#queued because i'm off to watch barbie!!

[footballandshit]

[hot-take-tournament]

note: this take actually adresses some sensitive topics, including some that i didn't know how to tag, but may require content warnings - so just be careful

also, i had to post this early because for some reason tumblr kept deleting this specific post every time it was queued or saved as a draft

HOT TAKE TOURNAMENT

TOURNAMENT OVERTIME #182

Submission 527

the Barbie movie (2023) was horrible

[SUBMITTED JUSTIFICATION UNDER THE CUT - PLEASE READ]

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Submitted justification:

unfortunately this is a dead serious take of mine. that movie was a story of a horrible tragedy portrayed as justice. and the subtle violent radfem undertones were deeply uncomfortable. my reasons for disliking it are very complicated and personal, so I'm going to try and keep this brief and try to avoid saying anything too charged.

i understand liking it— it was a very fun movie! the way they did the practical effects and props and setting were all genius and very cool!

but.. the way they handled Ken and his struggles felt extremely minimizing, cruel, and violent. I've *been* the reject kid before. I *know* what that's like. I've been humiliated and degraded before for being too much, for having ADHD, for being autistic, for wanting to be included in friend groups that didn't want me.

ken's story is a *tragedy* of a person who dared to ask for love and inclusion, who dared to ask over and over until the only option left to him was to be made into a villain for it. and instead of realizing that maybe, just maybe, this was a cry for help... that maybe, this was the last straw in a long long long line of instances of horribly cruel social bullying and humiliation.... that maybe Ken never wanted to hurt anyone, that maybe he just wanted everyone to see how much he was hurting, that maybe he never wanted power or violence, but empathy instead.... instead of considering any of at, the movie has Barbie and her friends *laugh* at his suffering, and watch him on the brink of tears with the grim satisfaction of a bully that got away with it.

i came away from this movie thinking, what should Ken have done better to avoid this? what could he have done to be truly accepted? what was the "good" choice, if what he actually chose was actually so evil?

and the answer is, nothing. he was spending his entire life serving and worshipping a group that wanted him quiet, polite, and dead. from personal experience, this is the kind of friend group that would probably find it at best a personal irritant, if he had attempted suicide.

this movie was so hurtful. it really felt like they said "people like you are better off dead or behaving like perfect mindless dolls, because when you try to get what you want, you just bother the people around you." conform or else.

i know people get icky when people claim that misandry exists, but.... consider the plot of this same movie, if ken had been one of barbie's girl friends. or if ken had been a trans girl. or hell, even a trans girl egg. i just see people only praising this movie and... no one seems to acknowledge how unnecessarily, brutally cruel they were to Ken, and how little empathy he received both from the general audience and from the writers and Barbie herself.