#but i think his avoidance isn't misguided protectiveness i think it's just a flaw

[svynakee]

1 serving of feminism, societal change not included: a critique of Barbie's conflicted storytelling and feminist message

Really enjoyable movie. I don't see the point in actually reviewing the movie itself as a movie. I would recommend it. Watch the trailers if you're on the fence. If you like what the trailers show, the movie is basically that, but more.

Unfortunately, whatever the movie tries to say about girl power keeps getting undermined by itself for sassy jokes about The Patriarchy. And it doesn't have much to say.

Spoilers ahead.

I'm going to spoil the whole ending here so seriously, last warning.

The final thesis of the movie seems to be "allow women to embrace human flaws instead of demanding perfection from them", or something along the lines of how women have the burden of keeping within a very narrow set of standards just to be acceptable. This is delivered by Margot Robbie's Barbie choosing to become human, embracing old age and eventual death. No longer Stereotypical Barbie, but Barbara Handler. Which is a powerful ending and a logical one to a journey that started with Barbie thinking about death, i.e. deviating from the plastic perfection of Barbieland towards self-realisation. Her individual journey as a character and how that journey relates to the feminist message works well.

The issue is that the rest of the cast and the setting doesn't seem to follow. It's like watching one of the movie's many group dance sequences, but the background dancers are moving at an entirely different tempo to Barbie's lead.

At the beginning of the movie, the narration says that the Barbies believe they've fixed gender inequality because of their female empowerment, the tone clearly sarcastic. It's laying out to the audience that Barbieland as a whole is naive and misguided, but well-meaning. If we think of Barbieland as a character itself, then the arc is pretty clear: Barbieland will have a rude awakening via Margot's Barbie, learn the error of its ways and take a more nuanced approach to feminism.

The actual arc that happens is that Ryan Gosling's Ken learns about patriarchy, brings patriarchy (or his parody of it) to Barbieland, which causes all the Barbies to become brainwashed. Margot's Barbie, which has been to the real world and seen (real) patriarchy, becomes the only Barbie capable of resisting the brainwashing and has to educate the other Barbies about their self-worth to undo their subservience to the Kens.

Firstly, some interesting conceits that the movie completely avoided exploring:

If Barbieland's empowered female leaders could be so easily brainwashed by a version of patriarchy that's "give men beers and listen to everything they say", it raises questions about how shallow that empowerment was. The Barbies completely forgot their self worth and autonomy because a guy told them men and horses run the world. Does this mean their plastic version of feminism is inherently fragile and centred around male perception? Or a reflection of how Mattel (in the movie) is company controlled by men who manipulate the idea of gender equality/female empowerment to protect their power? Really mad this isn't addressed beyond "the Barbies have no self defence against patriarchy, like a disease". I'd like to think that a woman raised in a matriarchal society would have some, if not more, resistance to the ideas of patriarchy.

Barbieland's normal culture: all the Barbies had careers and lead society, the Kens were background decoration. Margot's Barbie even says she doesn't know where the Kens live (my theory: they sleep on the beach). She refuses to let Ken stay for girls night at her house, which is reversed when Ken takes over and hosts a boy's night at her house. But it's not a complete reversal: Ken invites her to stay as his wife or girlfriend. He offers her what he was denied, albeit conditionally. And we see other Barbies in the house during the boys night. In Barbieland, Kens are second class citizens, excluded from most activities besides choreographed dances (I think one of the nurses might have been a Ken?). In the Kendom, Barbies are second class citizens...but they are included in the normal activities because Kens need to mansplain and play guitar at them. They need to hand Kens beers, so they are interacting with the Kens. They don't need to demand attention from Kens the way the Kens had to in Barbieland, doing flips and saying "hi Barbie". Both societies are flawed...but Barbies have more value in the Kendom than Kens had in Barbieland.

