Will Barbie movie be tolerable?

I have been trying to avoid spoilers but have read enough headlines and introductions to reviews to find it interesting that people (perhaps conservatives in particular) cannot seem to agree on what the movie means or is promoting, if anything. Seems to me like that's probably a compliment to the movie.

Conservatives Are Getting Barbie Wrong | National Review

The emerging conservative take on Barbie seems to be that it is a shallow, man-hating, and repulsive screed, an assessment that probably owes a great deal to the fact that Barbieland is an ostensible feminist utopia in which all Kens are subservient to all Barbies. In the Wall Street Journal, former National Review critic Kyle Smith wrote that, “As bubbly as the film appears, its script is like a grumpier-than-average women’s studies seminar.” Upon leaving the movie, Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire tweeted that “all you need to know” about it is that “it unironically uses the word ‘patriarchy’ more than 10 times.” With some time to collect his thoughts, Shapiro then took to YouTube with a video titled: “Ben Shapiro DESTROYS The Barbie Movie For 43 Minutes.” And the Critical Drinker, a right-leaning and perspicacious YouTube film critic, savaged Barbie, calling it “the greatest lie ever told.”

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I had to overcome my own hesitation to arrive at this view. Masculine pride makes it far easier for me to recommend Oppenheimer than to esoterically interpret Barbie positively. It is, to be clear, not really a movie about men. But it does not hate them. It is something far different, and far more interesting, than that. Conservatives who think otherwise might not be thinking big enough.

 

The tag line of Barbie is "she's everything" - maybe that's why no one can pin the movie down and some people are just going with their usual schtick.

 

I agree 1000%. There is reasonable debate about how well they pulled off the "large thought", and you did have to wait until the end through a lot of other stuff that seems to push in a different direction to get that tie together. But taken as a whole, it was clear that the intended message was far larger

 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of those are based on real history or are sequels to franchises that started over a decade ago.

 

I'd suggest that is true of pretty much every topic.

 

Barbie is IP that has been around for decades, thats pretty much all entertainment now.

 

The movie hates men. Lol.

It doesn’t present a nuanced view of the real world of men. It presents real-world men as misogynistic pigs and the movie starts and ends with Kens being treated as second class.

If teenage girls and adults like it, sure, have fun. It’s colorful and silly. But the message is strong in this one, and it’s not even close to subtle.

I don’t think it’s a movie for young girls, and there was definitely a bit of a bait-and-switch in marketing going on there. It was supposed to just be a silly colorful feel-good movie and it definitely wasn’t just that. It was a damned lecture from 3rd wave feminists about how men are holding women down.

 

Good point.

Fwiw, I've hit 2 already--Oppy, and MI 7. Both excellent, but surprisingly light attendance, while Barbie appeared to be packed both times I went (which fwiw, Oppy was on opening night, as was Barbie). And I wouldn't mind seeing Barbie at all, but given a choice (i.e.--my wife not asking me to take her to Barbie), I'll naturally gravitate to bombs, guns, violence, fighting and action filled man movies, before comedies or dramas.

jmho.

 

I'd have to concur with this opinion.

I mean, talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Barbie is quintessentially, not just a female icon, but an icon of femininity. Barbie being empowered and empowering to women and girls, is objectively a fantastic thing.

...and that she is empowered, while proudly wrapped in her femininity, is something that resonates within true conservatism (e.g.--the Virgin Mary being venerated so widely within Catholicism, "the three Teresa's" (St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisseux, and Mother Theresa of Calcutta), St. Joan of Arc, England's Queen Elizabeth's, Queen Isabella of Spain, etc. etc...).

*Conservatives* who have a problem with Barbie...have quite simply lost their bearings...

IMHO.

fwiw.

PS/add on: weak women make for weak culture. You can not have any real conservatism, without strong women to anchor conservative values in culture. That is quite simply fact. Without strong willed women...there's nothing to ground conservative values.

 

Good thoughts. Even putting aside a smaller subset of the right who are either misogynistic or feel threatened by strong women, I think there are some social conservatives who perceive that celebrating the empowerment of women = feminism=anti men/anti traditional values.

 

Yeah....I can't really argue against that assertion.

But conversely, on the left, we have a recent but more widespread development that seems to conflate facilitating men prancing around as women being respected as such (women), as somehow empowering actual, real women.

...the times we live in.

Just #!@$!@#$% up beyond recognition (FUBAR, if you prefer).

 

I won't have a full take until I see it. But do you feel it's actually advocating second class status for men or might the goal be to get people to imagine that possibility?

It's an interesting concept in part because while there were some queens in history, I can't think of a society in which women dominated over men or subjugated them. We've made a lot of progress, of course, but even that progress has been relatively recent and not globally ubiquitous. Most women in the West weren't allowed to vote until the 20th century. Saudi Arabia banned women from driving until just a few years ago. Girls and women are still fighting for equal rights and treatment in different parts of the world.

 

Wow, 13 pages on a thread about the Barbie movie. I know you guys can turn just about anything into a political back and forth but damn, how can you have that many posts about a mindless movie?

 

Not a mindless movie at all. If it were, it would be very appealing to conservatives

 

I wouldn't say it's advocating for second class status for men. But it certainly piles on to the notion that no harm can come to the oppressor class. The film is like this this "girl boss" fantasy film. Aside from appearing more as a projection of the fantasies of the writers, that's not good or interesting story-telling.

That's the fantasy of course. There is a trend of bitterness with a lot of 3rd wave feminists. One of the biggest ironies I've seen is actually similarities between hardcore 3rd wave feminists and Andrew Tate. They're opposites, yet the flip side of the same coin. Both want to dismantle traditional values (in the sense of the one man, one woman nuclear family), both derive their morality from their own ego and sense of validation, both care more about power than they do about fairness. I honestly believe they speak the same language from opposite ends of the spectrum, which is probably why I don't like Tate.

As far as the second part of your post, yeah all of that isn't the bad part of Feminism. Somewhere down the line in a fashion similar to the LGBTQ movement, "we just want the freedom to have a job and vote" became "we want a buffet where we can choose to keep all traditional norms that provide us with privileges, but dismantle all of the norms that provide us with more responsibilities or obstacles, and strong men (the patriarchy) is the root of our problems."

When I say "I oppose feminism" I am critiquing the latter while simultaneously supporting the freedom of women to have jobs, vote, pursue military and police work, etc. I'm just also a sucker for tradition, particularly from the male perspective. I think men are both better and more attractive when they are effective protectors and providers. I don't think men should ever hit women, I think they should open the door, pay on the first date, etc. And the irony is that so do third wave feminists. They just don't think this adds any responsibility on their part. They want all of the perks of tradition without any of its consequences.

 

I’ll watch it because well, she is hot but I’ll wait to stream it lol. My wife wants to watch it anyhow.

 

Clearly a dude who does not know any real women. Cringy. Reminds me of Steve Carell's character trying to describe a boob with no first hand experience.

p.s.

 

Just got back. Can't help but laugh at anyone who predicted it would be "cringy and intolerable." It's pretty close to brilliant and about what I'd expect from Greta Gerwig and Noah Bumbach working with A-list leads and a nine-figure budget. Totally fulfills the promise of "If you love Barbie, this movie's for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie's for you." As far as the feminism thing goes, people are way overthinking this.

 

Well done. Exactly