What if we told you that a seemingly innocent children's movie could harbor harmful, sexist undertones? That's exactly what we tackle today as we analyze the controversial movie Barbie. We tear apart the movie's 'girls rule, boys suck' narrative, unearthing how this message might negatively impact its youthful demographic. From its lack of substantial story to the awkward dialogue, we expose the damaging messages the movie sends, regardless of the story's last 15-minute attempts to salvage it.
Moving on, we put the character portrayals under the microscope, focusing on how Ken's character contrasts sharply with Barbie's superficial journey. We ask tough questions about the film's objectification of men, especially the shocking portrayal of Ryan Gosling's Ken. The film's PG rating adds another layer to this discussion, raising questions about its target audience and the detrimental messages it could be passing on to impressionable minds.
Finally, we don't shy away from the bigger picture, linking our critique of the Barbie movie to the societal necessity of critical thinking and acceptance. The film seems to suggest that any criticism is equivalent to being anti-feminist, a notion we contest. We also champion the importance of recognizing diverse opinions and values as integral to societal development and empowerment for both men and women.
So, buckle up as we embark on this eye-opening journey, scrutinizing what lies beneath the surface of seemingly harmless entertainment.
What if we told you that a seemingly innocent children's movie could harbor harmful, sexist undertones? That's exactly what we tackle today as we analyze the controversial movie Barbie. We tear apart the movie's 'girls rule, boys suck' narrative, unearthing how this message might negatively impact its youthful demographic. From its lack of substantial story to the awkward dialogue, we expose the damaging messages the movie sends, regardless of the story's last 15-minute attempts to salvage it.
Moving on, we put the character portrayals under the microscope, focusing on how Ken's character contrasts sharply with Barbie's superficial journey. We ask tough questions about the film's objectification of men, especially the shocking portrayal of Ryan Gosling's Ken. The film's PG rating adds another layer to this discussion, raising questions about its target audience and the detrimental messages it could be passing on to impressionable minds.
Finally, we don't shy away from the bigger picture, linking our critique of the Barbie movie to the societal necessity of critical thinking and acceptance. The film seems to suggest that any criticism is equivalent to being anti-feminist, a notion we contest. We also champion the importance of recognizing diverse opinions and values as integral to societal development and empowerment for both men and women.
So, buckle up as we embark on this eye-opening journey, scrutinizing what lies beneath the surface of seemingly harmless entertainment.
Hey everyone and welcome to Movies Worth Seeing and today we're taking apart Barbie.
Speaker 2:I know you're excited about this.
Speaker 1:Whenever you question whether or not I love you, I'm just going to say I watched Barbie twice and that should be. That should tell you everything.
Speaker 2:You know that you did it for the good of the people as well. You needed to give them a review.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to watch this twice. I didn't want to watch this once.
Speaker 2:Well, the story behind watching it twice, for those of you listening at home. We were in Rome waiting for our flight. It had some hours to kill, so we went to the cinema but we had to leave 15 minutes before the ending to get to our flight back to Sydney. So then we had to go again this week to see it for the second time because we had a hunch that the 15 minutes that we missed had some important points that wrapped up the movie.
Speaker 1:There was hope that the last 15 minutes saved this trash, but it didn't.
Speaker 2:It went away to saving it. When we left, there was no hope. We left kind of just when everything was falling apart. The kens were losing their minds, Barbie was crying, there was a lot happening and we left and we just thought this movie is terrible.
Speaker 1:I was wondering when will this movie end, because for a two hour movie it feels like it goes the same length as Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 2:That's just because you weren't enjoying it, do you? It only went, I think, for an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:I think every scene in this movie should be trimmed by like five minutes.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm not going to lie and the reason I'm on here is so that we can bring that feminine balance perspective. I know that if you had your way you'd just talk trash on it for 40 minutes. But look, there are some positive things about the movie and the ending, I feel, does go away to try and salvage some of the damaging messages that it does portray, especially given that children are going to watch this with a pretty uncritical, lack of critical thinking eye and they're going to absorb some of the messages that are done in tongue and cheek and done because they're trying to be ironic and for children it's just going to be lost in them. They're just going to look at this movie. They're going to be like girls rule, boys suck, they suck, and that's not really feminist.
