#men criticizing Barbie

[myfandomistingling]

[batfamfucker]

What About The Kens?

I'm already seeing guys complain about the Barbie movie end, how they wanted Kens to be equal in Barbieland but were only given a small part on the Cabinet.

That's the point.

You're meant to feel bad for the Kens. Believe me, women aren't partying over the 'Returns to Matriarch' ending. Some will be, but the ones who also clocked the meaning behind it won't. Most women will also feel bad for Kens. Because it's an exact parallel to how women are treated in reality.

Men, you're meant to be upset. You're meant to question it. Because you're meant to feel it, and feel what that is like, so you can finally understand women. You're upset at seeing it in a movie, now imagine living it in reality. That's being a woman.

Kens were shit on so you could feel what it was like for women this entire time. Kens were being used as a placement so you could see yourself in a woman's shoes. A world dominated by the opposite sex. When Ken leaves, and sees male presidents (All men) for the first time, men being doctors and lawyers, etc, realising he is more than just a prop for Barbie, that was on purpose. Because that is the feeling that Barbie gave to women. It's why you cheer for him at first before he goes a little overboard.

It's exactly why the real world was an exaggerated Partriarchy and Barbieland an exaggerated Matriarchy. Neither wins. Neither is equal. None of them change for the better. It's why you should want women in the real world to be respected, and Kens in Barbieland to be respected.

The thing is, women also didn't win. Not in the real world. In Barbieland, yes, but not anywhere else. The real world didn't change. But you didn't notice, did you? That Gloria (The mother that helped Barbie) also didn't get a position on the Mattel board? It was still all men? Her idea was ignored until it made a profit, and the men will likely get the credit? She'll still just be the receptionist? The women representing the real world didn't get anymore opportunities, neither did the men in Barbieland.

I was hoping that Gloria would be offered a position on the board, and that the Barbie Cabinet would introduce another entire Cabinet to represent the Kens, but neither happened. They're complete mirrors.

But which one did you actually notice? Which did you actually care about? Now tell me again the ending was unfair. Because it was. For both parties. That's the point.

The difference is, Barbieland is fictional. You will walk out of the theatre with the reassurance that at least it's not real. Women won't. Women can't. Companies not giving women equal opportunities or voices isn't fictional, and that was just one example. There are no women presidents (USA at least) for us to go look at in the real world. We don't have somewhere to go to realise it could be different for us like Ken did. Barbie and make believe is all we had when we were kids, or even now.

You're supposed to be mad, just not at the movie.

[cicadaknight]

okay i have more (critical) barbie thoughts under the cut.

i really did enjoy it overall. it was fun, cheeky, surreal. i loved the experience of watching it in an energetic theater. i even cried a couple times. but i’m baffled at how powerful it was for so many people when it fell so flat for me. honestly, maybe what i’m feeling is just because i’m trans and it didn’t resonate as strongly with my experience of womanhood or masculinity.

i keep coming across people using gloria’s monologue to dismiss criticism by saying “anyone saying barbie isn’t feminist enough are doing the exact thing gloria pointed out! women have to be perfect but it’s just never good enough!” Y’ALL. having issues with a high-budget, corporate funded movie that has the same milquetoast girl-power messaging you’d find in teen mags from the early 2000s… is not the same as oppressing women under patriarchy. you can critique media and still resonate with aspects of it. good grief.

another response i’ve seen to critiques (specifically of gloria’s monologue) is that the movie’s messages are meant for barbie herself! not for the audience! it had to be super tame and generic because otherwise barbie wouldn’t have understood! all those speeches and ideas are aimed solely at barbie who is learning about all of this for the first time! it’s not for you if you already get it! what?????? that’s not how media works and you know it.

also, the idea that it’s meant to be palatable for a “wider audience” so it couldn’t have included intersectionality without losing people. translation: “wider audience” means white suburbia? white men? cishet people? where the most “representation” they can tolerate is a 3 second clip of a voiceless barbie in a wheelchair dancing? or a black president barbie who mostly says one liners and disappears? a wider audience being the same audience every blockbuster is catered towards?

