#barbie critical

[infernal-house-demon]

Pretty sure that people who found the Barbie movie profound or life-changing and who are heralding it’s feminist message have never heard the term “intersectional feminism” before.

I’m glad y’all had a good time but like this is straight up white feminism™️ the movie.

[anarmorofwords]

Okay anyone else seen Barbie and is let down because they expected a truly revolutionary satire dismantling parts of patriarchy such as the cult of women's beauty and high contradictory expectations in an actually meaningful and substantial way and not one short monologue? and instead got a mainstream feminism lackluster "inspirational" adventure movie that paints patriarchy in a really naive and simple way and also operates on very binary views and ultimately is not half as deep as it promised to be?

[bookishfeylin]

bestie can u elaborate why don’t u like the barbie movie (i also don’t like it but i just love giving people the opportunity to be haters)

I feel like I should preface this response with several things:

I liked PARTS of the Barbie movie. Some of the messages in it were really good, and were delivered in a hilarious way. The pure love for humanity and LIFE was very evident and I loved Barbie’s arc. I also appreciated the underlying “redpill ideology is harmful and misleads men” message.

I knew Greta Gerwig was a white woman so I did not expect much in the way of intersectional feminism or even acknowledgment that white women are often the weakest link and tend to be 'class traitors' more than any other marginalized group, so that was not my issue with the movie

It's pretty! And bright! And colorful! It was FUN!

That being said… it did not sit well with me the more I thought about it.

My main problem with the Barbie movie is that it equates Barbieland with real life patriarchy and argues that both are equally bad, when that is demonstrably not true even as shown in the movie itself. When Barbie enters our world, she is sexually harassed, assaulted, and objectified. This is... not how the Kens are treated in Barbieland. They're just... ignored. That's it. The Barbies don't mistreat the Kens, and when Ken gets hurt in the beginning of the movie while beaching the Barbies all rush around him to get him medical attention and worry over him. The Barbies aren't cruel, and they certainly aren't treating the Kens as objects. They're just... ignoring them most of the time. And before someone brings up the Kens being homeless I'd like to add that, given their attempts to build a wall in the movie, there is certainly nothing STOPPING them from building their own homes. More than that: if it really bothered them so much why didn't they ask the construction Barbies for help with making one? I'm sure they would've said yes. There is literally nothing and no one stopping the Kens from making their own houses or having their own little Ken village because the Barbies DO NOT CARE what they do. At all.

The worst Barbieland offers men is being ignored by women. And that's not nice, sure. Hence why barbie apologized at the end. But the worst patriarchy offers women is being abused, raped, indoctrinated into patriarchal religions, and murdered by men. Those two things are not the same. So not only could this movie not commit to actually making a real matriarchy that is actually as bad as patriarchy (because don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that a matriarchy in actual practice would be bad y'all), it then argues that this fictional watered down version of a matriarchy is somehow the equivalent of the much more violent real world patriarchy as a ~warning~ to women's rights advocates to not get too carried away I guess? AND REACTIONARIES STILL CAME AWAY FROM THIS MOVIE THINKING BARBIELAND WAS JUST AS BAD AS PATRIARCHY AND BEING UPSET THAT BARBIELAND RETURNED UNDER BARBIE CONTROL (despite the movie's message that Kens were still going to get rights in Barbieland and would one day have the same rights women in our world have but I digress--) And then the reactionaries felt this movie was anti-Men???

So no. I don't like this movie. The fact that a lot of normie people walked away from this movie like "Yeah! It critiqued Matriarchy AND Patriarchy! It critiqued feminism and the red pill!" indicates to me that this movie failed. The premise of this movie was inherently flawed: that women ignoring men=matriarchy=just as bad as the violence and dehumanization of patriarchy. But more than that, the fact that so many agree with this premise concerns me, and suggests that misogyny is much more deeply rooted in the human consciousness than I had expected. If women merely ignoring men and living life without centering men is viewed as matriarchy, as misandry, as "just as bad" as patriarchy, then perhaps the advocacy for women's rights was always doomed.

Sorry to end this on such a downer btw

[terezipyropescrocs]

i just find it so funny, that for all of it's faults, the premise of barbie as a brand has always been that women/girls can be anything they want.

and the absolute BEST that the barbie movie (2023) could manage was: "women can be people too"

[drew-dopamine]

the more i learn about the barbie movie the less i want to see it……sorry 😢

[lucky-clover-gazette]

listen the movie introduces an annoying leftie teenager as a ridiculous strawman for the audience to resent, has her make all the valid criticisms of the franchise mattel can still slightly defend, and then makes barbie cry about it. why do you think it did that. why do you think that character existed. why do you think she quietly faded into a compliant, brand-supportive happy face in a pink dress

[botforlove]

tumblr leftists suck so bad bc they'll flock to barbie, the most corporatized depiction of feminism ever, in which mattel is framed as a 'good corporation' that is in on the joke, so capitalism can't be addressed at all and patriarchy is entirely reduced to gender dynamics (goodbye intersectionality), but has some kind of complex against oppenheimer, a far more explicitly leftist movie that is shockingly pro-communist and extremely condemning of the us military, american exceptionalism and jingoism, and warns against scientific innovation without ethics. it probably shouldn't shock me that tumblrinas refuse to engage with anything that portrays a horrific event in a complex light (bc we obviously can't depict something without endorsing it), even though the invention of the atomic bomb (probably THE most significant and controversial event in human history) invites scrutiny from ALL angles. i'm not saying you can't dislike the movie. but the lack of media literacy present in discussions around it is outstanding.