Speaker 1:Girls rule, boys rule. That's what I felt. This movie, with that same tone of little kid on the playground trying to be like you're a boy, but you have cuties and I'm a girl, so I'm cool. That's the same tone that this movie had throughout the whole movie. It was written by a child but yet somehow not written to appeal to children, because even children are going to be like this is so boring. What are they talking about?
Speaker 2:Look, some of the colours were very flashy and fun. I used to play with Barbies when I was little and seeing Barbie wake up and be in the fun house and everything's perfect and fun there is a part of every little girl who's growing up. Playing with Barbies that kind of is like, yeah, that's cool, I want to wake up in a sparkly bed and I want to go to the beach all day. But I think what's kind of problematic about this movie is that everyone's talking about it as if it's it's feminist, but I still think that it has some very problematic messages about women and I guess we can talk a little bit about this as we get into it. But yeah, I think, while it's a fun movie to watch and a lot of you know I know there's a divided audience. A lot of people are like, yes, this is a great movie, and a lot of people are like this is a terrible movie. I think, regardless of whether you find it fun, there are still some problematic things about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually had an idea. Just spare the moment, let's call this a top five cringe lines from Barbie yeah, this will be good for like TikTok and all that crap. Top five cringe lines of dialogue from Barbie.
Speaker 2:Number five yeah, I'm a man with no power. Does that make me a woman? No, that's gotta be number one.
Speaker 1:That has to be number one.
Speaker 2:I can't do the minota.
Speaker 1:Oh, ok. Number five when the mother is talking to her daughter and she says, of course the dad doesn't feel any anxiety, he, the child, takes it all out on me.
Speaker 2:They didn't take it out on the dads.
Speaker 1:They never take it out on the dads.
Speaker 2:Whoa, that's saying a lot. Yeah, I felt that was a bit aggressive. I think that little line kind of captures how the movie is really just looking at the worst of current society in men and the dynamics between men and women. It's not really taking into account any progress that's been made. I don't think the reality is that men are not stressed about their children and that their children don't complain to them or create anxiety for them. So yeah, good one, that's a good cringe moment.
Speaker 1:Because the film needed to attack dads as well, because dads are men, so we have to attack dads. Number four when Ryan Gosling's Ken is talking, when he's discovered the patriarchy in reality, in the real world, after they escaped Barbie land, he says to one of the corporate guys that he applies for a job and he says to him I'm a man, shouldn't I just have this job? And then the guy's like no, it doesn't work that way. And he's like you guys are doing a horrible job with the patriarchy. And he says we're still doing the patriarchy, we're just a bit more subtle about it. He says something like we're a bit more covert or like subtle about the patriarchy.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because it's stupid. Men don't talk like that, it's just dumb. They're trying to say at one point the reality of Barbie world is made out to be a matriarchy. When we go to the real world they exaggerate the fuck out of all sexism in the real world to make it look like it's Barbie level of of a patriarchy where men are completely dominating women. And I just don't know what the real world that they're trying to present. I don't know where they're going with it, because it doesn't feel like reality, because there's no subtlety in any way. None of the men talk like that.
Speaker 2:I think that line for me obviously is trying to point to the fact that people in this reality can't get away with just blatantly being a sexist anymore, especially in corporations. But that character is just cheekily saying, hey, like we're still doing it, we're just doing it in a way that no one can really see it. It is confusing because we just saw a scene where it is really obvious and then we just saw a scene. There's a scene later where Mattel is saying we hired a woman 50 years ago and we had another woman a couple of years ago. So don't say that we don't hire women, but it's like a boardroom for these men, so they're not actually doing it that well.
