#and like. what am i supposed to write about if not lesbians she clearly won't understand

[chronicowboy]

i have absolutely zero inspiration for class :)

[thelesbianpoirot]

It's fine...

I did not like the Barbie movie. I didn't hate it, it was just a slog to get through. I was cringing, bored or annoyed. I didn't expect it to be groundbreaking, but I also didn't expect it to be a generic pop culture icon comes to the real world hijinks movie either. I thought it would be this eras Mean Girls, oddly insightful message hidden in a unassuming package. I was a bit let down. 1. The messaging in the movie is so convoluted. There is some basic feminism about women being allowed to be imperfect people, who grow and change, but then they have women save the day by seducing men, feminine wiles to distract them, and sew discord amongst them like woman are accused of, instead of any real innovative non-stereotypical plans. Men aren't really shown to be malicious, just misguided, unappreciated and incompetent, but they essentially wanted to run barbieland/kendom as a gentleman's club/hooters/ a brothel (if they knew anything about sex), they suffer no consequences for this. The movie "don't worry darling" that people shat on last year because of drama had a way more consistent message and theme than this. 2. The kens are so ugly. The Barbies except for like one or two are supermodel types, yet all the kens are just men you'd find in a parking lot of a Walmart, even the ken that belongs to the stereotypical Barbie is old and has an old man's body. If the Barbies are supposed represent perfect womanhood, why not the men? I know i'm a lesbian but other than the barbie that is clearly a man with plastic surgery uncanny valley face, and nasally voice, they all are hot. They just picked random men to be ken, like if Kens are supposed to be decorative accessories, how come Kens can be shlubby and old. And Barbie can't. You could say it's supposed to be that way, but they write it like Ken's are equally objectified, or a perfect specimen of manhood, but they don't have to look nearly as good as the barbs. 3. I expected weird Barbie to be our lesbian representation, I hoped a subtext of her weirdness meant she wasn't het, they didn't even have to give her a girlfriend, Kate carries lesbian subtext with her, but they had Kate McKinnon say a line about wanting to see Ken's smooth privates despite earlier in the movies Barbie and Ken don't know what sex is. Was it written just to make sure we don't think she's a lesbian? Alan is implied to be gay, by a line or two, but I just think it is a wasted.

4. The dialogue is too plain to be surreal. It wasn't transported to this world, I was lectured to, by a teacher speaking through dolls/puppets. I won't complain about it not being funny, because I know comedy is subjective, but the dialogue did nothing for me. It was preachy in a lot of areas, and I wouldn't have some a problem with preachiness if the message didn't suck. "We just need to coddle and comfort men to get/maintain our rights?"

5. There wasn't a single line or reference to tomboy girls, masc girls, gnc girls/women, like the existence of women who may not want living bright pink empty existences. I wouldn't count weird barbie as gnc, because it wasn't a natural feature of hers, not something she chose. Main Barbie at the end just looks the same, and probably has the same interests, she just wears flat sometimes. GIVE BARBIE A BUZZCUT and some combat boots. IDK Mean Girls had a more radical consistent message in the 2000s.

I don't think I am explaining it right, but why not have Sasha, gloria's daughter be a tomboy that genuinely isn't into this stuff, instead of just pretending she's too cool for it. It is just always a little bit of a let down when a film/movie claims to be speaking to women but instead it speaks to femininity/instead of femaleness. i.e, I do like that barbie when to the gyno.

6. I don't think this movie would be as popular as it is, if it was just about a generic doll, and not connect to the barbie brand name. There is absolutely nothing in this movie that stands out to me. It is barely better than a sonic comes to the real world, or smurfs come to the real world story to me. It's fine. Every woman who said she felt a deep connection with the women they watched it with, I am jealous of you, like what are we connecting over? Our joint love of clothes, pink, our goofy yet lovable boyfriends? I feel nothing.

7. Ken, Ryan Gosling, was given too much screen time without Barbie. Everyone online is singing his praises. Saying that he was the best one in the movie, what were they talking about? He was doing Saturday night live worthy performances. I am starting to think these people just love men. Because the only value this movie had is the few scenes where Margot Robbie is allowed to show genuine sadness, dismay and existential dread.

