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Greta Gerwig's Barbie

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lbssb The sleepiest good boi Since: Jun, 2020 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
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#401: Jul 31st 2023 at 6:49:40 AM

I cannot see them turning around on this point. Not only is it absolutely ludicrous to try and say that the film isn't "woke" due to its content, being VERY EXPLICITLY anti-patriarchy, but their squeaky-voiced lord and savior Ben Shapiro has spent more than the runtime of the movie itself bitching about how the film isn't telling women to be opinionless sex objects.

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TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#402: Jul 31st 2023 at 7:01:24 AM

No, they're more likely to simply ignore it in the long run and keep peddling their worldview anyway.

They'll scream at it in the short term until their throats go dry, and then the next time a big feminist film comes around, they'll just be saying the same things anyway.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 31st 2023 at 7:02:05 AM

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Robbery Since: Jul, 2012
#403: Aug 3rd 2023 at 2:04:35 PM

The film really only does the same things that a lot of movies aimed at a female audience do, only more obviously and more brightly colored because it's largely a live-action cartoon (that's "cartoon" in the "broad caricature" sense).

The alt-right just can't handle it that not all movies need to be aimed at them.

ArthurEld Since: May, 2014
#404: Aug 3rd 2023 at 8:09:48 PM

That obviousness is definitely to the betterment of the movie. Because Barbie is someone who isn't dumb, just very out of her element, she's able to say things that most people internalize because they're so obvious they don't need to be pointed out.

Like the scene where Barbie and Ken point out the differences in how attractive women and attractive men are viewed. Barbie flat out stating that there is an undercurrent of violence in how she's perceived is important because it's a throw-away line that is helped by being casually said.

A lot of other movies would spend five minutes on her having to explain to Ken where that violence is coming from, how she can tell it's there, and how omni-present it is. Here it's just stated as the fact it is, and the movie keeps movie.

theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#405: Aug 4th 2023 at 10:50:14 AM

The movie isn't even anti-men. It actually portrays men as just as much victims of the patriarchy as women are.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#406: Aug 4th 2023 at 10:59:43 AM

Yeah. It's not anti-men. It's anti-Manosphere. It's literally about Ken falling down a Toxic Masculinity rabbit hole, to the detriment of both Barbies and Kens alike.

Incidentally, I'm a few days late for this but here's some number-crunching on Barbie's second weekend. Having opened at $162m domestic, Barbie fell to $93m for her second weekend, putting forward a drop-rate of 42.59%. With the drop rate typically averaging around 60% or so, 42.59% is really good. It implies very strong word-of-mouth and repeat showings.

As I always say, opening weekend take is a referendum on hype while drop rate is a referendum on quality. And audiences voting with their dollars are saying that Barbie is an incredible movie.

With regard to comparisons to Mario that were made earlier, it doesn't quite match Mario's 36.9% drop-rate. Barbie hit theaters with a stronger lead, but her drop-rate is slightly faster than Mario's and she's doing slightly worse internationally (104.2% of domestic sales versus 115%). Her second weekend is only about $650k ahead of Mario's so she should officially be pulling in less money as of third weekend, at which point the gap between them will begin to diminish.

So it's hard to say whether Barbie will be able to keep her lead all the way through to the end. But this is definitely going to be close.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 4th 2023 at 11:17:33 AM

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NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
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#407: Aug 4th 2023 at 6:48:18 PM

I feel like the idea that the movie wasn't anti-men is a reasonable take but not a particularly clear one in the context of the film itself. The ending is a bit muddled and it wasn't entirely clear to me whether we were supposed to take it at face value when Ken talks about how patriarchy kind of sucked once he actually did it or just read it as sour-grapes sulking. There's also the fact that the way the Barbies save the day is to deliberately weaponize patriarchy against men and then use the damage they caused as a window to... reinstitute the matriarchy, exactly as it was before. When the Kens try to get a smidgeon of representation in the Barbieland government they get slapped down and the narrator has a laugh about how the Kens are worse off in Barbieland than women are in the real world. Like, the whole point of Barbieland is that it's a funhouse mirror where gender politics are both reversed and more extreme than the real world. So ending on the note of returning to that system, while explicitly rejecting the idea that they could make it more equal instead feels kind of mean-spirited and I'm not sure how to square it with the message of "the patriarchy is bad for men too".

