the thing that gets me about about barbie is that barbie land wasn’t even purposefully a matriarchy, barbie land came about because of the way little girls were playing with their barbies, it wasn’t created by mattel it was created by the people using the toys, so the fact that the barbies ignored the ken’s and had girls night every night wasn’t because they had some bias against him, it was just an accurate depiction of how kids play with barbies. I had some ken dolls as a child and they were essential to the plot in the sense that of course my barbie has a boyfriend because that represented the world i saw around me, but also he didn’t have any purpose in my dream world because i was only interested in what the girls were doing because they represented me and how i wanted to be, I wanted girls night every night I wanted the girls to be president and austronauts and not because of some inherent feminist idea but because I was a girl and I wasn’t thinking about boys, ken was an accessory. this movie wasn’t made to change the world but it showed a different perspective than what we usually see which I thought was fun. Men don’t have to be the centre of all our stories and its not even because we hate them, sometimes we’re just not thinking about them
I don't know how to say this intelligently but something is really bothering me about the reviews for the barbie movie complaining that she didn't go deeply enough into feminist critique? Like,,, it's the Barbie movie. It's not Feminist Theory 402. Also, it's a movie about how women are expected to be spectacular at everything they do and how exhausting it can be to be the representative for all women when you're just one of them and people really watched that and turned around to tell Greta Gerwig that the movie wasn't enough because it wasn't perfect?
It was heartfelt and funny and silly and hot pink and that is enough!! Where is the media literacy!! You all are legitimately hurting my heart with this trash take!! It's fine to not like the movie but how come movies about the "male experience" can be about SOME men but movies about women have to be the balm AND rage AND catharsis AND call to action for every woman ever??? It's the Barbie movie!!! Not Gloria Steinem's latest manifesto!!! Let it fucking be!!!
