#and being like welp that's a boy IP we could corner the girl market with our girl IP - barbie!

[avatar-state-kate]

No that Barbie gendered criticsm post was in specific reference to a post where someone accused people—critical of the Barbie movie for being a commercial/just Not being indie arthaus groundbreaking cinema—of being misogynistic because “no one does this for transformers or marvel” (which seems misogynistic as well. Comic books aren’t “for boys” dolls aren’t “for girls” but the way these products are being marketed to us as freethinking adults is perhaps something we should question)

Oh, I got that, my tags were more in reference to the "consumerism seems girl-coded and military propaganda boy-coded" bit. That joke format implies that people are projecting gendered stereotypes onto something, except the idea of their being a gender link to these properties is by design - Barbie is being marketed to women and girls, and the cultural idea of what women and girls do/should like and Marvel is marketed to the cultural idea of what men and boys do/should like.

I'm not disagreeing with OP of that post, I'm disagreeing with the idea that there is no gendered level, especially with what is being marketed - consumerism is much more aggressively marketed to women ("women be shopping", the pink tax, women as responsible for household shopping etc.) and the military is marketed more to men. I think this level of analysis is being ignored in favour of calling anyone excited for the Barbie movie stupid for not knowing it's an ad. Which that's a case-by-base basis, definitely most people are going in uncritical but that's true of most media so I wouldn't call anyone out here for being especially stupid.

But yeah, people have always pointed out that toy brand shows are just ads, and we have been complaining about the military-industrial complex in film, but also with everything when its a "girl" (and like again this is marketing, I never liked barbie or girl toys as a child so like my girlhood isn't being represented here, and maybe the idea that brands get to decide what girlhood and boyhood is is a more interesting discussion) property the analysis gets weird - like you have good faith criticism and then people being much more aggressive then the conversation might need.

Like the movie hasn't come out yet and we have already gone from the over-praising the thing to backlash/hatred of the thing - again both phases have genuine and reasonable arguments to them - be excited for a movie with practical sets in a CGI cinema landscape, to see some of our biggest stars together, to see a movie that looks fun- be critical of a film that is a 2-hour long commercial for a doll brand, be critical of a film that supports rampant consumerism and the beauty industry - but the intensity is...a lot already, again for a movie we haven't actually seen yet

TLDR: I don't think it is sexist to critique this movie, or the existence of criticism or a backlash is wholly sexist, however, like with most things parsing out where the genuine feelings stop and sexism ramps them up is an impossible thing to parse. I can believe this while also feeling like anyone trying to say there is no gender element is wrong - like it's Barbie, a toy that even girls who don't play with Barbie are told is representative of their childhoods - like gender analysis is called for but just maybe not the one that is happening.