Spoilers for Barbie I guess
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[ID: A letterboxd review for Barbie 2023 from mordred: “As a trans woman, there's this thing where a cis woman will try to school you about feminism. Basic stuff, 101, barebones, and you nod your head going "mhm, mhm, yep, uh huh" cuz if you try to make the conversation more nuanced and say that you're well read about feminism, there's a fifty fifty chance they'll converse with you normally, or freak out that you're a "violent male" speaking over them. And as they go, the tones they take, the words they chose, start to make you feel like they dont see you as a woman. They never overtly say it, cuz that's frowned upon, but they say all the right words to both insult you, yet make you seem insane for saying they are insulting you. That's how this movie felt to watch for me.
Having a cast like Kate McKinnon and Margot "I want to meet JK Rowling" Robbie doesn't explicitly make this movie transphobic. But, it constantly hammers the basics of feminism in and never introduces nuances. "Look! Patriarchy! Isn't Ken funny! Look, Barbie's a real woman now, so she's going to a gynecologist!" There's a joke in the middle of the movie, where a Mattel board member says "I'm a man with no power, does that make me a woman?" And, on the surface, that doesn't seem transphobic. But, also, this is how transphobes talk about us. That's how they think we are. And, in a movie that defined womanhood by going to a gynecologist office, how can I really be sure it's not a transphobic jab? Hari Nef's appearance does nothing to ease my concern.
There's another thing that irked me in this movie. At the start when Barbie starts getting "imperfections," one of her problems is she has a tiny bit of cellulite. Which, whatever! We're at the start of the journey, a lessen is going to be learned! Except, it really never gets addressed. When the mom (her name escapes me, she leaves no impression) is waking the Barbie's up and telling them what a woman is, she says something to the effect of "a woman has to try to be thin but can't call it thin they call it healthy." And, it's like, yeah that's true. But it doesn't actually address the previous issue with cellulite. It feels like, "Women are supposed to desire thinness, but the real problem is we have to call it healthy." At no point is it really said that it's ok to just be fat. And, i hear you, "There were fat Barbies!" There were conventionally attractive fat Barbies, sure, who played no real role other than background Barbie to help elevate the main Barbie.
And, that's another thing. Everyone in this movie is conventionally attractive. "Barbies are conventionally attractive!" OK, but we're making a statement about feminism and we can't get a single person that looks....ordinary? Their trans woman they got is literally a fucking model, can't let her be too mannish i guess! Or, "weird Barbie" who is supposed to be weird and ugly or whatever is just Kate McKinnon (ugh) with a haircut. She is still conventionally attractive. This is like those movies from the 90s where a ugly girl is just ugly cuz she has glasses on (which they joke about in the movie go figure). And, the movie decides to get meta and point this exact thing out. When Barbie is freaking out and calling herself ugly, the narrator (who i want to point out hasn't been heard from for the last hour) jokes about how they shouldn't have casted Margot Robbie to call herself ugly. Which, setting how tired I am of meta comedy aside for a moment, then why the fuck did you have her do that?! You realize the contradiction, so don't do it! Or better yet, address the issue! Put ordinary looking people in the movie! Make the teenager not need to be caked up in makeup! I'm not anti makeup but just let her be a teen! Let the non-Barbies just be normal people (Will Ferrell doesn't count, no one can live up to THAT beauty standard!) You realize there's an issue, so why not address it!
This movie just gives off such a harsh conservative vibe to me. That scene when they introduce the teen and she tears into Barbie and calls her a "fascist," that feels like how conservatives talk about left leaning people. Like she's some kind of caricature. And, this combined with the gynecologist ending and everything else, it just doesn't feel like a true leftist of any kind wrote this.
What was that antisemitism thing Will Ferrell did? Were we supposed to laugh at it? Was it a joke? Cuz if so then it just feels......I'm not getting into it.
And, I'm sure people reading this are tired of my ranting, so here's some stuff just about the film making aspect:
The movie looks good. The colors pop really nice. I love how when they zoom out the actors are replaced with dolls, it's a very neat touch. I think Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling did good jobs acting their roles. I don't care for the music outside of a Ken number towards the end. Most of the comedy fell flat on me, except for Ken putting on two pairs of sunglasses, that got an audible laugh. The narrator made no sense to me. She was there for 10 minutes to do jarring exposition dumps and then doesn't pop up again until the aforementioned zinger, and that's it. She's no where through out the rest. Just don't have her. Everyone knows what a fucking Barbie is. Show, don't tell.
I wish the mom and daughter had more time. They needed to be fleshed out. Their characters are hollow, barely archetypes. Neither actually had a real character arc. Just "Barbie's real? Guess our problems aren't anymore!"
A scene i really liked, and am glad I saw the movie for was at the end when Barbie walks into the void with Ruth and Barbie asks for permission to be human. I think Ruth's speech, Margot Robbie's acting, and everything else about this scene made it fantastic. It had a big Serial Experiments Lain vibe (albeit, not as smart as Lain). It was very emotional, but then it's followed by Barbie going to a gynecologist cuz she's a real woman now (puke).
My biggest problem with this movie, the jarring detail i have kinda tiptoed around is, this is a Mattel product. Mattel owns Barbie, Mattel approved of this script, the Mattel company in movie is made to look silly, but ultimately want to do good. Mattel and Barbie have been criticized for sexism for decades. This is not new. It's feminism 101. But, Mattel putting out this movie just serves to say, "haha yeah we used to be sexist, huh? It's ok we're feminist now, buy our dolls!" It's a fucking commercial using the concept of feminism to get people to buy their kids dolls. It's just bonkers to me. Some parent is going to go home thinking getting their kid a Barbie will be a good, girl inspiring move!
As a trans woman, I have a weird relationship with feminism. I'm expected to identify as a feminist when feminism has been an excuse for racism, transphobia, homophobia, fatphobia and etc since it's creation. Yeah, patriarchy sucks, yeah I want the liberation of women. But, it's hard for me to want to be a feminist when all the mainstream feminism i see is bigoted or unnuanced. If someone came out of that movie having learned something or feeling Inspired, that's great i guess. I'm just left wondering what slur Margot Robbie wants to call me.” /End ID.]
they really look at you like that.
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tell me why this budgetless gay youtube series made for fun by a group of friends has the best editing and writing of anything i’ve watched in a year.
also tell me how this single scene can contain every single one of the top three most iconic lines in history.
not to be cosmic or anything but who was i before watching this?