Speaker 1:I looked up the CEO, the board of Mattel, and there's five women and six men on the board and the CEO for like 30 years, was Ruth, the creator of Barbie. So what the hell are they trying to achieve? They're criticizing Mattel, but Mattel is part of this movie, so I don't understand what the point was of that.
Speaker 2:Mattel is the winner of this movie. This is such a clear product placement movie that's trying to redefine the narrative of Barbie because, let's face it, there are other dolls now and Barbie was probably becoming a little bit irrelevant and we're all progressing and we don't subscribe to the ideal of woman that Barbie is representing anymore and Mattel was probably like oh no, we have to make Barbie empowering. So let's make a movie and get everyone excited about what Barbie represents empowerment. And I think they are the winners of this because Barbie stocks probably flying, I mean from the profits of the movie, I guess.
Speaker 1:But as far as their image and the company's look, you just said that the company is this sexist, misogynistic society of a company that you make out. The company stole the idea of Ruth, practically imprisoned her in a little cubby house in the Mattel corporation. She's a slave where she has to drink tea all day and just conveniently pop out of nowhere when the story wants her to, and I'm like she was the CEO for 30 years. So it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and will ferrell was not a very stable character number three could be all of will ferrell's lines in the entire movie. The line you said, though, where he's like oh my god, I'm not racist and I'm not sexist, I'm the son of a mother. I'm a mother of a son.
Speaker 2:Well, that's speaking to that thing of like I'm not racist but because I have a friend who's this and I have a, I'm not homophobic because I have a gay friend and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:But for the script to make will ferrell not funny, that takes a lot of non talent. It takes a shitload of horrible talent, no non existent talent, to be able to write a script where even someone as talented and funny as will ferrell cannot make it work.
Speaker 2:There was a funny bit, though, where he's like trying to catch barbie when she's trying to run out and escape, and then he's trying to grab him. He's trying to get to us, so he's like I'm going to go over the cubicle, it's much faster and then he gets caught.
Speaker 1:The part when the barbie movie becomes Scooby Doo, with people just like trying to catch barbie. And barbie can run in high heels or whatever, but men in suits just fly across the room and can't reach her.
Speaker 2:And then she can get out of the doors without a card, but they're like, oh god, we can't get out without our key cards, even though they could have stepped over the barrier. I found that really funny as well. Maybe I haven't lowered threshold for you.
Speaker 1:You have a higher threshold for cringe than me.
Speaker 2:Number two. What do you think number two is?
Speaker 1:Number two maybe the beach off thing. So every character keeps saying like you want to go, bro, you want to beat you off. And then they just keep saying you want to beat you off, I'll beat you off. Well, I'll beat you off at the same time and you get it. It's like masturbating. It's so not funny.
Speaker 2:The high barbie thing got a bit much too. High barbie, high barbie, high barbie, high barbie. I was like, ok, all right, that's enough, that's enough, we get it. Everyone's called barbie, everything's uniform. There's no variety, we get it, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:And then number one cringiest line from barbie is I'm a man with no power. Does that make me a woman?
Speaker 2:And I know the part that really annoyed you about this is that a woman made a movie. We're living in a world where women have a lot of power and it's very dismissive of the fact that a woman made this movie and has influence.
Speaker 1:Before we even sat down for the podcast, you even said it's offensive to men and women.
Speaker 2:Well it is. Yeah, I know it's trying to be funny. I know it's trying to be self-aware. It's trying to say like, haha, in the past, men that don't have power are just as bad as a woman and that's why the worst thing can be called is a girl. But for a little person that's watching that, they're just going to hear it. They're not going to understand the context of why it's supposed to be ironic, they're just going to go. What do you mean?
Speaker 1:You know, when you hear something really cringy and you feel it like knots in your stomach, like that was just poor taste. That's what I felt when I heard that.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you've missed one of the cringe moments Honourable mention. Honourable mention, oh, that one where I think they're at the Supreme Court of all the women and then that lawyer woman is staying there and she's like I'm a woman, I can hold logic and judgment, I can hold logic and emotion, and it does not diminish my power. That was a cringe moment for me.
