Barbie - A More Successful Movie than You'd Think

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For some reason, I can't reply to your response @Omen_Sulk - but I agree entirely with your points. The argument that AI is always biased/wacist is silly, since like you said, it's merely gathering data from whatever is available. It's not like Lebanon, Palestine, South Sudan, are peaceful, politically/economically stable nations atm.

Speaking of which, this is why I see many ethnic Barbies being the subject of controversy. These people never know what they want. If you make the doll resemble the average native woman of any country, they always complain that it's "too stereotypical", but if you make it look different from average, like making it blonde akin to OG Barbie, then they cry that it's too "Eurocentric" or not "culturally accurate". Everything is being nitpicked when the AI incorporated one or both of Barbies iconic motifs into the dolls: blonde hair or something pink.
The Heartthrob said:
At the same time though it's weird because I almost feel like the writers got it and then decided not to go there. It's wank bait for low self-esteem women that believe shitting on men makes them more valuable, so I wonder if they preferred that angle over a feel good ending that'd wrap up that plot line. Based on the headlines from the usual suspects and how conservative media is responding, it'd make sense.
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Oilspill Battery said:
There has NEVER been a modern piece of media to tackle the battle of the sexes without coddling women because, genuinely, reality is too offensive for modern sensibilities.
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I know this was weeks ago, but that's a recurring complaint I've been seeing about the movie. The slogan has been that Barbie can do anything while Ken is Ken, but I would've loved to see Barbieland have actual equality with the Barbies acknowledging that it wasn't right. They want to show that women have been marginalized in society, but if you give them power like in Barbieland, it makes the oppression angle lose its edge.

I've seen women write articles acting like Ken, despite being a second-class citizen in Barbieland, is not vaguely comparable to the oppression women have faced IRL because Barbie's sin was indifference, not actual harm. Yet any male (whether IRL or media) who acts indifferent to women while they're treated as second-class citizens would be called a horrible bystander.

A lot of these works want to break down the stereotype that women are their own worst enemeies, even though most women's "mortal enemies" are often another woman. I know you suspend your disbelief because that's not the message of Barbie, but I also would be fine with Barbieland ending up like how many think female friendships are: bitchy, two-faced, and viewing each other as competition. Especially since they're mostly semi-attractive, hard-working, career-orientated women confined in a finite area.
 
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Lucille Bluth said:
I know this was weeks ago, but that's a recurring complaint I've been seeing about the movie. The slogan has been that Barbie can do anything while Ken is Ken, but I would've loved to see Barbieland have actual equality in Barbieland with the Barbies acknowledging that it wasn't right.
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It would've been easy too. The brand in real life has had Ken take on several jobs himself.
Doctor Ken is basically Ken's take on Day To Night Barbie which was featured in the film. Any time Barbie does something significant like becoming a rapper or a guest star on BayWatch, Ken comes along for the ride. The movie even gives Ken accompanying outfits on their trip to the real world to suggest this and the construction Kens are introduced during the MAGA wall scene. No reason he couldn't fulfill any of the same roles in Barbie Land at the end.
 
The Heartthrob said:
Doctor Ken is basically Ken's take on Day To Night Barbie which was featured in the film. Any time Barbie does something significant like becoming a rapper or a guest star on BayWatch, Ken comes along for the ride.
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When Jem and the Holograms came out Mattel responded with Barbie and the Rockers. Which is like the most lame ass last minute panic name you could think of. Everyone looks like ass.

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Omen_Sulk said:
When Jem and the Holograms came out Mattel responded with Barbie and the Rockers. Which is like the most lame ass last minute panic name you could think of. Everyone looks like ass.

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It was before that even. They heard that Hasbro was producing a girl doll line "M" through the grapevine and threw together Barbie And The Rockers as fast as possible to beat them to the punch and they did. They created a handful of songs and a movie to go along with it, and some of them were unironically really good.
Ultimately Jem still did really well and lasted a bit longer. But Hasbro pulled the plug on it too early and then shelved it for about 30 years until the live-action movie and the comics which were both bad ideas. Oh well.
 
