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
And also the way Barbie and Ken are role playing heterosexuality without any inherent sexuality of their own, without any understanding of what it means, or even any genitals at all! Just pretty-girl + handsome-guy = obviously a couple. And the way it fucks them both up! Because they’re both stereotypes, neither of them is a specialist version, no brain surgery or pilots license or Nobel prize for either of them. They’re just assigned the roles of Every Man and Every Woman. And Ken ends up doing Way Too Much because he’s hanging his entire self-worth on being important to Barbie. And Barbie just isn’t interested in him, she was assigned a boyfriend she didn’t ask for and doesn’t want and doesn’t know what to do with, just because that’s what society expects of men and women, that they will necessarily couple up and fall in love because… that’s what they do. Regardless of any personal quality of either party.
It’s about heteronormativity and amatonormativity and the unrealistic expectations society sets boys and girls up for from infancy. Barbie and Ken are every pair of toddlers sharing a sandbox while the adults around them call them each other’s little “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” even though neither party understands or is capable of understanding the implied meaning of that. Or wants to.
It’s a literal funhouse mirror of that weird pressure put on kids to perform heterosexuality from an early age. It examines how that leaves us unprepared for the complicated reality of actual relationships even if it turns out that you are heterosexual and do want sex and romance. Boys and girls aren’t really allowed to be just kids on the same team, so they grow up into men and women who generally want very different things from each other and are trained to look for it in everybody because anybody is better than nobody, and try to force it to work.
Barbie and Ken letting each other go in the end was perfect. Barbie the Every Woman realizing that she doesn’t have to be special, she just has to be, and Ken the Every Man realizing he has to seek validation elsewhere and lean on his fellow Kens for emotional support, WHICH THEY GIVE.
Okay I don’t have the spoons for an in-depth essay about the Barbie movie so here’s my loose thoughts:
The transition from despising Barbie, not for the idea she represents but the ideas that are forced upon her to being a fierce supporter of Barbie is such the quintessential teenage experience.
The beauty of human creativity, how our ideas can change and grow and become even more than we could have imagined.
The themes of motherhood and its beauties and hardships
The depression Barbie came for everyone’s necks?? I just know that’s getting a meme 😭
I love that Ken had a character arc too, going from an accessory to a perpetrator of the patriarchy. Then unlearning misogyny as he realizes, when he places his value in himself, in his being instead of Barbie’s, the fragility of his ego goes away. Great message!
Weird Barbie becoming more butch and the Sugar’s Daddy and Magic Earring Kens living in her weird house, I know what yall are 😏
The mom was so me every time she freaked out about understanding the references of the different Barbies.
I loved the dismantling the Barbieland patriarchy scene, especially the jokes about the Godfather 😭
Will Ferrell’s character was so goofy, I loved that he wasn’t super evil, just a weird guy.
The overall idea of how wonderful it is to be human! The growth, change, joy, sadness, the existentialism! It’s all so wonderful, it’s all new every day all day. It really gave me a renewed sense of being :,)
Something that I really like about the Barbie movie is that while there’s this dialogue about how Barbieland is the real world in reverse, it’s clear that the Kens don’t have it as bad in Barbieland as women do in the real world. Yes, it’s an unequal society which leaves Ken unsatisfied, but he doesn’t face the sexual violence and danger that Barbie does in the real world. And I like it because there are so many movies or books where matriarchy is described as terrible and oppressive and just as bad as patriarchy, as if women in power would treat men the same way men have treated women for millennia. And the Barbie movie subtly interrogates that - like yes, the Kens not having power in society does block their self-realization, and it would be better for them if society was truly egalitarian, but in the meantime, they get to sit around on the beach all day and go to fun parties. Barbie under matriarchy does not wield the same oppressive power as real men in the real patriarchal world, showing that the problem with our world isn’t just that men hold more political and economic power, but how they wield that power to terrorize women.
barbie movie: is marketed as “haha barbie has to go to the real world with ken and mattel wants them to go back to barbieland haha funny adventure movie!”
me after watching it: is sobbing hysterically and undergoing an existential crisis, a breakdown, and a metamorphosis into a more confident and secure individual with the knowledge that under the patriarchy it is next to impossible to appease others and that you just have to go “fuck it” and be your genuine self while doing what makes you happy
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