i’m just spit balling here, but i don’t think it would have been impossible to introduce some unironic nuances like:

america’s latinx character experiencing sexism differently from stereotypical barbie?

maybe not using mount rushmore repeatedly to symbolize who’s in power?

avoiding comparing bringing patriarchy to barbieland to indigenous genocide?

a harsher perspective on mattel’s role in all this? where the outcome isn’t just will farrell’s character griping that he doesn’t even want to be in charge, he just wants to be tickled? (wtf was that lmao)

making a more obvious statement that patriarchy isn’t just a symptom of men stumbling across power and relishing it but that it’s rooted in violent white supremacy and capitalism? i’m positive there’s a way to address that without going full blown academic feminist theory mode.

having the black, fat, and disabled characters speak more than 5 collective minutes? (but at least they had screentime at all, right? ✨representation✨)

explicitly queer characters instead of “weird barbie” and allan being coded as the outsiders to an otherwise regimented cishet universe?

but all those ideas are irrelevant, right? because the movie was just SOOO self aware and layered in irony and if i was smart enough and hadn’t missed the point, i’d know the writers were in on it all.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

No offense to anyone who makes these posts but I'm not interacting with any Barbie posts that suck Greta G's dick about Ken's """"MRA/incel"""" arc without acknowledging how fundamentally stupid it was to give it to someone canonically oppressed on the basis of their gender. Patriarchy wasn't appealing to him because he's losing his power it was appealing to him because Barbies have all the power but in patriarchy he's in control I'm beating every last one of you with a copy of Judith Butler I am making you read Bell Hooks like it's clockwork orange I am sneaking into your house and putting Angela Davis audio books and speeches on while you sleep I'm exposing you to real feminism by any means necessary until you understand that patriarchy about fuckin POWER not who has long hair and boobs.

Like I just want you to imagine how fundamentally stupid it would be to give any character played by Ryan Gosling other than Ken the speech that Gloria gave Barbie and have it have the same effect on him that it has on the Barbies. That is the level of idiocy we're operating on here

I'm just.... Hm... It's not even how dumb it is that makes me mad it's how everyone just seems to think it's genius when it's the dumbest shit I've seen in a while. My problem is that I'm the only one I see casting doubt on this MRA thing and I'm the only one who immediately thought "oh he's like terfs and the terminally online rad fems who brag about doing misandry" and was surprised when the internet brought up the manosphere.

[dykeyangel]

literally nothing will stop me from calling good omens gay "but they're not human!" i do not care "but the lore!" i do not care "but neil gaiman said!" i do not care. those bitches are gay what are you gonna do? call a cop? vague post? cope

[junotter]

what i think is the reason I'm Just Ken is a good/as popular as it is is because the way it somehow explores both what its like to be a woman and man just through ken.

like the line "I'm just Ken. Anywhere else I'd be a ten." just feels very hitting as a woman in a social media world, especially if you've seen the truerateme subreddits and the ways they judge women.

and of course the fragility and inability to find meaning/self worth outside of a romantic relationship due to the strict boxes placed on men and male relationships (and even friendships between men and women).

theres more and i know im getting annoying with the barbie posts but i did really like the movie, regardless of how "bland" its feminism is. also just all the chronically online feminists complaining about how basic it is, like oh should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? should we invite andrea dworkin.

like is it perfect? no. does it lack in intersectionality and have poc characters act as the support to white characters? yes. should ken probably of apologized? yeah. but many things can be true about one movie.

[mothslimes]

said it before i say it again. maybe it's less internalized misogyny and more "girls who look and act like this literally bullied me from kindergarten to 12th grade and beyond" so no i would rather not talk to girls who treat female beauty standards as the holy law

[anawkwardlady]

..............

[cloudbells]

I love reading Barbie critiques because I thought I was the insane one coming out of that film. The way people built it up to be the pinnacle of feminist commentary - so revolutionary, so hard-hitting, so emotional....and I went in expecting a real mainstream feminist movie only to get...that.

