Barbie - The World Forever Changes - The Something Awful Forums

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

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

theblackw0lf posted:

Saw this quote from one of my favorite feminist writers Liz Plank (who’s book For The Love of Men is fantastic). She really liked the movie but this was her major criticism. Curious what people think

And while I delighted in the movie’s embrace of the hyper-feminine, and that it made me reflect on how I can participate in our society’s sexist derogation of it, the overall feminist takeaway of the movie was deeply distorted. The biggest oversight in my opinion is that the matriarchal system that’s presented in the film is one that ultimately marginalizes men. It upholds a flawed view of feminism, one that is often circulated by its detractors, where the goal is assumed to be the subjugation of men. This bogus girlboss take on female empowerment is about women doing what men have done to them, but true feminism is actually about dismantling those power structures and hierarchies altogether. In a true feminist world, Ken wouldn’t be relegated to "doing beach” and women wouldn’t be burdened with every single job! The feminist fantasy in the Barbie movie is a patriarchy that’s simply flipped. The movie suggests that in order for one gender to win, the other one has to lose, which is a myth created by the patriarchy. I worry the movie may be popularizing a dangerously distorted version of feminism that puts men down, when true feminism doesn’t put men in subservient roles— it sets them free.

To be fair, towards the end of the movie, Barbie offers something closer to this vision of freedom when she apologizes to Ken for treating him as lesser (individually, not to Kens as a group) and suggests that he define his own identity without her, leading him to later sport a hilarious hoodie that reads “I am Kenough.”

The path Ken is encouraged to go on is akin to the conversation that many of us have been prompting men to have about reimagining their own masculinity, and is what I was attempting to create with For The Love of Men. But this interaction stands in sharp contradiction with the entire premise and philosophy of the movie. This moment of compassion towards men is interrupted when one of the Kens asks if this means men can be on the Supreme Court now, and he’s told he could pursue a smaller lower court role. This suggests that the goal is not to win with men, but to get even with them.

This vengeful definition of feminism is certainly enticing given how violently the cards are stacked against women, but I fear it simply gives more ammunition to those who want to discredit gender equality altogether. The movie offers false proof that feminism impairs men, when in fact no other social policy would collectively benefit them more. My concern is that it reinforces the concept of the gender war, which isn’t feminist at all, and is just inherently another product of the patriarchy.

I spent a lot of the movie a little concerned that it was going to go for the whole flipped patriarchy angle, which, yeah, is damaging for the reasons you quote. I started to appreciate it more when the Ken's started fighting each other and subsequently are encouraged to define themselves outside of their relationships and achievements as it started to play with how the patriarchy harms men too.

And I felt a bit self-concious for hoping that Barbie movie would examine how the patriarchy harms men, but I think it would have been a weaker film if it didn't.

I didn't think too much of the Supreme Court gag, because I think it was just an ironic gag based on the viewers knowledge of the real-world; I don't think that Barbie was being vindictive or insincere.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2023 00:49

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 16:30

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

Cassette Moodcore posted:

Movie was awesome, I’d actually see it again in theatres, chuds/conservatives are so fragile

My wife loved the whole we will just let the Kens mansplain something we already know like the Godfather or finances and we will save the Barbies plot line because in her industry it’s just constantly guys mansplaining to her

I cracked up that The Fall got referenced in the loving Barbie movie of all things.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2023 09:44

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

I don't really agree that the Ken's get a bad ending at all. They're defeated, but not punished, the comment that they might one day have as much power as women in the real-world felt darkly ironic to me.

But more than that, the ambiguity is deliberate, I think. If Ken Prime instantly stepped into another defined role, or even the secondary Kens became Supreme Court Judges, they'd be trading one dead end for another. The end of the film is the start of the journey for pretty much everyone.

That's why Barbie's final line is so good - yes, it's funny we think she's going for a high-powered job and she's actually at the gynaecologist, but the film would undercut itself otherwise.

Mattel are clearly laundering the Barbie brand and that's okay. Its shifting from a mid-aughts girlboss definition of Be Anything (as long as that "anything" is some nightmarish corporate position), disavowing and mocking the pre-90s bimbo image and recreating itself as a blank canvas while sort of pretending that's what it always was .

At first, I was surprised Mattel were so game for the way the brand is treated and then I realised that is absolutely by design.

