Yes, I actually watched this movie.
I’m not a Barbie fan, never have been. To me, the ultra-skinny disproportionate look of these toys had always seemed like an attempt to sexualize and pigeonhole little girls, to reinforce a shallow preoccupation with physical appearance and outward beauty that led to body shaming, bullying, low self-esteem and eating disorders.
When I first understood that there was going to be a live-action Barbie movie, my eyes rolled automatically for this very reason.
BUT – and you’ll note this “but” is in capital letters:
After reading up on this new movie and watching the fallout of it setting fire to my social media news feed with something like a morbid fascination over the past few months, I have to say I’m impressed at how it has – and continues to – receive accolades and praise (and also hate – from all the right people) for it’s message of feminism, inclusivity, criticism of the patriarchal system and providing positive reinforcement for young girls and women.
Bearing my previous mindset wrt everything Barbie in general, I had previously said that I may not like or watch the Barbie movie, but that I support it and its positive message for young girls and women, even if just for these reasons alone. However, that said, I finally decided to give it a chance – even if just to review the movie more fairly, by its actual content and the experience of watching it, rather than just by its perceived external effects and social fallout, albeit hugely entertaining.
After all, what’s the use of me criticizing people for being willfully ignorant and not willing to open their minds, if I’m not willing to learn the truth for myself and even to realize that I’ve been wrong all this time? That would make me something of a hypocrite, wouldn’t it?
Thus it was that I sat down to watch “Barbie” – on my laptop with headphones on – while taking a good-natured ribbing from my other half!
The music started… the screen lit up… the first scene unfolded. Before I knew it, the 1.50 something hours had already passed.
Holy crap!
There was so much more to this movie than the preconceived notions I started with!
There was absolutely nothing “shallow” about this movie at all. Rather than enforcing the notion that little girls should all aspire to look like the ditzy superficially beautiful caricature of the Barbie doll and pursue careers in modeling or acting, the entire tone of the movie seemed geared more exclusively towards the importance of what lies inside people rather than on the outside – and places emphasis on how people are treated. This is beautifully explained in this movie from the outset – and in a crystal clear, sustained way I’d never seen before.
I considered starting this review off with “I laughed, I cried…” – and while that would be a bit of a cliché, it would still actually be quite true. There were more than enough funny bits, even some entertaining dance and choreography, but these were just sideline attractions. The most important bits for me, were the central feminist message of oppression and the struggle for equality against misogyny – and the emotional aspects of this movie really caught me by surprise. I’m overjoyed (for a change) to admit that I had been wrong in my presumptions about the content of the movie, and even about the overall premise of the Barbie doll itself.
To be fair, I’ve never watched any of the animated Barbie shows or movies which were typically created specifically for children, so I’m not exactly in a position to compare this movie to them. But then, as a child, glamor was not really in my focus because I was raised as a boy – and as much as I dreamed of being a girl all through my childhood, that didn’t seem likely to ever happen. Although I managed to acquire a handful of dolls “by accident” as a child here and there, I mainly had teddies. The first Barbie I ever acquired was at the age of 26, just after I began my transition and a friend gifted me one, probably more as a joke than anything else.
Coming back to the movie itself, while women have sung this movie’s praises, much of the praise it’s received so far has also been from men – at least, from those men who are comfortable with their own sexuality – and aren’t so weak as to be threatened or emasculated by the notion that women and girls deserve to be treated with a level of respect and consideration equal to them – rather than as lesser human beings, talking sex dolls, baby factories or unpaid domestic servants, if not as outright slaves-by-marriage.
More importantly, it’s also received praise from adult women (and even men) who are old enough to recognize (from bitter personal experience) the war being waged on us all by the institution of patriarchy in broader society, and globally – and for encouraging young girls and women to continue to pursue their dreams, and to become anything they really want to.
There are forward-thinking, self-confident, compassionate, moral, male-identified human beings out there after all – and what’s more, they’re not threatened by weaker men who burst into uncontrollable rage at the sight of anything pink. This is both refreshing and comforting – and also somewhat reassuring.
I think it’s rather strange that something so seemingly innocent and innocuous as a plastic child’s doll has risen to become a catalyst in the most enduring social struggle of our time, and now even the icon of the generations-long struggle against misogyny – which affects not only females, but males as well – and in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity, right across the spectrum. In fact, it affects everyone, even if they don’t realize it – which is something this movie conveys so well. So many people (both male and female) alive today are burdened with the social conditioning they’ve received since childhood about gender roles and what is and isn’t socially acceptable for each to do, feel, think or pursue, whether enforced by religious or political doctrines or even by outright extremism, that they often unwittingly participate in efforts to undermine the struggles of the feminine (and even themselves) to achieve equality or find fulfillment and happiness.