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

Me @ Netflix if they cut Foxglove and Hazel or A Game of You or yassify any of the girls

[smute]

also that slogan on every poster "he's just ken" receiving a positive connotation after watching the film??? as in, he's not "and ken" but just ken?? something so simple but so effective

[redhoodwolfe]

Patriarchy vs. Barbiearchy

In the recent Barbie movie, the movie seemed to compare what was going on with the hierarchal  structure in Barbieland to the patriarchy, but reversed where Barbie (and other femme presenting dolls) had the power while Ken was just an accessory to Barbie. While in the real world Barbie experiences the patriarchy and how she is seen through men’s eyes, men who have power over her. She even goes as far as to mention how uncomfortable and scared she is in those situations where she is around men. Barbie in the real world is seen essentially as a doll, as an object; however, Barbie in Barbie land never sees Ken as an object. She rather sees Ken as a friend, but someone who has their own identity and being. Meanwhile, Ken believes that his only purpose is for Barbie, and only lives for Barbie’s attention. But Barbie has a life outside of Ken and does not devote all of her time to Ken like he wants. Ken sees Barbie as a doll and they are a paired set. Ken also shows the other Kens what patriarchy is and turns the Barbies into brainless girls, who’s only purpose is to serve the Kens, a direct contrast to how the Barbies just kind of let Ken do their own thing, thinking the Kens had a life outside of the Barbies. Ken is a picture of how patriarchal ideas could establish itself in a women led/centered world, where men have/fein incompetence in order for women to support them. Barbie should have never apologized to Ken. She said no and even if that made Ken feel bad, she doesn’t owe him her time and energy; Ken is not entitled to that.

[dykefever]

i saw barbie last night and to be honest it was hysterical like i have Not laughed that hard in like forever + it was still very greta gerwig n basically the best film it could have been considering it was a toy commercial also 🙏🏼

[vavandeveresfan]

"The 'Barbie' movie is so Feminist!!"

Feminist??

The Barbie movie cast a trans as Doctor Barbie.

[wreyeder]

Movie review websites should require a watch comprehension test before you rate to make sure you actually paid attention

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

im pretty sure this is not a popular opinion which is why i havent said it, but its been on my mind for months now so fuck it, i guess.

you know that post, the one about the barbie movie and margot robbie talking about barbie being a doll with no reproductive organs and sexual desire, and a lot of tumblr users just like, celebrating this as a win for asexuality?

i hate that post. a lot. like a lot a lot.

because while i dont think margot robbies conclusion is wrong (shes a doll), i think calling barbie asexual is inaccurate and it makes me, an ace person, uncomfortable.

like i dont think its a purposeful link, but that comparison very much implies that sexuality and sexual desire is tied to having reproductive organs, which uh no, thats not how that works and i really dislike that implication. idk about you, but i dont like tying my queerness to my biology.

that link is also one that rings of those who presume that there is a universal normative experience, which is also true of the movie itself, see jessie genders video on that. there are many people in the world who have what would be considered atypical reproductive organs and plenty whose reproductive organs can be considered not-working like those who have gone through the menopause, and they are not all ace.

its also just reductive as to what asexuality in general. margot robbies quote was specifically that barbie didnt feel sexual desire, and funnily enough, sexual desire =/= sexual attraction. while i, myself, be a sex-repulsed ace, there are plenty of horny aces who do the fuck. ive already mentioned the fact that im opposed to linking my queerness to biology, and honestly that part only made me more uncomfortable after the movie ended on "im here to see my gynecologist".

also just, barbie is a plastic doll. like thats how she starts in the movie itself. shes not asexual, shes a doll. and idk dude, theres just a part of me that is deeply uncomfortable with tying asexuality with a doll.

like imo, this just isnt the win for asexuality people were treating it as. we can do better than this.

especially considering the way queerness was handled in the film, but again, go watch jessie genders video on it, its better presented than my rambling post