"It's like a spa day for your brain". That's what the former President Barbie says to Margot's Barbie when asked why she agreed to do patriarchy. This actually fits in with the movie's message about the demands placed on women to always be role models, always excel. That's apparently a demand borne of patriarchy, but this one line of dialogue shows that in the Kendom, Ken's patriarchy offers a relief from that. But all Barbies are 'freed' from patriarchy by being reminded of their achievements and self worth. This line of dialogue just sits there, like a big fat fly in the pudding. At the end the Barbies return society to the same as before, but with a few Kens in minor government positions and an acknowledgement of Weird Barbie and the other discontinued outcasts. So the choice for women is to stay in Barbieland and chase perfection, or be ordinary and human and die? There's no in-between, where a normally high-achieving turbo-empowered woman can decide "today, I'm going to read a cheesy romance novel where the man has galloping abs and a hazy idea of consent". All Barbies must be what their label says. President Barbie must always be President Barbie, even during sleepovers. She can never play guitar badly at someone on the beach, or do a shitty drunk podcast about horses. She can't be goofy and fail a flip on the beach. A Barbie can't do Ken things.

The outcasts. Weird Barbie is the only one who is acknowledged at the end, where President Barbie apologises for calling her weird behind her back and also to her face. Weird Barbie responds with something like 'it's fine because I like being weird'. But she's not the only outcast of Barbieland (and the Kendom). Growing Up Skipper, Sugar Daddy Ken, Magic Earring Ken, Midge the pregnant doll, Videogirl Barbie and even Allan form the group of discontinued dolls, who don't really have a place in their society. Like the movie's initial critique of Barbieland's feminism, the plastic nature of it means its inflexible. It does not acknowledge those that cannot perform their roles: girl power* (*terms and conditions apply). I hate how that's handwaved with an apology and the spokesperson of the weirdos saying "no problem sis". That's not how it works. Except it is; if you're a minority you've seen it. It's the "I have a black friend so I can say it", the "my nephew is autistic so I can argue about autistic issues", the "there's a gay comedian who said it wasn't offensive to the gays". It's so poorly handled. No, it's not okay because Weird Barbie doesn't mind being Weird. That's not the issue. The issue is that Weird Barbie was excluded from society because she was weird. The problem isn't her weirdness, it was Barbieland's attitude to it, and that CANNOT be fixed with an apology to ONE MEMBER of the community. Weird Barbie gets to join the government though so yay big win for the weird girls out there, really feeling the love and empowerment here.

Overall the issues regarding women's rights or whatever that the movie raised felt very stale, which led to several scenes falling flat for me. Most notably the big cathartic rant by America Ferrera's character, a human woman and mother who works for Mattel, just completely failed to land. I think the idea is that she's giving voice to all the frustrations faced by women daily under our society but I've heard all these talking points 10 years ago by female comedians. It didn't make me feel Seen and Valid, nor did it raise new points that made me think. In my life, women are already talking about these things, and the frustrating thing is that we can't seem to agree on how to address them. The fact they exist is old news. The one point I actually liked during the rant is the acknowledgement that women do turn on other women for being "too high achieving", I feel like mainstream girlpower movies usually avoid talking about that.

Maybe it's because I'm queer POC in STEM so my exposure to feminist discourse is different from the mainstream (American?) audience Greta Gerrig was aiming for but those scenes just bogged the movie down. It said nothing, and I felt nothing. I guess I felt a bit bored. I'm not saying that I expected the Barbie Movie to solve feminism, but I do feel like if that's the big climatic moment the movie's building towards, I needed to hear more than "stuff my coworkers rant about during lunch break". And we do say it in front of our male and nonbinary colleagues. They don't care. It's old news. They've heard it before too.

Also this rant is apparently the key to fixing the patriarchy-brainwashed Barbies. The movie washes its hands of Barbieland with the line "the Kens will eventually have as much power in Barbieland as women do in the real world" which I felt was really cynical and completely fails the message for a cheap final dig at patriarchy.

If Barbieland started out as a naïve, inaccessible, unrealistic, inflexible, shallow and corporate idea of feminism/gender equality...where does it end up? Where does that line, delivered by the all-powerful narrator, leave it? Barbieland thought it was an inspiration to little girls, empowering them to be strong and successful women. It wasn't. So that means it can never achieve that? Is the message of the movie that Barbieland is always fated to be a mere reflection of ours, with all its limitations and prejudices, except men and women have swapped places? Maybe that is Gerrig's message but holy shit is it a dark one.

The ending I would have actually liked to see is something like this:

We return to the beach. The volleyball court has mixed teams of Barbies and Kens playing, with 2 cheerleader Kens and a cheerleader Barbie. One of the Barbies playing is Doctor Barbie, who gets hit with the ball. The ambulance rushes over and Doctor Ken (possibly Magic Earring) helps her. Doctor Barbie says its nice to be the one being treated for once.

