#Barbie critiques the patriarchy and how it affects men and women

[eggs-love-loki]

The Barbie movie is not anti men but every time I see a man say that it is I become more anti men so it’s actually the men that are anti men

[lyknest]

i think there is something so interesting about the barbie movie that barbieland, even though incepted by ruth handler, is now controlled by men (and their view of women empowerment and feminism)

the reason the barbieland isn't affected by patriarchy is because it was an innovation/imagination from the ground up as a world that empowers women and is hopefully reflected in the real world.

and even though all of this was (probably) done it good conscience, the fact that women empowerment is (falsely) associated with the fear that men will somehow lessen their rights, aided with the entire thing driven by consumerism and capitalism results in a matriarchy, resulting in a power imbalance, which isn't really feminism.

it is such a perfect critique of girlboss feminism & radfem politics along with how patriarchy (or any other power imbalance) harms us all! 

[tittyinfinity]

Just watched Barbie for the first time. I way over-analyze shit, but here's my review I suppose

I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be. I didn't seem to find that "spark" that other people found. The advertising pushed HARD that it would be a groundbreaking movie, and I feel like it may have put a bit of a placebo affect onto some of the people who praised it. But that's based on my biased opinion.

I think that maybe the reason I didn't enjoy it as much is because I've already spent so many years thinking about how the patriarchy works and how to dismantle it, and I'm always thinking about what my purpose is and what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I do see how it could be meaningful for people who don't have the time to sit around and think about this kind of stuff like I do.

While yes, the movie is correct that in the real world, women are always expected to be perfect at the expense of the patriarchy, it seemed to do so in a very shallow way that involved throwing around buzzwords and stereotypes. "Women's oppression" was only linked to how the worst types of men treat them and nothing else. Their example of "patriarchy" was limited to "men are the ones in power and they all treat women like shit." There wasn't much discussion past that point. When the young girl, Sasha, brings up that a capitalistic society is also what's causing pressure on women, she follows it up by calling Barbie a "fascist," causing her to cry, which to me, looked like they were making a joke out of how "people who critique capitalism always take it way too far." After that, there is no discussion as to how patriarchy and capitalism are connected, it just cuts to "men are stupid airheads who don't know how to do anything other than sexually harass women and boss them around."

I feel like you can't approach conversations about the way women are oppressed without talking about how it's also linked directly to capitalism. Clothing advertisements, weight loss ads, only seeing certain types of people being represented in media, pay gaps, "the pink tax," etc. It's not just limited to "men are shitty to women." And yes, men are a major reason as to why these problems related to capitalism exist in the first place, but capitalism is ultimately the biggest threat to women and women's rights.

But they wouldn't be able to dive that far into those kinds of discussions in that movie, because the whole thing was just a fucking advertisement for toys that used feminism as a crutch.

Anyway. 3/5 stars. It was still funny and entertaining.