Speaker 1:But like those lines. Yeah, that is a.
Speaker 2:That was a cringe line, it's a good point, but it's a cringe moment, but all the Barbies in the movie.
Speaker 1:They just like that and it's just the rider's voice. It's so obvious. It's just the rider's voice being like. Because I'm a woman, I can hold emotion and logic, I can multitask, I am comfortable with my emotions and blah, blah, blah and all this crap and it's like who are you talking to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like even saying it or trying to make the point is yeah, of course we can hold logic and emotion. I think that we're a little bit past that and for anyone that says, oh no, there are still people in the world who don't have that kind of power or there still isn't that understanding, this movie is like a very heavily Western values based. Let's not pretend that we're this movie representing all the women in the world, because the reason Barbie is going on this journey is because she's upset about getting cellulite. So she, she starts this journey because she's like I don't want to have serious thoughts, I can't be pretty and have serious thoughts about death and life and meaning and I don't want cellulite and the worst thing that could happen is being ugly. So she goes on this journey and then towards the end, you realise that she starts crying because she, she doesn't know where she fits in or she doesn't think she's pretty anymore.
Speaker 2:And there's this really rousing speech that's everyone's talking about as being really empowering from the other main character. Who does this speech about? Like all the issues of women and why it's so hard to be a woman. And I'm just like there are women in other countries, right, that would look at that and they'd just be like is that what you're upset about? Really You're upset about those things? Well, we're upset because we still don't have the right to do anything in our countries. We still are getting human trafficked, we don't have any rights, and so I do think that in some ways it's yes, it's depicting the struggles of the modern woman and how there's all this social pressure right, but social pressure and social expectations is almost like the luxury of being in a free society for those women, when there are other women that are really still struggling with the basics, and I just feel like the Bible movie doesn't really acknowledge that at all. It's just like I'm empowered because I can cry.
Speaker 1:I don't know. The movie just comes across like a spoiled brat complaining that they didn't get a toy from them, that their mum didn't buy them a toy. So they make a whole movie just whinging about how entitled and spoiled they are. The person who wrote this greater girl wig. You directed this. You wrote this, so what are you whinging about? I'm so oppressed that I made a hundred million dollar movie A billion now.
Speaker 1:And made a billion dollars. Look at how oppressed I am. She'll probably still winch that she's oppressed even after the movie. I can't take the holy woke anymore.
Speaker 2:He's upset.
Speaker 1:ladies and gentlemen, I can't take it.
Speaker 2:Was there anything you liked about the movie? You liked something I know you did. You told me.
Speaker 1:Production design in the first 20 minutes looked good.
Speaker 2:You liked Ryan Gosling.
Speaker 1:Look, ryan Gosling scraped the bottom of the barrel as far as he made dialogue work due to his just absolute commitment. He's so funny that even though I was like listening to the dialogue and I was like, oh, this is so cringe, he still made me laugh. That guy deserves an Academy Award for making any of this funny.
Speaker 2:He probably will get one out as well. He was very good and I have to say that like watching Ken and how he was deliberately being overlooked like just Ken you know, I'm just Ken that moved the song so good, depicting that.
Speaker 1:Actually that was one good moment, was that song?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a catchy song. I know you've listened to it since.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have listened to it. I do like the song. It brings up something that if this movie just had one simple character, arc or plot line, if it was simply just focusing on Barbie adjusting to being a human, something like that, from going into the real world, and then Ken's subplot about him being insecure because he feels like he needs to be with Barbie because it's Barbie and Ken, then I could get behind it. But it just gets into this whole. It just feels like a blender of all these different rough ideas of Greta Goh. We've just been like all right, we hate men. Matriarchy good, patriarchy, bad. Men are insecure. Men are incels. The Godfather is bad and this movie is bad and men always want to show women how to play sports.
Speaker 2:I loved that little one touch.
Speaker 1:It's like she wrote this movie. I don't know if she has a husband, but if she has a husband it feels like I put all my frustrations with my husband in this movie, in the script. That's what it feels like.
