"Sir, those are my emotional support white men."

I literally can't stop thinking about this one screenshot I have of this Instagram story from a stucky artist

one of the things that i loved about barbie (2023) that i think a lot of the posts making fun of male-written reviews miss is that, though the movie presents itself as a commentary on the patriarchy and sexism, the message at the core of the film isn't actually limited to being about (cis) women. it's about anyone who is Other.

i went to go see the movie on thursday afternoon before all the big midnight premieres, and the theater was still packed. there wasn't an empty seat in the entire theater. i had a seat at the end of the row, which i had picked out in a faint (futile) hope that no one would sit next to me. thirty seconds before the trailers started, a family of about 10 black people walked in and split up, presumably because they'd only just bought their tickets and there were no longer 10 seats together. the dad and the son, who was maybe a few years younger than me in his early-20s, a good foot and a half taller than me, and who i recognized as one of the football players at the local university, ended up taking the two empty seats next to me with the linebacker in the seat right next to me. and that was pretty much the last time i thought of them until the last twenty minutes of the movie.

see, in the last twenty minutes of the movie, america ferrera makes an impassioned speech about not just the limitations that male-dominated society puts on women but the limitations that women put on themselves in order to survive in said male-dominated society. it's about the contradictions that we're subjected to--you can't be too much, but you can't be too little either. you have to lift each other up but you're also in constant competition with other women for the shredded dregs of respect that men have left over for us. you can't say yes to a man because then you're a whore but you can't say no because then you're a prude. it was passionate and bitter and furious and it had every woman in the theater, myself included, in tears.

and in the silence of the theater following america ferrera's plea for barbie not to make herself less just so that society isn't threatened by her, the linebacker sitting next to me said fervently, "i feel that."

it brought everything to a screeching halt. now i'm a white woman, and though i'm fat and nowhere near as gorgeous as margot robbie, from the very first trailer, it was obvious that this was going to be a movie for me. and if done right, it was going to be a movie for all women (and i would argue that it was). but the thing that it also did right was that though the surface of the message was about women making themselves lesser, the core was that it was for anyone who makes themselves lesser to fit in. yeah, it's for women who are trying to fit into a male-dominated society, but it's also for bipoc who are trying to fit into a white-dominated society. it's for trans people trying to fit into a cis-dominated society. it's for gay people trying to fit into a heterosexual-dominated society. it's for anyone who's been Othered and has to shrink themselves in a desperate attempt to survive.

i love the posts making fun of male-written reviews that are butthurt that this movie isn't for them just as much as the next person. but i think it's important that we don't forget that those are representative of the people in power, the people that could never understand this message. barbie is for me, yeah, but it isn't just for me. it's for my trans friend who is six feet tall and has a beard and wears pink dresses every single day because they make her feel pretty. it's for my labmate who could practically be a barbie herself and irritates me every time she talks about thinphobia but also can't find someone who wants to be with her because she's brilliant and not because she's beautiful.

it's for the black linebacker who sat next to me in the theater and felt heard when a fictional character in a movie told him not to make himself smaller just to fit society's standards.

what really got to me about the barbie movie is how the movie is really about how there is still a little girl inside all of us, and when you walk around the movie theater and see all these grown women dressed in pink and visibly excited, it's a reminder of that. but moreso, it's how your mother is a little girl too. and that all comes together in the end when barbie meets her creator. barbie was made so ruth's daughter could be anything she wanted to be, and she named her after her. in the end when ruth helps barbie become human, she is her mother. and when in the end barbie introduces herself as barbara, she is her daugher again. you can be anything, but being human and mortal and imperfect is the greatest gift of all.

This scene was everything. Why would you even want to cut it ever

a very special shout-out to Allan for existing

Barbie (2023) ✦ Dir. Greta Gerwig

“Ken wouldn’t do that to Barbie, it’s out of character!” Babes, that is the point.

Ken and his discovery of the patriarchy and the way it changes him is the exact same as what happens with adolescent boys. You have these guys who were so close to you, wether through friendship or family become people that they aren’t due to both peer pressure and the desire to hold power. Especially with the whole “podcast bro” thing he had going on in the Ken Dojo Casa House scene, Ken represents all the boys that lean into the patriarchy and change for the worst.

Ken was always so sweet, he was stupid and lovable and would do anything for Barbie. Then he got roped into toxic masculinity and all of a sudden he was cruel and pretentious. This is the same path that many of the guys I was friends with as a kid fell down. Barbie represents growing up as a woman and Ken represents growing up as a man.

Fav line from the movie

obsessed with Her.

thinking about the scene in barbie where she asks for permission to be herself and she's told she doesn't need permission, and no one can give her permission for that, because it's just something you start doing

thinking about the scene in barbie where they say you don't need to be exceptional to have worth and deserve love, because just getting through the day is often hard enough

also thinking about the scene in barbie where barbie tells a bunch of construction workers she doesn't have a vagina and the construction workers who have no context beyond her being a pretty girl are like "oh okay that's cool"

I’m screaming 😭😂

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS - Those Old Scientists

Come on Tumblr, don’t be fucking cowards

Alternatively -  come on nameless intern #102, you have a chance to be the fucking funniest person on staff.

cowards

Time for manual blazing, tumblr can be a coward but they can't stop us.

doES ANYONE ELSE REALIZE THAT WE’RE LIKE, THE FIRST GENERATION ON TUMBLR

GIVE IT 10-15 YEARS AND WE’LL ALL BE GROWN UP AND AN ENTIRE NEW SET OF KIDS WILL BE ON HERE BLOGGING ABOUT COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SHOWS AND BANDS AND MOVIES AND BOOKS

THE ONLY THING THEY’LL STILL BE BLOGGING ABOUT THE SAME AS WE WERE IS DOCTOR WHO

HOPEFULLY

We’ll probably all be blogging about Sherlock season 4.

maybe

7/22/2013

happy decade anniversary to this post

supernatural's funny because everybody's like oh you should totally watch it, it's great! and then they don't tell you that it's so so sad all the fucking time 24/7. you hit like. season 3 and from then on sam and dean's lives are a ceaseless inescapable nightmare, it's horrible. ive never seen a series where the writers are just so intent on making sure their characters never get even a second of safety and happiness in their lives. these cycles got hands

im going to give you the advice someone SHOULD have given sam in the second season. fucking RUN. run while you still can and never look back. you can still escape and live in blissful ignorance, just put down the remote and watch idk house md or whatever normal people watch. RUN