Barbie Will Save The World

Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, August 11th, 2023 - 11 comments
Categories: Deep stuff, feminism, uncategorized - Tags:

This is Barbie, and this is a phenom. At Wanaka’s Cinema Paradiso on a minus 2C Thursday night they were queuing out the door.

In Barbieland all the Supreme Court justices are Barbies, construction teams are Barbies, the president is a Barbie, everything with any agency is Barbie. The Kens at best just ‘do beach’.

It is an exceedingly partisan unsubtle pro-Democrat anti-Republican film without mentioning either party. Reality becomes too hard for Barbie world to self-sustain and things Must Be Done. Men who try to take over anything end up weeping that power is too hard for them to bear.

It is produced by Mattel. The film ruthlessly parodies Mattel’s board as 100% male and shallow as cupcakes. The real Mattel board is 7 men and 5 women, which is about proportionate to most Fortune 500 companies now.

Perhaps the funniest part for me is the Ken dance-off, which is strikingly similar to the jarring dark Expressionist dance-off in the film Oklahoma. Ken in all his forms is absolutely self-shredded in a pink-flavoured Beat It.

My audience was about 70% women and they laughed and laughed.

The politics of Barbie is intensely real. On the same day as I saw Barbie, Ohio voters rejected a Republican state proposal to require that all future state proposals could only be overturned by 60%. It was overwhelmingly rejected. Winning would have made it far harder to enshrine abortion rights. The very strong turnout showed as it did in 2020, that the route to power for Democrats is solely with women. The last line in the film is Barbie saying “I’m here to see my gynaecologist” in case you didn’t get the point over 2 hours.

Barbie was pretty much the same as the tv series The Handmaid’s Tale, except with better costumes and actual jokes. Both are a parody of patriarchy, its damage to all and what to do. Both really only made sense in countries which already have very strong women’s rights assumptions operating already, unlike most of South America, almost all of Africa, the Middle East, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, … Melanesia, Polynesia, and … anywhere else women have very limited agency.

You will love Barbie if you loved Pinnocchio the 1940 version

or Toy Story the 1995 original

because Barbie heads straight to the point of reviving analogue play to invite girls to project kinds of moral existence into inanimate objects and to will them to transcend their material constraints and in fact be alive.

The costumes sparkle with a concentrated sugar-saturated glee that truly outflanks anything Wes Anderson could put out. And if you love films you will love the multiple visual film-quotes from the very start.

So yes it is didactic. Its parodies are annoying. There are of course no sex scenes like America: World Police because as we know Ken only has a plastic lump. The strict binary of genders is the construct that holds up the entire sky of this movie. Don’t come to Barbieland looking for an extended discussion about capitalism, racism, inequality, poverty, LGBTQ issues, environmentalism, or anything except Barbie and Ken and the issues they make and have to deal with.

The director is Greta Gerwig not Ken Loach, and the progressive politics are all the more effective for it.

Expect it to head straight to the quandaries and virtues of American women. It does so with such evident box office popularity, that I bet it will do quite a lot as a mobilising element in regaining Democrat balance in Congress (maybe not the Senate) and the White House.

So Barbie just might save the world.

11 comments on “Barbie Will Save The World ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. roy cartland 1
    11 August 2023 at 11:33 am

    When if and when Barbie retires, it'll be up to a man to take over. A real man. Specifically He-Man, and his retinue of prancing friends. Fisto, Man-at-arms, and Skeletor… At least every bit as happenin' as Ken.

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    11 August 2023 at 3:52 pm

    Am in no danger of ever seeing the movie but I liked your appraisal. Nicely done cultural analysis! Would be useful to collate feedback from intelligent younger gen viewers to discern some thread of consensus on whatever deep thoughts emerge.

    Hard to take seriously anything out of Hollywood but I bailed out several decades ago so what would I know, huh? You've got me intrigued though…

  3. adam 3
    11 August 2023 at 4:49 pm

    If you think the democrats are going to do anything to help; Can I recommend Sheldon Wolin and his book Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought to deprogram you of that myth.

    • Ad 3.1
      11 August 2023 at 6:29 pm

      OK so you've read a book.

      Do a review of your book yourself. This post is about Barbie the movie.

      Be relevant to the post.Warned.

      • adam 3.1.1
        12 August 2023 at 2:56 pm

        "It does so with such evident box office popularity, that I bet it will do quite a lot as a mobilising element in regaining Democrat balance in Congress (maybe not the Senate) and the White House."

        Not your writing then…

        • mickysavage 3.1.1.1
          12 August 2023 at 8:10 pm

          I think you have missed the point of the post. Barbie the movie is possibly the best chance of the Democrats retaining/regaining control. Can you prove otherwise?

          • adam 3.1.1.1.1
            13 August 2023 at 3:29 am

            Barbie is fine example of Inverted totalitarianism.

            So who missing, what point, now.

            Mind you getting the real vibe from this site of late, none of you like anything which questions your world view, especially if it comes from the left.

  5. Dennis Frank 5
    13 August 2023 at 9:26 am

    Thought I'd scan the reviews online. Here's a site with a four-star rating (averaged from 195 votes) plus tips for family discussion:

    This movie isn't like the many animated Barbie movies, and its sophisticated themes may land better with teens and adults than tweens and kids. But the contrast between the movie's serious societal commentary and the trippy, nostalgic comedy manages not to feel off-putting or off-balance.

    Talk to Your Kids About …

    • Families can talk about Barbie's message: that society has sexist, contradictory, unattainable expectations for women. Do you agree? What are your thoughts about what it means to be a girl and a woman?
    • Discuss the way that patriarchy and feminism are explored or explained in the movie. Does Barbieland treat Kens the way women are treated in the human world? Why is Ken so delighted to return to Barbieland?

    https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/barbie

    • Dennis Frank 5.1
      13 August 2023 at 9:41 am

      Rotten Tomatoes uses crowd-sourced wisdom too, in their What to know module. From https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/barbie :

      Critics Consensus

      Barbie is a visually dazzling comedy whose meta humor is smartly complemented by subversive storytelling. Read critic reviews

      Audience Says

      Clever, funny, and poignant, Barbie is an entertaining movie with a great overall message. Read audience reviews

      So I think Ad was right to point to some kind of zeitgeist effect although I'm ambivalent on his political correlation (not having seen the movie). Mass reframing via artistry can be transformative due to resonance in any group mind, producing effects both catalytic & contagious simultaneously.

      Impact is on how people see their current status quo in relation to a better world they prefer, which is the driver (historically) of left-wing politics. Grounding oneself in any current reality is both a survival skill & potential prison. Fantasy liberates those captivated by that reality, making it more conditional than real. Optionality emerges.

  6. Phillip ure 6
    13 August 2023 at 5:56 pm

    When my daughter was young…she had a bit of a barbie thing going..

    I indulged her..to the extent that I bought her a barbie holiday/mobile home..

    It was a magnificent beast/ott of a toy…

    About a metre long..and well and truly tricked out…

    Her eyes went like saucers when she saw it…and I was king for a day..

    I didn't buy into the demonizing then of what I just viewed as a toy…just another doll..

    (Later on she was a deadhead for a few years…her and her boyfriend following them around america…hard to blame barbie for that.!..eh..?..not an outcome forseen by the demonisers of the day..?)

    I used to argue that barbie caused a questioning of the stereotypes she depicted..

    Good to she she has come thru on that in this movie…

    I won't go and see it..it isn't for me..

    I never played with the barbie holiday bus either…

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.