This post is part 3 of the barbenhimer double feature review.
Please see post:
https://lemmy.world/post/1887202
&
https://lemmy.world/post/2099301
Barbie review:
This movie isn’t hard to review. Its enjoyable to watch, funny for all ages. Just the right amount of meta and it ends on a nice warm message.
It does get a little long near the end. And if you can’t sit through “woke” movies you’re gonna have a bad time. But it is funny and weird and if you ever played with a Barbie you should def watch it. Especially if your a person with some old Barbie’s you held on too.
Spoilerzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I really enjoyed it and i might watch it again . It highlighted all kinds weird discontinued barbies and kens. Like Alan. Lmao.
There’s lotz of easter eggs and one liners me and my friends have been saying all day:
“These mojo dojo casa houses are flying off the shelves!”
“Yo let me get a brewsky beer!”
" just tell him you’ve never seen the god father "
“if you wanna beach him off, you gotta beach me off first”
And of course it has a really nice positive message for the viewer. Which make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The film actively engages with some of the more problematic things about Barbie. like Barbie’s race and the negative impacts that Barbie has had on young women.
It also does a good job dealing with how Barbie and Ken are not romantically involved.
I really liked Kens’ journey. In the Beggining He defines himself as an accessory to Barbie while actively seeking a relationship with her. One Barbie is obviously not interested in. The film takes time to breakdown this behavoir and show a positive way out for Ken. One that is based in personal growth.
Its a wacky movie, and im reading into it. You don’t have to do that. It is easy to enjoy.
Theres a lot more to mention but ill leave that to y’all.
Go check it out!
Would recommend to a friend!
The Ken puns were the highlight for me. I need “I am Kenough” hoodies in my life
For real tho. Im sure mattel will have one for $$$. If only i had self control.
I too do not have self control (I bought barbie donuts)
I’ve had some issues with it, like how the fantastical elements aren’t really well-explained or connected, and I didn’t like the superficial take on sexism and misogny (there were good bits, but everything felt so lip-service at the same time).
I know it’s a fantasy comedy based on a toy line, but it still needs to have some grounding, and I didn’t think it did it quite well as the Lego movie, for example (which I still had some questions, but it did it enough that I could carry my suspension of disbelief over).
I think the superficial nature of the overall conflict between the Kens and Barbies (and Midge and Allan) isn’t the main point of the movie. It helps to highlight certain negative aspects of the real world, but the overall journey of the movie is Stereotypical Barbie’s. You see her journey from a world where she is the epitome of perfection in her own little world, to being confronted with feelings of imperfection and self-reflection. This is reflected in Ken’s introduction of “the patriarchy” to Barbieland, and his own struggles with the inadequacies he’s always felt, being little more than an accessory to Barbie.
I am generally opposed to “woke” in the extreme sense, but I still enjoyed this movie. I actually found it to poke a lot of fun at wokeness, in a subtle way.
Protip: anytime you think using the word “woke” is appropriate for a statement take a second and describe exactly what you mean instead of using a stand-in that has no specific definition and can mean widely different things depending on the audience. If you can’t explain what you’re trying to say specifically your point isn’t worth sharing. It’s the same effect as when people use curse words as stand ins for actually communicating what they think or feel - it’s a barrier to communication and lazy.
As it stands now your comment makes no sense and doesn’t convey any of your actual thoughts on the movie. Wtf is “woke in the extreme sense” or how did the movie “poke fun” at “wokeness”.
Too many smooth brains use the word “woke” as a replacement for actually having to think about what they want to say. Don’t be a smooth brain.
Woke is a fake word made up by conservatives to make you angry. It doesn’t mean anything.
While the current definition certainly fits that description, it actually has a longer history.
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”.[1][2] Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism and LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.
The phrase stay woke has been present in AAVE since the 1930s. In some contexts, it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid-20th century by Lead Belly and, post-millennium, by Erykah Badu.
(source)
Barbie smashes the Ken-Patriarchy by literally explaining directly to every other Barbie what that means for women. It was FAR from subtle. That whole monologue from America was pretty direct.
Also, it had nothing to do with “wokeness”. None of the non-white Barbies or Kens even dealt with that. It was literally just sexism.
It worries me that you don’t think sexism is a part of anti-“wokeness”.
lol. “all men bad, powerful woman can do anything and doesn’t need help” - story falls flat because the lead isn’t vulnerable and too strong to ask for help. 🤮
did you even watch the movie?
I’ve seen what makes you cheer.
Not sure if sarcasm…
I did get a feeling of an over-simplified explanation of misogynist attitudes, and how they arise… but I think that mostly comes from the fact that at its core the movie is a comedy. It doesn’t necessarily need to explain every aspect of every concept in the movie, especially when they’re not part of the core messaging. That being the nature of how women are treated in our world, and how they are used. Both in messaging and action.
The hand-waving of the Ken-on-Ken war, and how the women triumphed by the absence of men felt a bit empty… but it also exemplifies it’s opposite (in the real world) where women have historically been kept out of high level decision making. It’s also over-shadowed by Barbie’s realization that she can’t live in that simplified world anymore. Where problems can be solved by a musical number.