Pentex said:
Barbie's depiction of Ken seems to have fallen into the same ideological blindspot as Watchmen's depiction of Rorschach, that being even if you believe a certain set of propositions to be absurd doesn't mean that your audience shares your belief.

I think Greta Gerwig is so deep in the feminist weeds that she regards any interest of men to be worthy of derision, so she can take Ken's reasonable desire for Barbie's affection, respect from his peers, power over his own fate, as manifestations of the Great Feminist Shaitan, The Patriarchy, while the audience looks at Ken and sees a sympathetic, if goofy, character.
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This is pretty much my opinion on this movie. I think Ken being sympathetic character was completely by accident and I think a lot of the people giving it positive reviews aren't seeing that. There are just glaring moments where the Barbies are shitty towards the Kens but it's not intended as being a reflection of the Barbies' own faults.

Like when Barbie is showing the mom and daughter the Barbie dream houses and one of them asks "Do the Kens' have their own houses?" and Barbie replies with "I don't know where the Kens live" or whatever. In a normal movie that would lead to Barbie becoming aware of how their treatment of the Kens mirrors the supposed treatment of women in the real world. Instead it's just a joke at the expense of the Kens. Then there is the joke at the end where a Ken asks if Kens can have one member on the Supreme Court and President Barbie says maybe a lower circuit one. Obviously this is a joke meant to reflect the real world, but it doesn't work when 4/9 current supreme court justices are women.

It's not as clever as people think. It's supposed to be a feminist catharsis movie and if you look at it through that lens it makes more sense. Greta actually managed to fumble her way into making the movie appear to have more meaning than it actually does. It's not a movie about equality, it's not a movie about the struggles men face, it's a movie for radical feminists to cheer at men being put in their place.
 
I think Ken being sympathetic character was completely by accident and I think a lot of the people giving it positive reviews aren't seeing that.
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A lot of people completely understand that and are going full Death of the Author on the subject. Despite the movie doing it's best to be a preachy feminist movie, it severely undermines its message at enough points that it's easy to throw the intentions of the movie in the trash and completely reinterpret it.

For example, the movie does the feminist thing right at the beginning of making a big point about how being a mother and having family is so limiting for girls and it's much better to be a taxpaying girlboss. However, how does the movie end? Barbie sees visions of Ruth's life and family, with a focus on her children. And this makes the final push for Barbie to decide to leave her feminist wonderland and go live in the real world. Where she can have a family and children of her own. This is an easy source of positive messages of about motherhood that directly contradict what the director was almost certainly going for.

To sum it up, when you say it's not as clever as people think it is, you're overestimating it. It's so lacking in cleverness and self-awareness that it's easily co-opted into messaging and interpretations directly contradicting its purpose. Many of the people with positive impressions know that and are actively ignoring authorial intent.
It could also be that I haven't talked to enough normalfags about this movie and am completely misunderstanding the consensus.
 
ToddleDoddle said:
It's not a movie about equality, it's not a movie about the struggles men face, it's a movie for radical feminists to cheer at men being put in their place.
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Ironically a movie supposed to promote feminism accidentally emphasizes its flaws.
 
Sandy Sun Dunes said:
A lot of people completely understand that and are going full Death of the Author on the subject. Despite the movie doing it's best to be a preachy feminist movie, it severely undermines its message at enough points that it's easy to throw the intentions of the movie in the trash and completely reinterpret it.

For example, the movie does the feminist thing right at the beginning of making a big point about how being a mother and having family is so limiting for girls and it's much better to be a taxpaying girlboss. However, how does the movie end? Barbie sees visions of Ruth's life and family, with a focus on her children. And this makes the final push for Barbie to decide to leave her feminist wonderland and go live in the real world. Where she can have a family and children of her own. This is an easy source of positive messages of about motherhood that directly contradict what the director was almost certainly going for.

