism, and no greta did not subvert this idea in the slightest, and yes this movie really does feel like when littlekuriboh put “BUY YUGIOH CARDS TODAY” over that one scene in pyramid of light, you know the one, and that’s fine honestly because i bought the sdcc 2023 exclusive draculaura on al gore’s internet. like i know the world we live in. i think we’re all aware of the world we live in.
and i think it’s okay and honestly necessary in that context to understand it as imperfect. i’m not out here hinging my moral compass on it. we can go see things and they can be beautiful on the outside and just okay on the inside`