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Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#408: Aug 4th 2023 at 6:56:38 PM

That’s not what the narrator says. She says that one day Kens will have the same rights in Barbieland as women do in the real world.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#409: Aug 4th 2023 at 7:06:10 PM

Which is delightfully backhanded.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#410: Aug 4th 2023 at 7:22:28 PM

[up][up] Ouch. [lol]

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Dirtyblue929 Since: Dec, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#411: Aug 4th 2023 at 8:27:13 PM

Yeah the impression I got from the ending and the "same rights as women in the real world" quip was "Look, the Kens aren't gonna end gender discrimination and establish true equality overnight — much in the same way women haven't in the real world. They'll get there, hopefully, just like women will hopefully get there, but it's not gonna be any less slow and annoying for them than it has been for the ladies. But suddenly, violently flipping the script through toxic, radical rhetoric is worse for everyone, so ehh? Life is made of miserable little compromises like that. Welcome to reality."

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Aug 4th 2023 at 8:28:05 AM

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
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#412: Aug 4th 2023 at 9:33:11 PM

[up][up][up][up]I mean, yes, but it's presented as a punchline. It's laughing at the Kens for being oppressed in Barbieland. [up][up] literally laughed at it. It's a very weird look just after the part of the movie that's ostensibly talking about how patriarchy is bad for men and women. Is the audience supposed to understand that Kens not being equal to Barbies is a bad thing? Or are we meant to thing that matriarchal Barbieland is the way it's supposed to be, since it's the toy universe meant to be inspiring to women and girls fighting against actual patriarchy in the real world? Because if it's supposed to be bad, then that doesn't really come across, and if it's supposed to be good, then that kind of undercuts the whole "patriarchy is bad for Kens and Barbies" thing by presenting patriarchy vs matriarch as a zero-sum game.

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Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#413: Aug 4th 2023 at 10:16:35 PM

The butt of the joke isn't the Kens for being oppressed. It's the real world for being significantly lacking in equal gender rights than it claims to be. It's supposed to make the viewer go "oh nice, everyone gets equal rights- wait a second..." And therefore prod them into remembering that those who know their world is unequal are responsible for fighting for it to be fairer.

InkDagger Since: Jul, 2014
#414: Aug 4th 2023 at 11:15:41 PM

The problem is that the film's resolution to the problem is to not resolve it. The conflict does not get corrected.

Barbieland as a Matriarchy doesn't work.

Kenland as a Patriarchy doesn't work.

So to just go back to Barbieland as is with no changes or criticism is dumb. It undermines your point.

I realize what the joke was trying to do. It doesn't change that it was the wrong joke to make and not the time to make it. That kinda joke feels like it should be earlier on in the script alongside that "Oh my god, it's like the opposite of the our world" joke. It should not be in your film's climax.

Can we talk about "Barbie wins via voter suppression"? Like, I know it's framed as the Ken's being too wrapped up in their toxic masculinity to save their own asses, but it's still voter suppression and I feel like there's something to be discussed there a bit? I can't quite thread the needle on what but there's something there.

Edited by InkDagger on Aug 4th 2023 at 11:16:21 AM

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#415: Aug 4th 2023 at 11:22:08 PM

But it doesn't go back to Barbieland with no changes. The Kens are getting a lower court role that is explicitly said to lead to more social progress in the future. If the Kens are going to be equal eventually to what women are in our world now, that means there will be Kens on the Supreme Court just like they asked.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 4th 2023 at 11:22:58 AM

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#416: Aug 5th 2023 at 6:39:03 AM

Exactly. They aren't just resetting to status quo, but they also aren't doing "And then Barbieland solved sexism overnight." They hit a compromise between those two points; One that puts the impetus on the real world to figure out its own shit before expecting better of Barbieland.

Kens will have equal rights in Barbieland on the day that women have equal rights in the real world, and not a second before.

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#417: Aug 5th 2023 at 8:53:17 AM

The butt of the joke isn't the Kens for being oppressed. It's the real world for being significantly lacking in equal gender rights than it claims to be. It's supposed to make the viewer go "oh nice, everyone gets equal rights- wait a second..." And therefore prod them into remembering that those who know their world is unequal are responsible for fighting for it to be fairer.

The movie sets up the Barbies as the heroes of the story for taking back Barbieland from their oppressors, the patriarchal Kens. In the context of the narrative, they are the Good Guys. They also know that Barbieland is unequal, as it's explicitly pointed out at various points that Kens have no houses, no jobs, and no representation in government. The Barbies also hold all the power, since they changed Barbieland's constitution and reinstituted the matriarchy. But when the Kens ask for some representation — not even equal representation, just some — the Barbies immediately push back and try to get them to accept even less than the little they already asked for. The narrator points out that Kens have less power in Barbieland than women do in the real world. This is a punch line, expected to get a laugh from the audience.

