Barbie (2023)
dir. Greta Gerwig
Rated: PG-13
image: ©2023 Warner Bros. Pictures
An Open Letter to a few of Barbie’s Haters:
Hi, I’m a straight, white, cis-gender Ken. We all know that straight, white, cis-gender Kens have one super power: explaining things to people. When we aren’t out riding horses or beaching each other off, we Kens wield this powerful and unquestionable skill for the benefit of the Barbies in our lives. The most passionate of us scale this up, so as to explain things to millions of Barbies at once by gaining a modicum of influence in cultural, governmental, and/or media circles.
Instead of using my super power to enlighten Barbies about how amazing The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II are – don’t get me started on the travesty that is The Godfather: Part III – I’ve decided to use my precious gift to explain a few things to some Kens out there who just don’t get the new Greta Gerwig movie Barbie.
I’d like to start with someone who (tragically) represents me as a citizen of the great – unless you’re factoring in our troglodytic political landscape, which I do – state of Texas. He’s one of my two US Senators, Rafael Edward Cruz, known not-so-affectionately by me as Tedward.
Tedward, whether you were skipping off to a Mexican resort while your constituents froze during the 2021 Texas winter power crisis – 246 fucking people died, Ted! – or siding with the fascists who attempted an overthrow of the United States government via a coup d'état, you have proven that you know jack shit about absolutely nothing. Your pointless, culture-war-issue-du-jour of late has been braying into the wind about how Barbie is nothing short of Chinese Communist propaganda.
You are claiming this because of a few shots in the movie depicting what is supposed to be a child’s rendering of a world map. On this obviously child-like crayon map, right off the coast of a land mass labeled “Asia”, are a series of dashes. You claim this is an unambiguous reference to the “nine-dash line” China uses on their maps to claim sovereignty over the South China Sea.
As you know, Ted, Barbie was banned by the country of Vietnam precisely because they claim the movie is Chinese propaganda due to the dashed line. A ban in the Philippines almost went into effect for the same reason. I’m not here to question the logic of foreign nations who have a long, complicated history full of political tensions with China. What I am here to do is question your sincerity for glomming on to the issue because – for whatever asinine reason – you think it will help you with your Know-Nothing base.
Ted, your base of supporters doesn’t even know what the “nine-dash line” is, at least, not before you started spouting off about it. You claim you are afraid for your daughters. You apparently think your tweens will see a few lines on a crayon map and that will lead them down a rabbit hole of collectivism. To hear you tell it, if people let their kids see Barbie, it will be only a matter of time before they swear allegiance to Chairman Mao.
After multiple examples of you trying to make this little hobby horse of yours into a global scandal, you had yet to even see Barbie. Had you put in even the very minimum effort of seeing the movie first, you would have been delighted by the veritable cornucopia of troglodyte-right triggers, any number of which would have gotten your base infinitely more fired up than a dashed line concerning people on the other side of the planet.
There is a trans Barbie in the movie Barbie, Ted. The representation of people you and your followers love to loathe doesn’t stop there. There are multiple Barbies of color. It’s true that what the movie calls Stereotypical Barbie is centered as the hero of the picture, something you actually might be able to get behind. But the core idea, that Barbie can be anything, hence so many Barbies with so many different characteristics, is something with which you could have gleefully chummed the waters to generate the hatred of people like you.
The next recipient of my missive at least saw the movie before he predictably trashed it. Ben Shapiro is a right-wing troll who supports a ban on abortion, including in cases of rape and incest. He has argued that homosexuality should not have been removed as a mental illness from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In 2015, he called a trans woman “sir” to her face and questioned her genetics. He does these sorts of things solely to stay in the news and for the admiration of his loathsome followers.
Ben, like a true jackass, you did trash the inclusion of a trans Barbie in the movie during your 43-minute tirade against it. No surprise there; you delight in mocking people who don’t conform to your narrow, hate-filled world view.
You began your review of Barbie by tossing a Barbie and Ken doll in a trashcan and, in “the most Oppenheimer fashion,” proceeded to set them on fire. (Yes, Ben, if throwing a match on a few cheap pieces of plastic makes you feel as big and strong as if you had detonated a nuclear device, please, by all means, live your truth.)
I do want to spare a kind thought for all you reactionary right-winger manly men out there, Ben. Initially, you were probably filled with glee that you could further denigrate Barbie by holding up Oppenheimer in contrast… until you actually saw it and discovered that it’s basically a repudiation of McCarthyism and red baiting, and explores the moral bankruptcy of using nuclear weapons in any scenario. As that’s a much more nuanced and contemplative take than the usual “bomb ‘em back to the Stone Age and let God sort ‘em out,” stance that people in your sphere of influence usually take, you probably recognized the strategy as a complete non-starter.
