Queer Experience Watching Barbie - AFAB Masculinity
I started to go into this in tags on another post but I wanted to type this up separately and try to develop my thoughts a little more…
Ryan!Ken’s arc in Barbie (2023) has been buzzing in my head for days.
I got fixated on it for a couple of major reasons:
1) We rarely have seen a feminist movie take time to address men with compassion in how patriarchy harms them too.
2) As a trans masc person, I think it hits a specific part of my identity that I don’t consciously let myself think about for too long. Something about being raised in a female world with sisterhood and community. Then being isolated in adult manhood without the tools to prepare you for that. Conscientious of respecting women and being unbothered by feminimity around you, but not knowing your place in the world.
How do I put it?
I know it’s not the direct intention of the film itself, but I’ve seen other trans folks (especially transmasc), reacting similarly to the feeling we get from it.
Ken’s arc feels pretty reminicent of the struggle afab lgbt folks go through when considering masculinity in their identity (butch lesbians, afab nbs, trans men, etc.)
How to make peace with masculine aspects of yourself without losing the women in your life? (One can argue Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie has aspects of this as well.)
Of course, then Ken goes off on the adopting patriarchy ride, which IS the point of the movie, and may skew a bit from the transmasc read on it–though I have known a trans guy here and there who avoids being misgendered so hard that they can become somewhat sexist. To which I say: “You don’t need to have a dick to be a man, and you don’t need to BE a dick to be a man.” But I digress.
Something about Ken being comfortable in a woman’s world but not understanding why he’s being shut out from socially bonding with them (in any sense! Romantic, Familial, Platonic Friendship…)
The overall theme of the movie for both Barbie and Ken–in an allegory of heavy gender roles harming all–leading them each to have to figure out who they are in themselves, regardless of others…
Trans masc folx can relate to both Barbie and Ken’s arcs.
I don’t want to detract from Barbie’s arc being the main point of the movie.
I think the reason why we get hung up on Ryan!Ken’s character is because… we’ve related to the Barbie plot in other movies and shows before, thinking back to our “girlhoods” as children.
I have never seen the arc Ken has in this in any other story!!!!
There are some Man Movies that have attempted to discuss the struggle of Being a Man–but they often come off as too dismissive of feminine experiences, and are therefore as offputting to transmasc people as women.
Because of the nature of the two worlds exhibited in this movie, and Ken’s backround in his setting, personality, and purpose in relation to the Barbies, he’s a Man living with Female Socialization, in a Woman’s World; he’s a male character that inherently admires and respects women in his nature (until the real world influence distorts it).
This isn’t a perfect example of a transmasc experience either, but it’s a lot closer than most of us generally get to see! That’s why so many of us are getting caught up in this.
Please, other trans folx (transfems, too!), I really need us to have a discussion about this. What were your experiences and thoughts around this movie?
P.S. Yeah, we kinda get that nonbinary allegory from Allan (not a Ken, not a Barbie, siding with Feminism in the Gender War), but he wasn’t in significant focus of the plot the way Ryan!Ken was. If I try to read into Allan, I don’t have much to work with.
Oh something about “I get needing to keep men at arm’s length to stay safe [because I was raised with that too] but I’m… a safe guy to be around? We should be able to have an intimate friendship?”
This part of genderfluid @wwwstarnet ’s tags:
Yeah I felt that, too, and how you said Allan doesn’t get much of a resolution per se, he’s just there throughout.
KEN'S ARC IS THE CONFLICT TRANS MEN FACE WHEN WE REACH THE SOCIAL TRANSITION OF BEING PERCEIVED AS MEN AND ARE OFFERED PATRIARCHY AND AREN'T SURE WHAT RELATIONSHIP TO HAVE WITH IT.
Sorry for all caps but epiphany! That's what it is!! What I've been trying to articulate this whole time!!!
The movie's intention with Ken's character is A. How patriarchy affects barbie (women), and B. How patriarchy also fails and harms men (the kens' isolation and battle).
That was the explicit intention of the movie but it also resulted in somehow being a uniquely relatable allegory for how trans masc folks walk out of barbieland (girlhood) to discover our authentic selves and run into the insidious privilege and harm of patriarchy that we suddenly find handed to us.
This ken arc feels like a truer, deeper trans masc experience than I've seen in any film or even book, with the exception of Thomas Page McBee's memoir, "Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man."
Ken takes the offer of patriarchy and runs with it, but most transmasc folks reject it as feminists that were just recently--and for most of our lives--on the negative receiving end of it.
Ken chooses patriarchy because he thinks women failed him (because patriarchy harms women who then can't trust men which then indirectly causes patriarchy to harm men through women but men just think it's women harming them, etc. It's complicated)
Some trans men might choose to abide by the rules of patriarchy to fit in for their own gender validation or even physical safety.
But choosing to side with patriarchy is a cautionary tale that we see through Ken's arc. An arc crafted for cis men to learn from, and that trans men can learn from, too. One that we are much more aware of and willing to learn.
When a [presumably sexist, transphobic] cis man reads me as a guy; and doesn't know I'm trans, makes some shitty "joking" comment about a woman with him, expecting me to affirm his comment with a laugh and agreement (something that literally happened to me for the first time ever the other day)--I have a choice to make.
I can automatically follow the script to fit in and not cast suspicion on my existence. Or I can refuse to enable that behavior and set a better example of what a man should be.
(It gets even more complicated to figure out what to say, knowing that I don't want to endanger or shame the woman stuck with this man with whatever I choose to respond to him with.)
[In the reality of my situation in this example, I just didn't answer him and when he wasn't looking, met eyes with the woman, and shook my head no. Imagine an awkward Allan reaction, basically.]
Anyway
THAT'S the Ken Arc
THAT'S why the ken arc has been punching us transmascs in the gut and why we can't stop talking about him.
Yes, Barbie is the point of the movie. The feminism is the point. We benefit from and can enjoy that arc, too.
But as I said before, what's going on in Ken's Arc is something I have NEVER seen before for trans guys, and that's HUGE!!!!!!
