#or maybe i've only seen her play insipid characters

[ennaih]

Not Every Film I Watch In 2024

1. Dan In Real Life (2007) -- a rewatch

[zenosanalytic]

Life in Plastic: A Modern Galatea

Just watched BARBIE(2023) and: I Liked It!

Spoilers, Obvsl, Beyond this Point, I don't want to readmore cuz I've heard things about those being Weird on mobile? idk

BARBIE(2023) isn't trying to say anything we don't already know, or position itself as a "politically challenging" film. Honestly, having now seen it, the Republican freakout about the movie is even more Pathetic than it looked getting mocked on twitter. God in Heaven, Ben Shapiro, have some dignity!

The first two acts of the film are just a massive sendup of the capitalist mythologizing around BARBIE(2023); it only repeats those advertiser lies to call them the bullshit they are, and even that is done lightly and comedically. The mythologizing of Barbie's creator in the second and third acts somewhat undercuts this, but using her as a By-The-Numbers Deus ex Machina character ala The Oracle(or every god-role Morgan Freeman ever played), AND casting Rhea Perlman(!!!) to play Ruth Handler, AND-And the overall lightness of the film, renders that pretty irrelevant. Like: I noticed it, and |:T at it internally, but it didn't nag at me or detract from my enjoyment at all. It also presents the (all male)executive-suite of the Mattel corporation as a bunch of ridiculous bozos, but I'd hardly say any of this amounts to a "critique of capitalism" in any meaningful sense. Is it pointing out the failings and flaws in capitalism? Sure. But it's all rather milquetoast stuff we already know(I mean: who thinks ANY capitalist knows what the hell they're doing anymore?) presented with a "fondly-poking" tone, and only ever deployed while also serving the film's primary objective(to be funny). There's nothing ideological about it and it doesn't really spend time on it, only developing it while doing other comedic things. If anything, the harshest critique of the movie is saved for anticapitalists; there's a scene where Sasha calls Barbie a "Fascist" which lands so inauthentic and unfairly it basically embodies that "leftists call EVERYTHING fascist" argument centrists(and cryptofascists) have mainstreamed for the last 20-goddamn-years. And I mean: putting it in the mouth of a tween girl is not NOT saying something, right?

BARBIE(2023) Does Not Hate Men; oh my god, please leave your cootie-free zones for three minutes, I beg of you. Again: accusing it of this is SO Ridiculous that it really makes obvious how insipid and GENUINELY CHILDISH, I mean like LITERALLY SCHOOL-YARD BOYS VS GIRLS JUVENILE, contemporary conservative misogyny, and its reading of this film, is. Probably the most entertaining sequence in the WHOLE MOVIE is ABOUT Ken and the Kens! They end up fighting each other in a HILARIOUS Sendup of modern action-movies, equating them DIRECTLY to how kids act out fight scenes in play(with their toys and each other. They even have the Mattel Executives walking right through the middle of it as the confused Adults, unaffected by the make-believe rules), which is ALSO a great musical number, that Then Turns into a Wonderful DANCE NUMBER about self-acceptance and choosing Solidarity over the toxicity of competition. And all this happens, consciously and overtly(like: the film literally says this), as a super-low-stakes, super-ridiculous mirrorverse-version of how our OWN misogynistic society pits women against each other to prop up male entitlement(like: while the Kens are first fighting, then finding, themselves, the Barbies are reinstating their old Matriarchal constitution, with a few Ken-held circuit court seats added as a sop to reform XD Also Alan is there). Gloria's husband(literally credited as this in Spanish) is Cute and Loveably Dense in all two of his scenes. Green!Ken(Simu Liu) has my Heart forever. Alan is also there. The only opinion this movie has on men is that they are at their best when being soft and lovable, and only The Most Excellent Bros to each other, and that maybe treating the people you love LIKE you love them is better than trying to control everything all the time(which is hard, dehumanizing, and doomed to failure anyway??)? Probably the most "political" thing going on with gender here -even WITH a big speech about the contradictions of femininity in a misogynistic society being the crux of the movie- is filming the Kens the way women usually are.

And that really sums the movie up. Low-stakes and Light. Fun and Funny. Barbie's grand reward for the whole ordeal is HILARIOUS and I won't say anything more to spoil it. Alan is also there. The most hyperbolic(though entirely justified, imv) thing I will say about this film is that it understands what a Barbie movie is and nails it, thereby making itself probably the Best Live-Action adaptation since The Lord of the Rings(or possibly the live-action Kenshin movies, if you've seen those[the 2nd and 3rd one are really good; the first one's ok]).

I'd definitely recommend it, it's a fun low-effort(for the viewer; not knocking the crew at all) movie with a tasteful smattering of genuine Cinematic Spectacle, that doesn't let its gags get old. I predict it will be one of those middling movies that lasts; that it will be a staple of mid-day HBO summer lineups in 5 years, and stay such for the next 30. Go see it in theaters if you can.