renardtrickster - Tumblr blog

[renardtrickster]

[renardtrickster]

[renardtrickster]

"the correct answer to the trolley problem is to reject its premise" That's explicitly not an answer. If you are the agent in the trolley problem, and you say "I reject the premise", the people still die. It is a made up scenario, yes. It was made specifically to illustrate in a real-world situation where you have limited influence and none of your options are perfect. There are many problems in the real world that you cannot solve by pulling a lever. However, you also cannot solve them by doing nothing. And unlike the trolley problem, you can't just "reject the premise" and exit the scenario. The consequences still happen.

The point is to demonstrate your ethical reasoning. Nobody wants to accept the premise, we want to revise the scenario, or exit the situation, or just find the trick answer that solves everything perfectly, and ultimately, many people decide not to pull the lever. Why? Because it feels worse to take action in a shitty situation than to do nothing and pretend that you never had any influence to begin with.

Except, even if you do nothing, you are still just as complicit in the consequences as if you had pulled the lever. The point is that inaction feels like an inherently neutral choice, even when its consequences are demonstrably worse. The point is that there is no solution where you don't have someone's blood on your hands. Yes it sucks. Yes you want to reject the scenario. That's supposed to happen, you're supposed to feel that conflict, that's part of the test. What we're looking to find out is what you do with that conflict. Do you prioritize emotional comfort or external action?

Maybe one day we'll have built a future where nobody has to confront that sort of problem, but right now, those problems are real and numerous, because whether you accept it or not we were born into a world where people already built massive systems of cruelty, and we all have very limited influence over them. Obviously we don't want these systems to exist. Obviously it won't be solved by a single decision. But if you want to dismantle them you have to actually do something when you have the chance. If you wait around for the Perfect Choice That Fixes Everything, you will die waiting. You can't fix everything all at once. And doing nothing only makes things worse. So do what you can.

[renardtrickster]

this is the most important audio post i’ll ever make

[renardtrickster]

on identity, healing the inner child, fursonas, and cringe culture

[renardtrickster]

if you like penis coladas.. and getting shot in the brain!

[renardtrickster]

Reading🐐📗

[renardtrickster]

I have so many OCs now I have to split them into two halves!

[renardtrickster]

meowowmememeowme meowowmeowowowow meowowmeowowowow meowowowmemememe

[renardtrickster]

obsessed with the april fools day joke from the another crab's treasure devs

[renardtrickster]

Guy eating pussy but he's got one of those Bluetooth earpieces on and on the other end is a lesbian instructing him how to do it.

[renardtrickster]

I think the issue with the Kendom wasn't that "the oppressed group took power And This Is Bad", because the Kens weren't representing a liberating force. They were just replacing Matriarchy with Patriarchy, recreating the same power structure but with the roles reversed. Which isn't good because, y'know, but on a personal level as well it's bad because it's Beach Ken's misguided attempt at finding a sense of fulfillment (which I personally thought was a really good metaphor for how some men uphold patriarchal standards because they think they'll be Top Dog or benefit from it, only for it to be as dehumanizing to men as it is to women, to say nothing of men who don't fit or desire to uphold those ideals like Alan).

Patriarchy coming to Barbie Land certainly has more "weight" behind it because it's the climactic conflict of the film, it's fundamentally a feminist film, and also because there hasn't been a real-life matriarchy (even in-universe, Barbie Land is understood to be not real). But I think it was made pretty clear that the movie ideologically also thinks Barbie Land's prior society was bad too. They even parallel each other, between the fact that it reduces an entire gender/species(???) into being eyecandy, and that the the ruling power in both models of society were basically blindly and ignorantly upholding it (whether it be out of a misguided sense of empowerment or because the brand is literally based on Barbie herself, everyone kind of blindly rolls with it when it happens regardless). It even ends with the Kens getting more rights, but as you noted that's more a pithy gesture, representing how there have been several women's liberation movements and each time they "succeeded" the dial got more or less budged (alright fine you can vote but you still can't hold office, open a bank account without a man, drive, or hold any of these high-paying jobs), and how there's still a lot of progress to go, in the modern-day real world and in Barbie Land. Which is pretty fucked up of the Barbies to do, yes, but it's consistent with the movie's criticisms and Barbie Land being "real life society but in reverse" , as well as the film's sense of humor.

The last part also kind of confuses me because your criticism is that the writers were engaging in some sort of essentialization (re: "the Kens taking over are bad because they're men and men are all sexist"). I disagree with that, I think it's anti-patriarchy and misogyny, and only "anti-man" in the sense that those systems claim to favor men and it's largely men who are in favor of that (which is to say I don't think it's very anti-man at all). The fact that despite Beach Ken LITERALLY introducing patriarchy to Barbie Land, he and the other Kens are depicted as, at worst, misguided, speaks to that. But also, "the Kens should have hunted the Barbies for sport" seemingly does the essentialization you criticized by supplanting the systemic critique with the personal critique. In addition to the unintentional implication that women's suffrage wasn't enough and we should have done some SCUM Manifesto stuff instead, if we're applying the metaphors consistently.

I will concede that (even though it's been a while since I watched Barbie) there will always be some sort of underlying tension when you have a story as heavy on metaphor and allegory as Barbie was, between "what is happening on screen" and "what is the author trying to convey to me". This is how I understood it, and I could be overly favorable to it because I like to lean more in the direction of "me and the author are in sync" unless it's egregiously bad or unclear or whatever. And I did really like Barbie and its themes.

the Barbie movie was such a weird experience because it is genuinely entertaining and funny but the metaphor presented is so bungled. like okay the whole movie’s point is “women can do whatever they want and don’t have to be second place to men” which I agree with. The metaphor they use to do this is Barbie world treating kens with an exaggerated objectification mirroring women’s treatment historically. Which, okay, that sounds fine. That makes sense. Until the Kens take over Barbie world and that’s…bad? The oppressed group rising up and taking power is the primary ticking time bomb of the film so like what are you saying? Because the words you’re saying are “girl power” but the metaphor you’re presenting is “stay in your place”

Also the way this problem is solved is barbie coming back to Barbie world with her real world friends and expounding a bunch of female specific frustrations to her brainwashed Barbie friends who have zero context for any of those frustrations because they’ve lived their whole lives as the ruling class. Like I get it. I understand what you’re saying. I also understand this film relies heavily on metaphor. This makes no sense with the internal logic you’ve presented.

The whole thing ends on a kind of snarky “Kens will get more rights when women in the real world get more rights” statement and the whole thing kinda just reeks of the same “take action!!! (but only to a socially acceptable degree)” subtext that The Batman had.

[renardtrickster]

[renardtrickster]

driving is so freaking fun guys dont you just love being in a big metal thing that can completely crush you if someone feels like doing stupid things on the road

[renardtrickster]

[renardtrickster]

we need more characters like utage bc shes basically a high school girl whos really into fashion and her parents sent her to the hospital and gave her a sword to protect herself bc it might be dangerous on the way and she was gonna just get her treatment normally but she discovered she actually really loves gratuitous violence and killing people with swords. but she is still a high school fashion girl. i need a girl who goes to pick up groceries for her mom and she comes back and says 'mother i have the spirit of the samurai inside me. for my honour i slew a ruffian who attacked me in the bread aisle. im going to karaoke with my friends ill be back for dinner.'