Edit: I totally see the Wes Anderson and Speed Racer comparisons, but some of it, especially the scenes in the Mattel offices, made me think of Boots Riley.

Disco Pope fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Jul 24, 2023

# ¿ Jul 24, 2023 11:46

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

Badger of Basra posted:

I mean I don’t think the movie wants us think Barbie chooses to be human because it’s “better” than Barbieland. It goes to very great lengths to show and tell us that being human can be terrible.

She chooses it because she wants to be a real person and not an idea. I think she literally says that. Her choice is that being a human seems bad, but it is real in a way that her previous existence isn’t (and importantly, she is now aware of that) so she’s going to pick that. She feels like she doesn’t belong in Barbieland anymore because she has progressed beyond what the Barbies there are.

As for who the choice is “for” I don’t know. People afraid to grow up? People who think they don’t fit in?

It's a branding exercise. In the context of Barbie's "Be Anything" branding, it's shifting that message from now gauche mid-2010s girlboss trappings to an embrace of complexity and flaws. The brand's message is still "be anything", but it has an implicit "be whatever".

But I don't think the film or the brand are being particularly progressive with this - I think there's an undercurrent of nihlism to this. I agree that the humans are underwritten in this, but the mother has been bruised by the failure of the "women can have it all" messaging and the daughter has realised that it's bunk and rejected the messaging thats harmed her mother. It's "you're valid" with the implied admission that, actually, very few people will be vets or astronauts or beach.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2023 10:15

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

Expecting a right-wing review to actually engage with the film is pointless because they were never going to engage with it in good faith.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2023 08:47

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

dodgeblan posted:

I saw the movie, thought it was really funny and kinda heartwarming

as a man who is terminally online the mom's feminism speech landed with a thud

I wonder if you weren't someone who has encountered the same speech a thousand times verbatim would it be effective? Does that person exist?

Someone cheered in my cinema.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2023 21:17

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

Steve Yun posted:

I though of him as dumb-but-means-well, but then my Latina friend talked about how her husband and her dad both learned Spanish to bond with their wives/kids and that it meant a lot to her to see them represented on screen so I have a brighter view of him now

Yeah, I thought that was sweet. He has so little screen time, it's difficult to call him comically inept, or indeed anything. He messes up a language he's learning a little at the end? My goodness, what a BUFFOON!

# ¿ Aug 1, 2023 13:52

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

Mellow Seas posted:

The main (and very hilarious) joke is that now that Barbie is a real woman, she has a vagina, whereas she previously famously didn’t, so she’s super excited, even to be going through this rather utilitarian aspect of womanhood. Definitely works on multiple levels, though. (We assume it’s a job interview, but Barbie’s entire life has been defined by her jobs, and now she gets to just be A Woman.)

And it could be dentist appointment as something medical that every human does (I respect the proctologist suggestion, but surely the audience would be like "is Barbie sick?!"), but as is, it specifically undercuts the idea that being a cis-woman is magical - it just is.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2023 16:14

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

The only person I know who hasn't liked it was my Mum who said "it was too weird. Funny, but too weird", but she's always had an aversion to anything that has that po-mo maximalist look.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2023 22:20

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

well why not posted:

the gyno joke really was a misstep, as were the end of evangelion revelation scenes. few movies slam the breaks on “fun” harder than this

I'm a cis guy, so my reading is going to be different and perhaps not as sensitive to some subtext, but I do feel a lot of discussion about the ending omits that it's framed as Barbie going to a high-powered job interview, and it looks like the film preparing to undercut itself a little bit before subverting that.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2024 13:01

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 16:30

Disco Pope: Dec 6, 2004; Top Class!

Valentin posted:

my question is then "hey why is this movie's stance that barbie has too many jobs and also those jobs aren't real," such that her going for a real world job interview would be "undercutting itself." so many of this movie's gags are that all the career women Barbies are doing joke pink versions of their jobs, feministly. motherhood on the other hand is fully sacralized by the ending.

My reading of it is that, as a brand exercise, the film was in conversation with the Barbie "You Can Be Anything" slogan and launders the brand of the criticism that that means thin, professional, blonde and most of the other things that have come to be associated with Barbie. I took the ending to be setting up that she was still going to be some kind of girlboss, but subverting it with, hey, she's just like a lot of the implied audience!

# ¿ Feb 13, 2024 20:48

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