[hard-times-paramore]

You know what, I didn't like the Barbie movie much. It wasn't progressive at all.

It was funny. That goes from person to person on wether the movie is actually good and fun and worth your time. I just didn't think it was progressive and profound like it was being marketed and/or talked about by literally everyone.

I feel like it tried so hard to be progressive that it ended up making fun of and trivializing very real concerns like patriarchy and feminism. Like, it looped the other way and ended up being reductive instead. The whole thing was extremely yassified and white (there wasn't intersectionality at all). I didn't actually think a movie like that was gonna try to be deep, and it honestly shouldn't have.

I also thought the movie had too much stuff crammed into it. Barbie is a feminist icon. But she's also the reason girls are insecure. Barbie is discovering herself. Ken is the villain and he's plotting a men uprising. Feminism and patriarchy are discussed superficially. Ken doesn't actually care about patriarchy and wants to discover himself too. Mattel is there. And then the ending felt super hamfisted too.

There's a lot of other problems too, I know I'm only brushing over the surface, but other people probably have criticized it better than me. I just know that I watched it, not even expecting anything other than a fun lighthearted movie and came out with a bad taste in my mouth. It sucked.

But like, that's a deeper analysis of the movie, and that movie isn't deep at all, so on the surface I can say it was pretty funny.

[bad-wolf-circe]

finally watched the barbie movie. guys it's literally just an advertisement. yall hyped up an advertisement. y'all hyped up a 2-hour russian nesting doll of advertisements with surface level feminism that doesn't actually accomplish anything. this is literally just a giant, "edgy-but-self-aware" advertisement. it says alllll the right things, all of the politically correct things, but at the end of the day IT! IS! STILL! AN! AD!!! mattel does NOT care about ur asses and the literal BILLION dollars they made off of this movie only proves that.

[rave-melancholia]

Barbie is pure apologetics for girlboss feminism and doesn’t engage with one seriously interesting or intelligent idea. Next.

[bluedime777]

figured out how to put into words what was rubbing me the wrong way about the Barbie movie

so okay. Barbieland at the beginning of the movie is free of patriarchy, right? it's literally established that this is a concept never before seen by dollkind or whatever.

so why the hell are all the Kens so competitive and reliant on female validation? because that also stems from patriarchy. right? I don't think I'm just making this up, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong

it seems more like what the movie is saying is that this type of insecurity... is just part of being a Ken. and by proxy, just part of being a man, regardless of the social conditions you're accustomed to.

it feels like male toxicity in Barbie is shown to be completely innate. like manhood is just naturally toxic and overcoming this toxicity is a necessary component of male participation in feminism

I know I'm reading into this part of the movie way too much lol especially because 90% of it was fucking amazing. but I wish it had handled this a little better

[fancylala4]

It’s kind of funny how Mattel acts like they are the most diverse doll company when they are not.

In their Disney princess lineup, they make dolls of Ariel and her blonde bugged eyed clone. They barely make dolls of the princesses of color.

It took them years to diversify their main Barbie dolls. And now they are having Brooklyn Barbie be the best black friend to white Barbie.

I also heard they are treating their black monster high dolls like trash (I’m not a fan of it. So I’m not sure about this) compared to the other characters.

I guess they only said it for attention and clout.

[missgoldieisbeautiful]

I wish the Barbies had defeated the Kens with other means than negotiation and apology.

Like I get the whole takedown via wiles and flirtation was in line with traditional forms of feminine resistance in media (i.e. subverting the virgin-whore/femme fatale dichotomy) but like.. a scene where they burned the Kens wouldve been so much more compelling. Melting them off the barbecue would've been an iconic pop culture moment

I guess that would've been transgressing genre. But at least have the barbies envision the fantasy of that?