8. The parts I appreciated: a) Barbie meeting that older woman on the bench, b) am I a man without power a woman? c) Barbie deny Ken's any real power. (They should have exiled the Kens to fucking the desert!).

Overall, I like a line or two lines, but all together it is just a confused movie. Not confusing, but this was a movie talking in circles to distract you that it is saying nothing of value really. Real throwing shit at the wall kind of messaging. It's like a whole movie of not a single new or exciting idea or concept being is introduced to you. I wouldn't care to watch it again, or spend time ranting and raving about it online. But I just felt like sharing. I will forget the contents of the movie in a day or two.

[omegas-spaghettios]

Disney & LGBTQ+

I am a Disney shill, i'll admit it. Their musicals and animated features are all wonderful, and their acquired properties like Marvel and Star Wars are borderline obsessions of mine. But I have one major problem (other than their money grabbing).

I'm Bisexual. I grew up in LDS Utah, in the very heart of it. I have been driven to be suicidal multiple times in my teenage years for how awful the culture is here against gay people. I oftentimes escape into what Disney creates, but i'm beginning to feel really hurt by them.

They refuse to give the LGBTQ+ community any sort of decent representation. They will champion that their new film is "A milestone for representation" then make it a scene they can easily cut out. In the live-action Beauty and the Beast their "groundbreaking" representation was a two second scene of Lafou dancing with a man. Valkyrie from the MCU is supposedly Bisexual but Watiti was never allowed to do anything with that. Then in Endgame it was an inconsequential scene of an unnamed character. Then in Rise of Skywalker it was two background characters who kissed. Then they pushed their new Love, Simon show from Disney+ to Hulu. The best we have gotten from them is in Onward with the lesbian cop, but again a background character with nothing but a passing mention of it. Nothing of substance.

Not to be rude and downplay what these characters mean to people, because something is better than nothing, but it feels pandering to me. Finnpoe was supposed to be canon and it didn't happen because of Disney. They keep claiming they support this community, but they make only passing mentions of background characters that can easily be removed for foreign markets. By doing this Disney tells me they only care about money, not what their representation actually means, and so it feels hollow at best.

What's frustrating is they make and support really good stories about LGBTQ+ feelings! Elsa is a great example of being forced to be closeted for something she was born with. She is ashamed and withdrawn and has tons of self loathing, and throughout both Frozen movies she grows to accept herself.

Likewise, The Clone Wars does this very well too. Granted, Disney did not make a vast majority of this show, but they continue to market it and allowed Season 7 to be what they wanted, so it still means something. The way the Jedi Order represses love and relationships strikes such a cord with me. What it does to Anakin is so realistically damaging and reflects how I was raised. Kenobi getting over Satine and living celibate in that show reminds me of all the gay people who are "strong in the church" and are denied their natural feelings. These people are shown to me, saying "you can make God happy too by denying your feelings!" And it clearly shows that Kenobi's experience also negatively affects Anakin, if not subtly.

So the point is is that Disney has the writing chops to craft AMAZING LGBTQ+ stories, but they refuse to. To explain let me tell you a story. The new short on Disney+ called Out is about a gay man coming out to his parents. It's short, harmless, and is only a drop in the bucket of their huge catalog on that platform. But my best friend's religious family hated it anyway, would not shut up about how awful it is, how they are sick of having gay people shoved down their throats, how they can't hate gay people without being hated on, and her family even discussed it with her grandparents.

Disney catters to these people. These awful, bigoted, hateful people. They cater to them for money. They don't make actual representation because all they care about is the bottom line. And I know they are a company, but they have so much money they can afford to make less of a profit on a few movies to really give LGBTQ+ something special, because they have proved they can make and support stories that strike a cord like that. But they won't. They don't actually care about my experiences, or my pain, or the escape they offer me. They only care about my wallet.

I know the upcoming MCU films The Eternals and Thor: Love and Thunder are supposed to have more representation, but with their track record I am not holding my breath.