#barbie (2023) spoilers

[ankle-beez]

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

[idkmybffjillyy]

how i thought i would feel walking out of the theater:

how i actually felt:

[sflow-er]

So many thoughts on the fabulous Barbie film, but especially on how anyone who thinks it’s “hateful towards men” clearly isn’t getting the message.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

[Credit for both gifs goes to their makers!!]

I mean... Ken’s arc is secondary to Barbie’s, and rightly so. This is her film, and her message deserves to be the main takeaway.

That being said, I just find it really sad that the people who could’ve definitely used the point of Ken’s arc just let it go right over their heads. Maybe it’s because they aren’t great at reading subtext, or because they just balk at anything presented as feminist, I don’t know.

Because to me, Ken’s arc is about as far from “hateful towards men” as you can get. It’s a multi-layered depiction of how restrictive, outdated views of masculinity can hold men back and make them susceptible to harmful ideologies that promise easy solutions for all their problems but only make those problems worse and hurt others around them.

The first layer is an allegory for real men don’t show their feelings. In the movie, this is represented by Ken’s need to look tough and cool all the time, and to keep his insecurities and sadness bottled up. Barbieland is a utopia where being happy is a social norm, and the main Barbie also starts to struggle with that. The difference is that she eventually tells her friends, and they all support her. Ken just puts pressure on himself not to look weak - in front of Barbie, or in front of the other Kens.

Which brings us to the second level: a competitive and inherently hostile view of the other Kens, aka. toxic male relationships. Some of them are friends, and all of them work together for a while to build the Patriarchy, but they don’t actually bond for real. Even their boys’ nights are mainly about getting back at the Barbies for all their girls’ nights (which really were about bonding). When push comes to shove, the Kens still see each other as competition, which is one of the reasons why the Barbies are able to play them against each other.

Another reason is the third layer: the idea that Ken only has value if Barbie loves and admires him. It starts out as unrequited love that makes you feel sorry for him...until he turns bitter. He basically starts on the path that could lead him down the incel/mra rabbit hole and into a mindset where Barbie owes him love and admiration and the relationship he wants in exchange for his devotion to her. He decides that everything would be better if Barbies were subservient to Kens, but of course that’s not true. None of the Barbies’ newfound admiration for their Kens is real, and his own Barbie still rejects him.

All this is of course underpinned by the final layer, which is Ken’s lack of self-respect and sense of purpose. He’s got a pointless job, he’s not particularly qualified for anything, and he just feels kind of lost in Barbieland - a society run by successful Barbies who are living up to their full potential. That’s why he gets so caught up in the idea of the Patriarchy, which is supposed to make him successful, get others to respect him, and give him a sense of purpose. (This can be generalised to all kinds of harmful ideologies in the real world, e.g. the alt-right movement.)

However, the success he achieves is superficial and not based on any real passion; he even admits that he wasn’t happy in his new position and already lost interest in the ideology. The (forced) respect of others does feel good for a while, but it only goes so far. At heart, the whole thing is still mostly about his feelings of inferiority and unrequited love for Barbie, and instituting this harmful new system did not resolve those for him.

So what does? In essence, breaking out of all these harmful patterns and internalising the idea that he is enough.

He ends up reflecting on his feelings, finally puts them to words (or rather, song and dance), and manages to connect with the other Kens through those feelings. He even cries in relief and acknowledges that it doesn’t make him weak. He and Barbie finally have a proper talk, he lets go of their (non-)relationship, and he listens when she says he needs to figure out his real self. He starts to see himself not through his job, his girlfriend, or even his competition with the other Kens, but as just Ken, who is enough.

I honestly can’t think of a less hateful message to send men and boys.

[todayontumblr]

Friday, July 21.

Barbie (2023). *spoilers*

Oh, hey. What's up

Didn't expect to see you here. What are you up to? Oh yeah, cool. Sounds super interesting. Us? Oh, as it's July 21, 2023, we're only standing in line waiting for the release of Greta Gerwig's Barbie (2023). It's gonna be sweet. Super sweet.

That's right. The day cometh

And cometh the hour, cometh the doll. Got plans tonight? If yes, we hope those plans are front-row seats for Barbie (2023), and we hope to high heaven you are, at the very least, going dressed to the nines in every pink and pastel you can dream of.

But if your calendar is looking a little freer then why not join us? We don't have anything big planned. Just a giant blowout party with all the Barbies, and planned choreography, and a bespoke song. You should stop by. 

Check your calendars. This is the real deal. Naturally, Tumblr is all at sea in celebration, where you can find memes, discourse, analysis, gifs, and the rest over at #barbie and barbiethemovie.tumblr.com.

Now let's go party x 

[npdclaraoswald]

The thing about taking away Cock Ring Ken's cock ring is that it's fine that the necklace says Barbie, that's not inaccurate. The purpose of the ring was not, despite how widely reported this is, a fashion choice, it was a place to hook on the earrings that all of the Earring Magic dolls came with- one of which said Barbie. The Barbies and the Midge in the line came with these hooks on their belts and their actual earrings, but because Ken didn't have hoop earrings, he got a hook on his jacket and on his necklace. So the necklace was designed to have something, including Barbie's name, attached to it.