Reprise of the award show. Gosling's Ken is receiving an award for being 'dedication to Beach'. Midge and Skipper are also in the seats, ready to receive awards. A Barbie receives an award for something completely mundane, because ordinary women are supposed to be celebrated too.

President Barbie gets a brewski?

The movie left me with the impression that the story about womanhood, motherhood and surviving as a woman in modern society was at odds with feminist talking points. I couldn't tell if it wanted to critique or support modern feminism, whatever its idea of modern feminism is. The character's journey would sometimes just hit a pause button to Educate about Discourse, but without actually saying anything meaningful enough to educate. That detracted from the impact of the character's journey and took away some of the interesting points about the setting.

I felt like Gosling's Ken had a much better storyline, it was compact and tied up neatly. Maybe because it's a woman's take on a male narrative ("what if the GENDER ROLES WERE REVERSED? and men were OPPRESSED? ooOOOooHhh"), whereas the "being a woman is hard under patriarchy" story is something I've seen too many times. Or maybe Ken's struggle with self worth is simpler than Barbie's struggle with existential dread. I almost feel like Ken's subplot should have been cut, if its sacrifice would have allowed more focus and polish on Barbie's narrative.

[hahanoiwont]

In some of the neutral endings, Sans has been shown to have told Papyrus that his friends simply "went on a vacation" when they've been killed by you/frisk because he doesn't have the heart to tell him what really happened, like how he omits the truth of what happened to papyrus to Toriel in order to preserve the "perfect little angel" image she has of Frisk

Papyrus "accepts" that in his presence but the second he's not in the room, he drops his cheery and naive facade to tell you how he really feels

So if anything, they're both protecting eachother from less than savory truths, but yeah, he has some streaks of lying

you're RIGHT thank you anon. i forgot about those endings entirely. those are a good bit of characterization to keep in mind in any conversation about sans and lying. thank you! let's think about this...

personally, in my characterizations of sans, i've always interpreted sans's "vacation" excuse as part of his nihilism--if you know you're stuck in a time loop, and you know you've reached the "end" of the time loop, then everyone who died is actually about to come back. Combined with some pretty heavy depression, you might think of everyone who died as just getting to skip out on the sad epilogue. especially since sans doesn't die in literally any epilogue*, I've always thought of that as less protective and more...conflict avoidant? cracks in the facade?

like, at the end of the loop, his actions no longer matter. the human is not in the underground, and they're the one with all the power. outside of that phone call, he has no further effect on them and therefore the world in general, outside of his relatively small circle. so i think the things said about sans in those phone calls reveal a different side of him. after all, no one will remember this soon, so he doesn't have to keep up the "i'm a normal guy who only knows about regular linear time and therefore believes in a future" thing. so...yeah. permanence isn't permanent. everyone is on vacation. they all get to take a little dirt nap and he's just waiting for them to come back. why break toriel's heart when this is all going to end halfway through that conversation? I think it's less about lying to deceive (after all, Toriel and Papyrus are both perfectly capable of finding the truth), and more about the interesting shapes sans twists his understanding of reality into in order to understand that people are dead without taking the time to process that grief. He's mostly telling himself that people are on vacation. They're fine, maybe even lucky, and they'll come back soon so he doesn't have to worry about it. that's what allows him to function and even help rule** in bad endings, and how he's able to avoid totally breaking down after papyrus's death in those runs. no one is dead. they're just resting.

That said, he does say that to Papyrus knowing that it's literally, factually not true. He super does lie either to impart his horrible coping skills or to avoid having a conversation he doesn't like. It's also a really bad sign for his relationship with reality that he's just saying this with no regard for how insane he sounds. And, given how he does step up to rule in the King Papyrus ending...maybe he doesn't assume a reset is coming and I'm wrong about all of that. But my interpretation is that "everyone is on vacation actually" and "haha nah my brother is fine he's just...not around...ever..." are both so transparent that they can't be genuine attempts to deceive. Frankly, Sans is just a better liar than that.

So...tl;dr: Sans does lie! I was wrong about that. but I think he lies to protect himself more than anyone else. I don't really see it as something so...altruistic? controlling? condescending?? as lying for Papyrus and Toriel's sake. he just can't handle confronting reality, and god forbid he have a conversation about it.