To sum it up, when you say it's not as clever as people think it is, you're overestimating it. It's so lacking in cleverness and self-awareness that it's easily co-opted into messaging and interpretations directly contradicting its purpose. Many of the people with positive impressions know that and are actively ignoring authorial intent.
It could also be that I haven't talked to enough normalfags about this movie and am completely misunderstanding the consensus.
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Well, English Lit students have been explicitly taught New Text to the point it's considered conservative practice in Academia.

Also, Hideaki Anno should re-edit this movie to focus on Ken. Barbie: You are (not) Kenough.
 
The Heartthrob said:
I'm still wondering why Barbie goes to the gynecologist if she doesn't have a vagina.
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ToddleDoddle said:
Presumably she became a real person and got one. Not that this kind of movie needed it, but there was no logic put into how this world worked. Things happened for convenience sake.
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I mean, we're talking about a film with a troon Barbie. Or course they're not going to have that or what you guys mentioned explained.

Sandy Sun Dunes said:
A lot of people completely understand that and are going full Death of the Author on the subject. Despite the movie doing it's best to be a preachy feminist movie, it severely undermines its message at enough points that it's easy to throw the intentions of the movie in the trash and completely reinterpret it.

For example, the movie does the feminist thing right at the beginning of making a big point about how being a mother and having family is so limiting for girls and it's much better to be a taxpaying girlboss. However, how does the movie end? Barbie sees visions of Ruth's life and family, with a focus on her children. And this makes the final push for Barbie to decide to leave her feminist wonderland and go live in the real world. Where she can have a family and children of her own. This is an easy source of positive messages of about motherhood that directly contradict what the director was almost certainly going for.

To sum it up, when you say it's not as clever as people think it is, you're overestimating it. It's so lacking in cleverness and self-awareness that it's easily co-opted into messaging and interpretations directly contradicting its purpose. Many of the people with positive impressions know that and are actively ignoring authorial intent.
It could also be that I haven't talked to enough normalfags about this movie and am completely misunderstanding the consensus.
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It also serves as another testament to how poorly female characters are being written by Hollywood today. In Ken's vantage point, everything aligns: he serves no purpose in Barbieland, he discovers that he has purpose and goes back the Barbieland to form the patriarchy (relatively easily), Barbie stops him and then he goes on his own journey. That pathway in this movie is clear as day.

The same can't be said for Barbie, or by extension the other Barbies themselves. Barbie's moral journey has a hodgepodge of contradictions that only the turbo feminists and ultra-misandrists can "understand" her dilemma.

Nevermind that Barbie starts and ends as a girlboss throughout this whole film; she just has that mindset from one world to another. You can easily infer that after the events of this film, Barbie will be the CEO of a company or in a position of political power. Ken actually goes through an arc of realizing that he doesn't need Barbie, and you have no idea what his future would look like, which gives more intrigue and interest into his character.
 
Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed said:
I mean, we're talking about a film with a troon Barbie. Or course they're not going to have that or what you guys mentioned explained.
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But they're the ones that brought it up. The more I think about it, the weirder it is that there's no continuity really anywhere in the movie. Not even with the gags.
Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed said:
The same can't be said for Barbie, or by extension the other Barbies themselves. Barbie's moral journey has a hodgepodge of contradictions that only the turbo feminists and ultra-misandrists can "understand" her dilemma.
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One of the funniest parts to me is how many of them love Allan for being the stereotypical male feminist. Ken is supposed to be his best friend and he turns on him, which of course the aforementioned crowd wouldn't care about, but he's also in a relationship with Midge and always has been. Allan says that all of the other Allans left Barbie Land, including the Allan married to Pregnant Midge who the other Barbies keep around just to be mean girls to. The remaining Allan doesn't ever go to bat for her and treats her the same as everyone else.
Although admittedly, that's just something that would bother a collector or a kid formerly into the line, which is only really superficial with the movie's appeal.
 
I still can't get over that cringe ass feminist speech America Ferrara gives that they felt was so good they literally repeated it like 10 times lmfao. What a retarded fucking movie.
 
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