Of late the analysis of the Barbie Movie has overtaken the actual reviews of the film which were middling at best. Largely I suspect it was not the hard core hammer people expected about a Doll. It is what I agree with the one of many deep dives into the film, a placement product movie about what? A Doll from the largest advertiser in the Movie, and not even a subtle one as they were also the Production funders of the film – Mattel. And advertisement that made over 1 Billion dollars this past week, so it definitely succeeded. And with that I plan on going again. I loved every pink sweet minute. It was high comedy and yes a touch of Feminism thrown in for good measure. But in my “interpretation” it was about being a Girl and becoming a Woman and when you throw away your childish things do you throw away your dreams, your hopes and just become what everyone else is or where you always different just like everyone else? As for all the “diversity” of the world of Barbie and Ken they were not unique or different in their world view and of their beliefs. This was a world that largely day to day went unchanged and the one different was relegated to the name “Weird” Barbie and lived on a hill. The other outlier, Allan, was there with Pregnant Midge as a sort of reminder that you can be different but in turn also canceled off the production line at any time for whatever reason. And with that I can say Midge clearly was an unwed Mother and perhaps Allan the only Man in the crew of Kens who for what I saw in the film were very Gay and very Porn Star like sans the equipment needed to fill the role..in other words MY PERFECT MAN! So I guess Allan was the precursor to Jeffrey Epstein and that explains quite a bit right there.
I laughed when I read the article below as this week two more analysis arrived, Barbie as Therapy and Barbie as a Subversive film with a hidden message. I cannot wait til the next comic strip movie, Nancy and Sluggo and what that means for Domestic Violence and Sexism. Or how GI Joe contributed to the Military War Culture. And again the Kens were very very Gay so I am sure that is another analysis of how the film is recruiting children to the “lifestyle.” And can I just say that is one “lifestyle” I embrace!
With Barbie being a Doll and such the world in which she lived is conducive to two factors: Money and the one who is her Guardian/Owner/Manipulator aka Child who plays with her and either chooses the accessories sold for that same Doll or in turn creates their own world, aka “Weird” Barbie. Well I would take weird any day sans the dog shitting on the carpet which was canceled due to choking hazards. Really? The shitting balls no?
Aside from America Ferrera’s monologue that is a version of the many speeches, excuses, explanations, justifications, condemnations, rationalizations I have given over my last 64 years of living as a Woman on this planet, I did not see/hear a Feminist message. I did see a message about Conformity and Consumerism and the idea that when Barbie crossed over to the “real” world the reality of how one thinks they live and the way it truly is one message; the other that conformity makes life lived by the one who is playing with you.. as the “weird” Barbie advised Stereotypical Barbie to seek upon her journey in which to explain/understand/find why and what was happening to her. And with that she found out that her Guardian/Owner/Master was in fact not a child but an Adult with all that baggage and emotions that children do not have when they play with dolls. I also think many young girls don’t have their Barbies aspire to be Pulitzer Prize Winner or Supreme Court Justices. Disco parties and Cowgirls yes.
But with that I laughed my ass off from the movie. I did not care that the Board of Mattel is not all white men wearing the same suits or that the creator of Barbie was not a kindly Matron but in real life a ball buster, or that Barbie suddenly had a working Vagina upon her arrival but sure I am sure young girls do… or not. And just like in real life the men stole the show or at least the Ken’s and Allan’s did as who did not come out of that movie and discuss the blazing hot performance of Ryan Gosling as Ken – Beach! and Micheal Cera as the doorknob Allan. Wait until the right wing finds out that a Barbie was played by a Trans woman. QUELLE HORROEUR! says French Barbie.
Column: Is ‘Barbie’ the most overanalyzed movie in cinema history? Kenough, already, pundits!
By Robin Abcarian Columnist LA Times
If you thought the smash movie “Barbie” was merely a film about a plastic doll who comes to life, boy have you not been paying attention.
“Barbie” is so much more than the year’s blockbuster movie.
It is a Rorschach blot tickling the psyches of viewers, an onion whose multiple layers offer any number of conflicting interpretations, a “Rashomon”-like experience where every viewer comes away with a different idea of what they have just seen.
In addition to blowing past the billion-dollar mark in ticket sales, director Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” has spawned a mini-industry of punditry, analysis and controversy, offering grist to almost every mainstream and specialty publication for endless takes on every possible angle.