So which part of "the story's heroes seize complete power, then try to avoid sharing any of it with the group the narrative has acknowledged they are oppressing, which is meant to be funny" is supposed to show the audience that "those who know their world is unequal are responsible for fighting for it to be fairer"?

But it doesn't go back to Barbieland with no changes. The Kens are getting a lower court role that is explicitly said to lead to more social progress in the future.

It's very easy to read those lines as insincere, meant to placate the Kens without actually changing anything. They ask for a seat on the Supreme Court but get offered a seat on a lower court instead. It's easy to extrapolate that out to them never actually getting around to filling that promised seat with a Ken. The narrator's line is that some day Kens will have as much power in Barbieland as women do in the real world. It's a vague, unfulfilling promise, which does nothing for the Kens that are being oppressed right now, and is easy to walk back later.

And yes, I get it. "Just like women face in real life, haha!" Except that it's not portrayed as a bad thing. It's the heroes doing it. The good guys. The people the movie just had us cheering on. It's not hard to read the movie as anti-men when the note the movie chooses to end on (at least in terms of the gender politics — the rest of the movie is about resolving Barbie's personal character arc) is "haha, the Kens in Barbieland are getting screwed even worse than women in the real world are, isn't that funny?".

To be perfectly clear: I don't think that the movie or anyone involved in making it are actually anti-men. But I do think the ending does a poor job of getting their intended themes across. It's inconsistent about portraying the Kens as analogous to women (oppressed by society, expected to be nothing more than accessories to Barbies, etc) and as just being men (oppressing women through patriarchy, deserving of being taken down a peg for women's sake, etc) and the disconnect there causes problems.

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CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#418: Aug 5th 2023 at 8:55:22 AM

I think that's the point. It suggests that, yes, we have to question it and not assume the world will get better without forcing it.

It's meant to bother the audience.

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#419: Aug 5th 2023 at 8:56:56 AM

I know, I'm saying that the movie does a bad job of accomplishing that.

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#420: Aug 5th 2023 at 10:19:35 AM

I disagree because the movie already operates on sarcasm.

ECD Since: Nov, 2021
#421: Aug 5th 2023 at 10:28:18 AM

I mean, the more you think about it, the weirder it gets? Apparently, the Kens must outnumber the Barbies? After all, there's no suggestion that they were planning to stop the Barbies from voting somehow (they clearly still have the 'right' to do so, as they do so in the climax) but the Barbies, even once unbrainwashed, need to trick the Kens into not showing up for the vote?

I was a little surprised that once everyone was freed, it wasn't just a straight vote, that come down to Allan and Midge (and maybe Weird Barbie, as she appears to lack a counterpart), as the Barbies/Kens were evenly matched?

Edited by ECD on Aug 5th 2023 at 10:30:13 AM

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
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#422: Aug 5th 2023 at 11:55:30 AM

[up][up]The problem is that the movie is quite genuine about how the patriarchy is bad and how Barbieland is better off with the Barbies in charge. You can make the argument that the audience is expected to recognize how reinstituting the matriarchy with Kens only allowed to have a token involvement is fucked up, but the movie doesn't really frame it that way.

[up]Eh, I don't think that sort of thing is a problem. Barbieland is explicitly a world that works on the logic of children playing with toys. The movie tells us what the plot stakes are, we don't need to wonder about the population ratio between Barbies and Kens or that sort of in-universe logistics.

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Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#423: Aug 5th 2023 at 12:45:54 PM

It’s pretty reasonable for the movie to expect the audience to catch that deliberately off-putting framing. Recall that this comes right after Gloria asks for a Barbie to be made that doesn’t put unfair image issues on the toy player, and the CEO of Mattel in a movie produced by Mattel says he hates that idea and only cares upon hearing it will make money. The context is there that those who ask for better face a windy road in getting there.

Robbery Since: Jul, 2012
#424: Aug 5th 2023 at 5:17:08 PM

I expect those kinds of jokes tend to fall flat with a lot of male audiences because there's already the perception among a lot of men that women often fail to recognize their own sexism. Men are (justly) hammered for their sexism because sexism against women is so systemic, but women tend to dismiss and/or laugh off instances of their own sexism against men, if they recognize it as existing at all.

eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
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#425: Aug 5th 2023 at 5:53:21 PM

You can buy a Weird Barbie now.

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.

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