*Sans may or may not die in the no mercy but in any case the world ends like 3 minutes after that so...not much of an "epilogue" to live in. he survives basically as long as the timeline does.

**In the King Papyrus ending, Sans does "paperwork" and dictates policy decisions such as how humans will be judged (which, his policy there is interesting in and of itself). Papyrus says Sans is "working hard." My takeaway from this is that Sans is doing most of the logistical ruling, while Papyrus works on the absolute disaster of morale. Unclear whether Sans has a role in Alphys's ending. He seems to drift towards whoever is closest to him of the survivors, and help them with whatever they need.

[galaxythreads]

*soft, quiet sigh* listen. I love Thor, I do. I believe that he was much more redeemable and understandable as a person Pre-Ragnarok.

I'm just gonna say this about the prison in TDW, tho. You are completely welcome to disagree with me, but this is my take:

Thor was avoiding Loki because it hurt to know that he failed as a sibling. Was that the right thing to do? No. Was it the mature thing to do? No. Was it understandable? Yes. Thor is severely depressed in TDW. Before you go "wait-- no he's not--"

He's avoiding everyone, he's taking no pleasure in previously enjoyed activities. He's living out repetitive habits (looking out for Jane) because it's easier to do that then try and pick himself up. Even if you watch him in TDW, he takes longer to say things, he's severely apathetic, and he responds slowly. He is literally on autopilot.

Thor is depressed because his entire world crumbled. Loki, to his understanding, is now evil. Should he have talked to Loki? Yes. Should he have pushed for Loki to get an actual trial? Yes. But Thor is flawed and that is okay. His father is not omniscient as he'd been told his whole life, and his friends are kinda nasty. Thor is also trying to grieve. Loki, to him, is basically dead. Why would he want to visit something that has replaced his sibling with a stranger? They have the same face, but Thor doesn't think that Loki is the Loki he knew.

Again, yes, Thor should have talked to him. But I don't think Thor was avoiding Loki maliciously. Again, to him, Loki his brother, not the world conqueror, is dead.

Look, imagine with me for a moment that the closest person to you is revealed to be a serial killer with a high body count. How would you honestly feel about that? And when they get to prison, would you want to talk with them?

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it's similar to Thor's mindset. Thor should talk to Loki, he should, but the fact that he doesn't makes sense to me. It feels like an actual, genuine Thing that a normal destroyed family dynamic would do.

This doesn't excuse Thor's actions, but I think understanding why is important, too.

It isn't until they start traveling together in TDW that Thor begins to realize "oh, Loki's still in there somewhere."

And then there's the "I wish I could trust you." Cause Thor recognizes Loki in there, beneath the trauma riddled mess he's become after Thanos.

What's funny to me about that is that then He literally trusts Loki to throw him into the middle of Malekith's group but not actually harm him, protect Jane, and help him defeat the Aether.

But. But. But! That said: this is one of the reasons I absolutely loathe Ragnarok.

Because all of that development and relatable dynamic and complex thought Thor had is gone. Thor goes from a misguided sibling to a chronic abuser who doesn't give a crap about Loki physically or mentally. He goes from misguided to an arrogant idiot with a hero complex and lack of care for anyone.

Ragnarok turns him from someone who is trying to do better and heal to this massive egotistical idiot.

Thor's hero complex and arrogance in Ragnarok is so, so much worse than it was in the first movie. He gaslights Bruce, bullies Val, and literally abuses Loki on screen several times. And then he doesn't bother to talk to Hela, assuming her to be evil. He suddenly, even after TDW showed him doubting Odin, takes Odin's word for everything because he must be Right.

So literally, what other conclusions are we left to draw but paint all of Thor's actions as abusive and destructive? Thor no longer has an arc. he doesn't get better, he just gets worse.

Yes, Loki is the sibling that accepts Thor despite his flaws. He was before Ragnarok. He is after Ragnarok. Thor was getting there. He was so, so close in TDW. But then...

I mean. Honestly. I am so angry with Ragnarok's Thor.

But that said, I have written a lot of Thor fics. And I have never really been unaware of this dynamic between Loki and Thor. It breaks my heart that Thor, for all his good intentions Pre-Ragnarok, is someone that I have to write as a recovering abuser.

And Ragnarok just... Ignores this fact. Because Loki is Bad and deserves anything that happens to him.