Misogyny is bad for everyone, you see – not just girls and women. After all, it imposes an expected set of restrictive behaviors upon men as well, behaviors which are not only unnatural, but are contradictory to human nature. Men of the present generations are now so burdened by toxic masculinity that they’re terrified to hug each other, pursue goals or careers traditionally regarded as inappropriate to their sex, or to shed tears at a funeral of a loved one, or even to appear as anything other than a stereotypical knuckle-dragging “alpha male” with all the emotional depth of an ice tray. Oddly enough, many previous generations were far less fanatical about policing their own and each others behaviors – or overcome with panic and self-doubts about their sexual orientation because of what other people thought of them.
Remember the adage “boys don’t cry”? Well, yes, they do – everyone does – and teaching little boys to bottle up their tears by instilling a sense of shame instead of venting them in a healthy fashion is opposite to teaching children how to manage and cope with their emotions in a healthy way as adults. Crying is a natural mechanism that keeps one mentally balanced, it’s an outlet for emotion. Crying doesn’t make anyone weak – but refusing to allow yourself that outlet is what will make your emotional state eventually become as brittle as glass.
This is one of the paths, in my assessment, that has led to the rise of toxic masculinity, the culmination of years and years of indoctrination and reinforcement of the notion that certain behaviors will cause other men to doubt your sexuality, and treat you differently – like they would treat women, for instance – hence the deeply misogynistic nature of toxic masculinity itself. This, in simplified terms, is where the present pandemic of traumatized, mentally and emotionally unstable male “adults” breaking down and losing all perspective about a movie because it affirms equality for women and raises up men who aren’t threatened by it.
Aside from the charming childlike fantasy aspect to the storyline, in which Barbie dolls visit the real world – and several humans in the form of a group of “good old boys” representing the Board of Mattel travel to Barbieland on a very long bicycle, I could see why this story was regarded as being so relevant. Not only does it include demonstrations of what that patriarchal oppression actually looks like in several ways, but there are several very powerful monologues in this movie, about what it’s like for women to live under patriarchal oppression, and these are delivered with great dexterity and due emotional context by the actors, and inspiringly so. The way in which the Kens were portrayed as being co-dependent on their Barbies (and the temporary inversion of this during the “Ken takeover period”) – in the way the patriarchal mindset so expects of women to be co-dependent of men and subservient to them – explained too why so many right winger’s heads were exploding all over the place about this movie.
Obviously, it’s perfectly fine for women to be institutionally forced to behave that way (because that’s how it’s “supposed to be”, right?) – but it’s NOT fine when this demeaning stereotype is applied to men. (Yes, sarcasm is indeed intended.) I doubt all those guys losing their marbles about this sociological inversion appreciate the irony in their outrage.
Yes, boys… that was kinda the point.
It’s not so nice when YOU are called out for your male privilege and are expected to be lesser than someone else, now is it? How does that feel? Rather than being intended as a sleight or a pointless insult, it is a lesson in understanding and developing compassion for others – and if you can actually step away from that moment of anger and outrage to see past it, your mind will actually be blown wide open. Yes it hurts, just like building muscles in the gym initially hurts – but the rewards are worth it.
Women have all the reason in the world to be upset, hurt, bitter, demotivated and outraged about the way they’ve been treated and made to behave all their lives – and, unlike you – they have good reason to be. In fact, in a very prominent way, you are the reason.
But of course, not every male is willing to confront their own programming or conditioning, or to admit to the privileges of being male in a patriarchal society – or to accede to of pleas for change which have spanned generations by this point.
Rather, the reaction of many opponents to the feminist struggle has been that of reactionary anger, outrage, vengefulness, spite – and doubled-down misogyny.
Just by existing in spite of all the misogyny in the world, this one little movie – brightly clad in kitsch pink fur and rhinestones, has poked and prodded the right wing nutters into unleashing their crazy, and to lose what little shit they had left.
Frustrated self-emasculating “incels” and whining conservatives who already hate everything “woke” – probably because it exposes them as the petulant twats they really are, are crying about how “feminism will be the death of us all” (and will make finally getting a hot date with anyone of the female persuasion who has a smidgeon of self-esteem and self-respect that much harder). Rather than improving on themselves, they prefer to place blame elsewhere and find fault with others.
Meanwhile, some of these supposed adults (who are trusted to operate vehicles on public streets, possess firearms, vote and fulfill other adult responsibilities) have been actually PAYING to watch a movie they know they’re going to hate, just to post scathing hysterical hour-long video reviews of it, and angry bearded men wearing camouflage fatigues, desperate to double-down on their toxic masculinity, are burning expensive dolls and dollhouses they paid for themselves, while uploading their infantile meltdowns to TikTok. And yes, these are the same folks who generally whine about “cancel culture” – that is, when they’re not shooting their Keurig coffee makers or tins of Bud Light to show their displeasure.