But movie!Earring Magic Ken's necklace doesn't just say Barbie, it's "Barbie" attached at the chain, no hoop. They removed THE thing Earring Magic Ken is known for in the public eye! And they took the mesh shirt!

All the other costumes in this movie that are based on specific dolls are, to my memory, incredibly accurate, it's just this one that has major, noticeable deviations. And it's hard not to assume that it is because this one is wildly know for it's association with queerness.

[stars-and-birds]

also on a more emotional note barbie going through all that shit when she first arrived in the Real World and having the effects of the Real World’s patriarchy fucking up her world and still choosing to become human is so beautiful. like she didn’t go into it blindly she knew how terrible it would be to her but she chose it anyway. and, wow.

[smolfangirl]

Who else thinks that having a Depression Barbie to watch BBC's 1995 Pride and Prejudice with would heal them?

[marlinspirkhall]

[ID] Ryan Gosling’s Ken is grinning while having his mugshot taken. He is dressed in his rollerblading outfit and holding up a sign which says “LAPD and Ken 919-77 Venice.” [End ID]

tfw you accompany your girlfriend/beard/sugar mommy to the real world because she’s having an existential crisis, and she decks someone in the face so you immediately get arrested together (couple goals)

[tuherrus]

i know it!

[cometcrystal]

i was inspired to share my barbie review

[jomarchswritingjacket]

barbie 2023 spoilers

so gloria is gonna leave her bland ass husband in the sequel and marry barbie right??? right??? barbie is the ultimate femme lesbian right?? RIGHT???

ANSWER ME GRETA GERWIG!!!

[dungeonmastersconsortium]

So what you're saying is that fey fight by vibe checking each other?

You're all correct and also very wrong.

They fey fight like this (with Gosling Ken and Liu Ken as the Archfey):

With one notable exception: While the fey see this battle as both incredibly serious AND non-lethal, the mortals in the middle would in fact be VERY vulnerable to any weapons wielded, as their perspective is different than the fey fighting. It's why meddling in the conflicts of the fey as a mortal is so inadvisable. The fey around you, at the end of the day, will be fine as long as they're not planning on legitimately killing (permanently) the other side. And in my version of the feywild, they rarely want to, as removing one archfey just gives rise to others.

[wertyo102]

Tell me I'm not the only one desperately hoping the capitalist overlords make us the Ken sweater from the end of the movie so I, too, can show the world that I am Kenough.

[npdclaraoswald]

Elaborating on my Barbie (2023) is a metaphor for transitioning post from a couple of days ago

The movie is quite clearly, as Greta Gerwig stated, a metaphor for puberty and the way little girls are happy and carefree and then suddenly feel like they're not enough and everything they do is wrong and they'll never fit in. But puberty is also partially hellish for trans people, with your body and the way people treat you changing in ways that feel intrinsically wrong, with these changes frequently resulting in depression. Much like how Barbara starts experiencing terrifying changes go her body, irrepressible thoughts of death, and extreme discomfort with the way other people perceive her body

Speaking of others' perceptions of her body- the hypersexualization and fixation on her genitals is certainly reminiscent of the way trans women are treated

The way she performs feminity is also highly critiqued, with Sasha telling Barbara that being stereotypically feminine means she's enforcing gender roles and her being herself is harming women. (Of course critiquing Barbie's reflection of hetero and cisnormative mores in the real world isn't an issue and I'm not comparing that to transphobia. But in the narrative of the film, Sasha telling Barbara that she's being a woman wrong is cruel of her.)

The entire plot of the movie being about her connecting to another woman and learning about her experiences as a woman and how they're the same experiences she has

That beautiful scene where she realizes being a "real woman" isn't something that she can do wrong or needs permission to do, it's something she already is. Thesis statement

Being told to carefully consider her "choice," to recognize that becoming her authentic self will open her up to new discrimination she's never experienced before, but also new joys, and to evaluate if that balances out for her

Obviously, in the real world, genitals don't equate to gender, but her story literally ends with her getting a vagina. Come on.

If you're unfamiliar with Barbie's other depictions, you may not know that Barbie's last name is not in fact Handler, it's Roberts, and there's no way this creative team didn't know that. So she didn't just stop using a nickname, Barbara actively chose a new name to separate herself from the incorrect way people perceived her and to help forge a new identity for herself

[doctor-mccoys-sanity]

All the bad reviews I have seen of Barbie are about the feminist theme. On google the reviews are split between 1 star and 5. The thing is people aren’t necessarily criticising the feminism but the treatment of men and the patriarchy (as well as saying it shows a matriarchy is superior). If that is the message you got then you did NOT understand the movie.

These reviews make the film about men.

The film isn’t about men or women superiority, it’s about girlhood and how women are treated by both men and women. It also doesn’t say the matriarchy is superior as shown by the ending. Even the men’s roles in the film are about WOMEN (real world and Barbieland).

The film empowers women by embracing them. It’s about accepting different types of women, portrayals of femininity, the choices they make and empowering them. It also shows the effects of toxic masculinity and that it is okay to break away from expectations (shown by Ryan Goslings Ken)

The film doesn’t hate on men because the film isn’t about men.