I daresay that in its very brief life, “Barbie” has not just revitalized the color pink, it has already become the most overanalyzed movie in cinema history. “Citizen Kane” has nothing on this flick.
“Barbie,” inevitably, has sparked discussions about sex, gender and gender roles, relationships, aging, feminism and patriarchy.
The Washington Post explored Barbie’s “pornographic origin story.” The New Yorker proposed “Decoding Barbie’s Radical Pose” and also explained “Why Barbie Must Be Punished.”
In the Atlantic, a child psychiatrist opined on “What ‘Barbie’ Understands About Mother-Daughter Relationships.”
Famous feminists have weighed in.
Susan Faludi, author of 1991’s “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,” saw the film with Jessica Bennett of the New York Times and declared “Barbie” to be a movie about abortion, sort of. (Don’t forget, Barbie is an unmarried career woman with no children.)**AND FOR YEARS I BLAMED MY MOTHER.. WRONG BITCH APPARENTLY
I mean, it begins with little girls playing with dolls learning the origin story of Barbie — and the rejection of the idea that women can just be mothers,” Faludi told Bennett. “It ends with her going to the gynecologist.”
Author Mary Pipher, whose 1994 classic “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls” helped inspire Gerwig, changed her mind about the negative messages little girls get from Barbie dolls after watching the movie with a Daily Beast reporter.
“When I wrote ‘Reviving Ophelia,’ the Barbie doll personified everything I didn’t like about the idea of a woman,” Pipher said. But, she added, “Barbie has changed. If children like to play with Barbie dolls, that’s just fine with me, especially now that there’s a diverse group.”
One sub-genre of “Barbie” analysis plumbs the complexities of Ryan Gosling’s very tortured Ken, who, before Gerwig got her hands on him, was always just Barbie’s handsome bland boyfriend. (Movie tagline: “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.”)
Time magazine declares that “ ‘Barbie’ is a movie about male fragility.”
The Wall Street Journal says, “It’s a Weird Time to Be Named Ken.” (If you ask me, it’s a pretty weird time to be named Barbie too.) I have seen enough puns on his name — “Kenaissance,” “Kenpathy,” “My Kendom for a horse” to want to scream “Kenough!”
Not everyone appreciates the attention lavished on Ken. “Enough About Ken,” writes Xochitl Gonzalez in the Atlantic. “Men are not, in fact, always the center of women’s thoughts.”
Given its various themes, “Barbie,” predictably, has become part of the culture wars.
Bill Maher criticized the movie for being “preachy” and “man-hating.” Elon Musk took issue with the number of times the word “patriarchy” was uttered. Ben Shapiro set Barbie dolls on fire and tossed them into a trash can. *IRONY THERE THAT MISOGYNY AND WHITE MEN GO HAND IN HAND
A spate of stories has tried to decipher the meaning of the Allan doll, a buddy of Ken’s played by Michael Cera, who is maybe gay, maybe binary or maybe the unsung or surprise hero of the movie. *I THINK ALLAN IS CHILD MOLESTER AND TRAFFICKER..JEFFREY EPSTEIN AS A DOLL… FOLLOW THE CLUES.
And who knew the busty, long-legged blond would find herself embroiled in geopolitical drama?
Republicans — well, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz anyway — have claimed Barbie is pushing a Chinese communist agenda because a world map shown in the trailer includes what is known as the “nine-dash line,” which is used on Chinese maps to depict its territory in the South China Sea. Vietnam, which disputes China’s claims, has banned the movie entirely.
While some conservatives have complained that “Barbie” is unforgivably silent on the issues of faith and family, Christianity Today, in a piece called “Barbie and Ken Go East of Eden,” sees an opportunity to “reckon with the ‘fortunate fall.’’’ That happens when the pair leave plastic fantastic Barbie Land and end up at gritty Venice Beach, where they suddenly realize, as Eve/Barbie puts it, “I do not have a vagina and he does not have a penis. We have no genitals.”
All this, I suppose, is a way of saying that “Barbie” has something for everyone. As the movie’s logline so aptly puts it: “If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.”
Rather than read about it, you should probably just go see it.
Or, hell, go see it again.
Off the Rack Publishing 