Now I am become Barbie, destroyer of misogyny.
If I had a nickle for every time Will Ferrell had played a President Business who had power over an imaginary toy world, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.
I find it so funny that conservatives are just now freaking out about Barbie being "woke" because of the movie casting a trans Barbie and other queer actors, saying they're "forgetting their target audience of families and children".
Barbie has been "woke feminist" for years.
LGBTQ+ representation belongs in all movies, including family films.
Barbie isn't even a kids movie, it's rated PG-13 and there is one child in the main cast. Greta Gerwig made a Barbie movie for adults who remember playing with Barbie. The kids can go watch Barbie of Swan Lake.
kens when they learn that patriarchy isn't actually about horses
the barbie movie is not "anti-man", it's anti-oppression.
in the real world, that oppression takes the shape of patriarchal power and women feeling like an afterthought or an accessory. in barbie land, it takes the shape of kens not knowing who they could become as independent beings because their existence has been irrevocably tied to barbie. barbie occupies the place of power, and ken is the afterthought and accessory.
the point of the movie is that any imbalance in the equality of any group of people makes the world a bad place to live in. ken feels unfulfilled and unappreciated in barbie land. He's been told his purpose is Barbie, but he's failing at that and doesn't understand what's wrong. He doesn't think he could be more than Barbie's love interest. Similarly, women in the real world feel forgotten, stunted, and held to impossible standards. Their purpose has been warped by other people telling them what it should be.
That's why it's So Important that both ken and barbie have their own reckonings of how they've reaped benefits at the expense of each other. neither of them wanted to hurt the other. Barbie just liked being a hero in Barbie Land and Ken liked feeling appreciated (and horses) when he was in the real world. But they both see and dislike how the other has been hurt by the power disparity in the real world and in barbie land. And they resolve to not perpetuate that cycle of hurt.
the reason barbie is a good movie is precisely because its main thesis is not Women Better Than Men. Nor is it a preservation of the binary or gender roles.
It's main thesis is that your identity is not the same thing as what you are to other people. And that's not exclusively a moral for Barbie herself. Sure, Barbie isn't Barbie because she's Ken's girlfriend - she's her own person to the point that the actively chooses humanity at the end. But a large portion of the movie also is devoted to explaining that Ken isn't Ken because he's Barbie's boyfriend. That Ken is his own person and should be allowed to be that, because that's (k)enough. Even Alan exists separate from the binary convention and has his own identity and story arc. He serves as a foil for the falsely symbiotic Ken/Barbie role dynamic.
anyway, my point is, no one should be (exclusively) defined by what they mean to someone else, or by what they have (whether that's power, a casa house, or a romantic partner). Everyone is a person deserving love, equality, and their own story, whatever that is.
*slams fist on table* i'm TELLING you dude there's nothing will ferrell loves more on this earth than playing a greedy CEO in a movie inspired by a line of beloved children's toys!!!
the barbie movie is kinda like old time feminism like powerpuff girls or sailor moon in that it's not perfect by any means but GOD it was FUN and it made me feel SEEN and COMFORTED.
i'm so fascinated by the "just ken." in the context of the tagline (she's everything, he's just ken) it makes it sound like ken is just an accessory to barbie and is nothing without her, but in the actual movie in the speech barbie gives, she turns the phrase on its head. ken isn't an accessory to barbie, he isn't the attention barbie gives him, he's just ken. and that's not even mentioning the "she's everything" part of the tagline and how it goes with gloria's speech of women having to fulfill the impossible task of fitting into every box and juggle conflicting expectations and roles just to be liked by society. the tagline represents opposite ends of a spectrum but by the end of the movie barbie and ken meet in the middle, where they're each allowed to be their own person independent of the expectations and insecurities they've been operating on. this movie, man
The Barbie movie: The Ken's need to find who they are outside of pursuing Barbies, a clear allegory for how real life men should not define themselves by trying to attract a partner and building their personality around that, something that would be healthier and better for them overall
Misogynists: barbie movie is so anti-men :(( how could they do this :((((
the thing that gets me about the barbie movie being framed as an "anti-men" movie is that it's fundamentally untrue to the message it's sending out. the movie is an empowering feminist piece as much as it is a cautionary tale about men letting their insecurities and doubts about their place in the world lead them to falling into the alt-right/incel/mra pipeline. it's looking out for men just as much as it's looking out for women, and the only reason you might find this as an "anti-men" message is because you somehow deeply believe that this is the wrong message to send
literally obsessed with the chunky clicks and whirs of a VCR swallowing up a tape . its kinda erotic
I didnt mean that
CHICKEN FARMER I STILL LOVE YOU is probably my favorite place in nampshire