Ben, you claimed in your review that the target audience of Barbie is “seven-year-old girls.” The movie is rated PG-13, you nincompoop. Thirteen is old enough to begin wrestling with the idea that corporations aren’t people. I’m sure your head exploded when you heard that argument made so eloquently in the film.
It’s also old enough to see through your paper-thin (and willfully stupid) argument that, hey, Greta Gerwig directed this movie, and, golly, she’s a lady, and since the movie is successful, that means all women are successful. Systemic sexism and misogyny have been solved, right, Ben? That’s right up there in the pantheon of idiotic, bad-faith arguments like, “Oprah Winfrey is a millionaire; therefore, Black people have nothing to complain about.”
The last person on my list is some dude who posted a video screed on the internet about how men who see Barbie are “100% a beta.” Rae showed me this, and the stupidity here is off the charts. I won’t even bother to name this muscle dummy, but I will tell you he is an Olympic hopeful/social media influencer.
Here’s a taste of his post, “If you’re a man and you go watch the movie Barbie, you’re 100% a beta, there’s no way around it. I don’t care if your girlfriend forced you. How about you force her to watch Oppenheimer? Because that’s what real alphas would do.”
My dude, from your demeanor in the video and the vacuous fucking look on your face, I would totally believe, if you do see Barbie, that your little muscle dummy face would light up at the sight of Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House. Bro-ing down in the MDCH with all your other bros, doing kick-ass bro stuff like watching videos of horses galloping is really all we need you to do. We don’t need to hear about what makes an Alpha and what makes a Beta, mostly because that’s an idiotic metric that is totally and completely pointless.
I hope you do see Barbie eventually, Mr. Muscle Dummy. You are exactly the kind of person who needs to see it the most. Gerwig, with her writing and romantic partner, filmmaker Noah Baumbach, stress in the film’s final moments that it’s not about women being better than men or vice versa, but that we should all – ALL – be given the respect and decency to which every human being is entitled. They do so by means of the gentlest poking of fun at the patriarchy, which has cemented a male-dominated power structure that is only now, and in the most modest terms possible, starting to give way to people who have been excluded from the conversation.
Gentlemen, hopefully my preternatural skill at explaining things, a power bestowed upon me by my straight, white, cis-gender Ken-ness, has made you see the light. I want you to know that you needn’t latch on to vacuous culture war issues (Mr. Cruz), petty grievances towards anyone who questions your authority (Mr. Shapiro), or hatred of “betas” (Mr. Muscle Dummy). Instead, put your resources into tearing down a system that rewards a very select subgroup of people.
I believe in you.
You are Kenough.
Why it got 4.5 stars:
- Barbie is a triumph. It’s been attacked by right-wing testosterone worshippers, been praised by psychologists, cheered by audiences (which I witnessed firsthand), and even attacked from the left (by a woman) as doing “the bare minimum when it comes to” feminism. Methinks this means Gerwig & Co. are doing something really complex here. I loved just about every minute of it.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- Obviously, this was not a regular review, but here are a few stray observations I made from my two screenings of Barbie, in lieu of a fully-formed review:
- The “cheering by audiences” that I mentioned above came not only at the end of the movie (though it did happen then, too), but after America Ferrera’s barn burner of a speech about what is expected of women in our society.
- The 2001: A Space Odyssey opening sequence painted a smile on my face that stayed there throughout the whole of Barbie. It’s an infectiously fun movie.
- The mother/daughter relationship in Barbie has definite Lady Bird vibes. If you saw and enjoyed the former, see the latter.
- My least favorite part of the movie comes in the form of a five-minute commercial for Chevrolet during a car chase. I am fully aware that I’m making this complaint about a movie that is completely structured around a toy — as others have already observed, brace yourselves for the MCU, the Mattel Cinematic Universe — but, as a movie mobster once put it, “There’s a way to do these things, and there’s a way not to, ya know?”
- The Hollywood-golden-age-musical-influenced Ken dance-off near the end of the movie is perfection.
- I may be a Ken, but I would never — NEVER — talk during The Godfather.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- I saw this the first time as part of Barbenheimer weekend. I’d like to take a minute to express what an exciting time this is for movies. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began three-and-a-half years ago — not to mention the rise of streaming, and the fact that your viewing experience at home can now almost match that of going to the theater — the long term existence of movie theaters has been in question. What I saw on Barbenheimer weekend gave me a lot of hope and even more joy. The theater was PACKED. It felt so good to see so many people at the movies, collectively sharing the experience. I saw Barbie again the following week to refresh myself before sitting down for the “review.”