[terezipyropescrocs]

saw the barbie movie and am finally free to be a Hater on main without being accused of criticizing something without having watched it- anyway here is a non-exhaustive list of my Thoughts

this movie could have been nothing but fun dance numbers :(

i will say.........i like the costumes and barbieland set design. comparatively the way the real world is shot is so drab and visually uninteresting imo which. i don't feel is great given how much time we spend in it and that barbie ends up living there

the fact that barbies are supposedly affected by the people playing with them but they all act like..... That. just how shallow do they think kids imaginations are? why is there only one "weird" barbie???

admittedly i've never been to LA so maybe i'm completely off-base here but am i expected to believe that ken is automatically respected and admired (but not ogled! with no undertones of violence!) just for existing while my man is constantly dressed like he walked straight from a pride parade

on that note there was a lot of queer subtext/references but it was all very... wink wink nudge nudge in a way that honestly felt a little, idk, uncomfortable to me? but nothing overtly inclusive or even that subversive really

like with the construction workers scene i honestly can't tell if this was meant to be a trans positive moment or just a joke about them being dolls but if so it's like. you have these sexist catcallers but they support trans identities...? literally just as incoherent as everything else going on in this movie

why is barbie simply allowed to walk right into a school cafeteria

gloria and her daughter's relationship and the conflict between them was... very ill defined aside from the apparently all consuming and ever present suffocation of Womanhood™ like wtf is with sasha's line about hating women being the one thing everyone agrees on???? it's the kind of pseudo-pithy cynicism-laced quote that i would expect from a bitter 50s housewife or aging hollywood star, not a teenage girl who, idk, overuses buzzwords?

actually come to think of it pretty much all the female relationships in this movie are very surface-level and hinge almost exclusively on their shared gender identity and not much else!

the fact that all of the barbies were brainwashed to the point where they couldn't even remember their own achievements from ken mansplaining the patriarchy to them.......... and the fact that this is """explained""" with a fucked up and insensitive smallpox joke......... i am mad enough to spit tacks actually

pretty much the only thing i could think of during gloria's big feminist speech and subsequent appeals to the brainwashed barbies is that nothing she's saying actually applies to any of the dolls' experiences "You have to be their mommies but not remind them of their mommy." they don't have parents gloria

the use of push by matchbox twenty in the context of the movie sure is a Choice, seeing as the singer based it off a relationship where he was being emotionally abused by his girlfriend but had the lyrics widely misinterpreted as misogynistic.... anyway.

the way that all of the kens (and even allan) resort to violence and all of the barbies defeat them using manipulation and ~feminine wiles~.. thanks i hate it

i did like how the kens seemed to overcome their differences through singing and holding hands. also fellas is it toxic masculinity to want your girlfriend To see the man behind the tan / And fight for me?

confused by ken's "kenough" revelation from talking to barbie because he.... literally just sang all of that? I’m just Ken / And I’m enough / And I’m great at doing stuff / So, hey, check me out / Yeah, I’m just Ken is that all supposed to be just bravado? it's the same message but he needed barbie to articulate it to him for it to sink in. hm.

feel like barbie's motives for wanting to live in the real world could have been explored better because tbh... the pitch wasn't great!

like her arc is genuinely: experience insecurity for the first time ever because someone else was projecting it onto her > get over said insecurity (that till this point she had never struggled with) because that same person made a speech > gynecologist

not that gloria, the woc who all of barbie's issues represent and originated from gets any kind of satisfying resolution of her own other than pitching "everyday barbie"

the fact that barbie gaining an expanded range of emotions, many of which are negative, indicates that she is no longer a barbie and has to live in the real world to be fufilled- even though all of the insecurities barbie gained from entering a world that doesn't value her and not having a specific career, ken already HAD. men are automatically more human by default ig!!!

people saying that whole point of the ending is that barbieland is a mirror to the real world and the kens will only gain equality when women do as if it's not explicitly stated that the kens have LESS power and influence then women under the patriarchy... but that's fine because the barbies are nicer then men in the real world and kens have to earn their rights because we don't want to reward bad behavior and they need to prove their competence first /s

saw some other butches mention this but the fact that sasha dresses increasingly feminine to represent her character growth and overcoming internalized misogyny is an unfortunate trope

there was absolutely nothing that made me go "oh!!!" as a fan of the animated barbie movies + life in the dreamhouse, or someone who has the most basic understanding of barbie lore (they have one version of midge, skipper, and allan, but no chelsea, teresa, nikki, RAQUELLE, etc.?)

"stereotypical barbie" Her Name Is Barbara Millicent Roberts

[sawthatmountainburn]

starting a conspiracy theory that the attempted revival of "femmephobia" as a concept and the posts about how we need to bring back 2012 tumblr feminism were a psyop prepping us to accept the barbie movie

[yesyourstalker]

I love the Barbie movie but like most things it is not free from criticism

It is a very feminist movie but it really kind of focuses around white heteronormative feminism and really could have addressed more intersectional issues like how the patriarchy affects women of color especially when one of the lead roles is a woman of color herself

(This will compared kenland to a smallpox outbreak in an indigenous tribe which was kind of weird)

In the message is very binary but we do have weird Barbie and Alan who undoubtedly are somewhat very queer coded characters but I'm I'm not convinced that they did that on purpose I think that was a happy accident is the movie good Yes is the movie perfect not in the slightest

I really can't be completely upset about it though because The movie is only an hour long and we kind of live in this very anti-woke climate where almost anything that criticizes white heteronormative ideals is welcome with violence and just blind hatred which is very frightening