I have to say, this meltdown is entertaining in a way that will never get old.
As far as I’m concerned, anything that can derail the already completely unhinged, bat-shit insane, conservative, misogynistic, neo-Nazi lunatic fringe this much has got to be worth something. In fact, I think it’s fucking priceless.
Sadly, it’s not going to really change anything if misogynistic people watch this movie if they’re not capable of understanding the messages within it, and this reaction from haters who have at least watched some or all of it simply demonstrates the resilience of a closed mind, and the imperviousness of a stone heart. I’m reminded of a now-famous satirical cartoon that shows a woman saying “This thing happened to me” and a man replying “I‘ve never experienced this, I don’t believe it happens” – providing a graphic demonstration of both male privilege and mansplaining 101.`
Aside from all the subtle and casually overt feminist messages in the movie, which were masterfully delivered, there are also sufficient moments of mirth and humor spread out through the span of it – and while I’m not easily surprised when it comes to movies and movie plots, I have to say, the ending was thoughtful, creative, unconventional – and most importantly, thoroughly human. On an emotional level, it completely blew me away. On an intellectual level, I found the overt exposition of the message that females deserve to be treated as equal creatures to males – and are rightfully angry that they aren’t and haven’t been for far too long, curiously stimulating.
Now hang on a minute – I said “intellectual” while referring to the Barbie movie… Yes, I actually said that – and you’re right, I would normally have been the last person to associate the Barbie doll trope with anything intellectual at all – but believe me, there is definitely an intellectual quality to this movie that goes far beyond all the pink, bling, glamor-doll, bubble-gum pop wrapping I’d previously associated with anything related to the franchise.
The message that women can do and be anything they dream of – and not just be wives and mothers, might not seem very earth-shattering to the masculine mindset; after all, males grow up with the notion that the world is their oyster, lying before them for their taking – if they’re only willing to work hard enough to actually achieve anything – and this message is also constantly reinforced in society, in media, in religion, and by means of constant peer pressure. Contrarily, for women, society bombards them with the traditional message that they are inferior to men and exist solely to serve the needs of men, to pop out his babies, and to sit at home caring for his children. A woman’s dreams are dismissed as irrelevant, and whatever she may dream, if it’s not to sit at home and raise children, she has no real right to pursue it. Women have no right to control their own bodies, careers or their own destinies – and women have to work that much harder to compete in a patriarchal world, and their efforts, no matter how extensive or impressive – or exhausting – are often just made irrelevant wherever they clash with ceilings set in place to keep women down. As the movie points out, how women behave affects how they are perceived (by men in charge of society – and in their personal lives) and that perception directly affects their realized potential – and typically via the same societal, institutional peer pressure stemming from the same quarters as for males, just in reverse polarity.
Considering that the so-called “meninists” are so demonstrably threatened by a) the reality of the effects of patriarchy on women and male privilege, and b) the positive encouragement to girls and women to overthrow this cruel system and live their dreams the way males do – and coupled with this movie’s runaway box-office success which has exceeded all possible expectations, I would have to call this movie both socially and even historically significant, and also somewhat deeply profound.
“As of September 10, 2023, Barbie has grossed $620.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $783.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.403 billion.” – Wikipedia.
Yes, there have been previous efforts to bring this subject to the fore and into public consciousness – but none of them have ever been quite so effective in getting the point across to so wide and great an audience – or in so short a time, nor with such great appeal. Nor has any received such a huge amount of attention for it.
The live-action Barbie movie coalesces all the trickles of everything feminist that’s been previously insinuated, cautiously hinted at and indirectly inferred in over a century of writing, activism and filmmaking, into a single coherent, overt, potent raging torrent that bears down on the dam wall of patriarchal thought like a tsunami, with the potential to finally burst it wide open.
I would go as far as calling this movie potentially world-changing – that is, depending on how many people watch it, and how many minds are opened to its messages. At the end of the day, it’s not so much “just a movie” as it is feminist and humanist activism given long overdue prominence, cleverly wrapped in pink fur, high heels and rhinestones – and accompanied and celebrated by the cacophony of syncopated bursting conservative craniums – and that’s music to my ears.
So, to conclude, I watched the Barbie movie, and I don’t regret it one iota – and while it wasn’t simple or shallow entertainment like so many movies are, I found it filled with teachable moments. It was insightful, relatable, thoughtful, meaningful, worthwhile and even quite enjoyable. I may even watch it again sometime.
I’m still not a Barbie fan… but I’m warming up to it.
The live-action Barbie movie scores a glowing, raging FIVE STARS on the Tinamometer.
Well done to all concerned – more like this please!