Barbie - The World Forever Changes - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Barbie - The World Forever Changes

ram dass in hell: Dec 29, 2019

Steve Yun posted:

Can one say Stereotypical Barbie is a trans metaphor

I don't know how much i would say it's a particularly good or strong metaphor but it's there. people were making comparisons to the matrix, which is itself 100 a trans metaphor subtext text and supertext. Stereotypical Barbie has a dysphoria-like experience after questioning mortality, or the impermanent nature of her identity. It's only resolved after she has a series of conversations about womanhood and patriarchy and she ends the movie at a gynecologist office for the first time, which is 100% written, played, and received by the audience for laughs but also serves as a reflection of the predominantly genitals-centric fixation in the public policy conversations about gender and identity. Stereotypical Barbie becomes a "real woman" (what that means is left as an exercise to the viewer) and then, punchline, she has had bottom surgery. The audience is left to connect the cause and effect and chronological relationships of those things presented in that order, but the movie doesn't say anything terrible out loud on purpose, I think. and the billie eillish song was really good too, so.

ram dass in hell fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Aug 14, 2023

# ¿ Aug 14, 2023 03:01

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 21, 2024 02:54

ram dass in hell: Dec 29, 2019

Cojawfee posted:

What does that mean? What are people limboing out of? She becomes a real person and gets genitals for the first time in her life.

gender essentialism is a radical position unsupported by science and the film casually takes as a given in the last few moments that , as you say, "becomes a real person" and "gets genitals" are treated as the same thing, undermining many of the themes of the film. it's a good movie and I liked it, but that poo poo was weird.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2024 21:52

ram dass in hell: Dec 29, 2019

yes that is the text congratulations to you guys on watching the movie

the subtext whether intentional or not is that having a vagina and seeing a gynecologist is akin to your job interview for womanhood. that's the weird part. that's the faint hint of jk rowling politics that the people talking about it being off in tone compared to the rest of the more mainstream liberal diet woke perspective of the rest of the movie, are referring to

# ¿ Feb 25, 2024 03:03

ram dass in hell: Dec 29, 2019

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I don't think you've properly examined this notion of a "job interview for womanhood", though, because why would womanhood be a thing determined by the gynecologist? Like, the doctor's going to say "no" and hire somebody else? And then what? Does Barbie remains 'unemployed' in terms of her gender?

Before you say it's a metaphor for medical gatekeeping, go back over the plot. In the specific events of the film, Barbie became a human being (as opposed to an immortal, angelic figure) long before even getting out of the car. She specifically decided to become a human cis woman (or 'realized that she always was') back in the white room with the inspirational stock footage montage. And that makes perfect sense because Barbie's gender was "stereotypically female" from before the start of the movie. The film repeatedly, constantly reminds you that Barbie is a woman before she has any genitals whatsoever. Vaginas, specifically, aren't the issue.

The Barbie Movie absolutely fumbles the gender stuff overall, but that's pervasive across the film and not something isolated to the final shot, as if everything depends on that. Like, the queer and gender-nonconforming barbies were kept segregated over in some kind of a fuckin' leper colony for broken toys and 'unmarketable' concepts - concepts that are unmarketable to Gloria, who is a cis woman who's internalized racism and so-on. Gloria is homophobic, transphobic, uncomfortable with women's bodies, and overall just a bit of a dumbass. The film's tactic is simply to lampshade this stuff by - for example - having the daughter point out that Gloria's personal Barbie (who has had an enormous impact on Gloria's psyche) is her white saviour.

Even characters outside the queer ghetto are kept at a distance in Gloria's brain. "Wheelchair Barbie", for example, disappears after the opening scenes as an example of Gloria's overall indifference to people with disabilities. The unstated point of the movie is that somebody else might have Wheelchair Barbie function as 'her' Barbie, and consequently have 'her' Barbieland take a very different form. And we can say the same for other people's personal Barbielands. What if a trans woman has a Barbie that she imagines as being, likewise, trans?

But that leads us to the real oppositional reading: that these people are very unlikely to get jobs as concept artists at Mattel. Gloria was hired (and promoted. And, ultimately, has a movie made about her) because her personal vision of the brand fits perfectly with that of the corporation.

👆 been saying this

# ¿ Feb 25, 2024 05:08

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Barbie - The World Forever Changes