Speaker 2:I think something you said earlier was before this podcast, like after the movie when we were chatting was that there were so many issues that you couldn't really fully explore one or two of them and it probably would have been more effective to not try to make so many points at once because I think some of them were lost. And, yeah, especially for a younger audience. I just keep thinking about that scene. All the Barbies are trying to take back the power. At the start, at the end, their massive plan to re-empower women and win back the Constitution is to act dumb and helpless, to distract the men and pretend to listen to them.
Speaker 1:So patronizing.
Speaker 2:Then, once the men feel like they're important, deliberately turn them against each other, using their jealousy and playing on the insecurity.
Speaker 1:The movie has to explain all of these messages explicitly. When they talk about the plane, they say we'll turn them against each other because they're petty and jealous.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:As men are so jealous and insecure that all it takes is for a woman to listen to a guy play Rob Thomas, and then they'll get up, go to the other guy and all the guys will be like, oh, we're going to go to war now.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it really didn't make men or women look good in that scene, because it's basically saying the way to win is to play your femininity against men, play dumb and then make them deliberately jealous.
Speaker 1:It's telling little girls to weaponize their own sexuality in order to turn men against each other.
Speaker 2:Because that's true power. And look, I understand the movie didn't mean that in the end, because by the time you get to a few scenes down the track, there's this rousing speech by Barbie about how Ken needs to find himself and that he's not defined by all the things he thinks he's defined as as he can. A child's attention span isn't going to be able to take in 20 minute scenes that are apart from each other and go hang on a second. That scene wasn't really saying that, because now Barbie's saying this and actually men and women are friends and they both need to be empowered. A little child's brain is not going to be able to work that out. They're just going to remember that scene of like oh power, I know how to be powerful. I'm going to play my sexuality and weaponize it against the men, and that's how we win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not going to remember what they heard, they're going to remember what they see. And what they saw in that scene was the women just getting up moving to other kens and the jealousy that it caused. And that it was deliberate and that it was empowering the women to do that to the men.
Speaker 2:Now I understand in a way the movie's like trying to show that distraction is a tool used by governments to win votes. The media is often using distraction tactics to win constitutional votes and that's why, especially in America, there's so much focus on like getting everyone to vote, because if they use distraction techniques they can actually get certain demographics of people to just not vote or forget to vote or be somewhere else conveniently. I think that it's mentioning that in a subtle way and also sometimes I was thinking hang on, is this movie really clever and actually presenting the kens the way that women have traditionally been? Ken only has a good day if Barbie looks at him.
Speaker 2:How many years has there been the kind of narrative that a woman's worth is based on whether the men value her? A girl's happy if the man texts her and if anyone doesn't text her, she's not happy. I do wonder if the movie's flipped its genders on their head so that we can get that discomfort of feeling for the kens the way that women have traditionally kind of been forced into feeling. And even myself I'm like maybe that's what the movie was doing, but it's still damaging. It's still a damaging message.
Speaker 1:And it still doesn't fix the issues of the blatant, just patronizing, cringy virtue signalling when Barbie and Ken go to the real world. It still doesn't fix that they have the men at the construction site saying, hey, babe, you're an object, I want to hold you against you, so I can feel you and like the other construction worker, he might as well just yell down I want to have sex with you.
Speaker 2:There are no children listening.
Speaker 1:It's damaging because young girls could watch this and be like, oh, that's reality, that's the real world. So do I stay away from construction sites? Are men going to ogle me and want to slap my ass when, in California of all places, for them to do that scene, that was rich.
Speaker 2:Well, look, I think and we've talked about this as well there is a time where women couldn't you couldn't as a woman walk past a construction site without expecting a whistle or a long pause watching you, someone saying something to you. I can remember even five years ago, or five to 10 years ago, you couldn't walk past a group of men and feel like something's not going to be said to me. That's the reality. I think post-metru and more now, things are a bit different. I personally now feel like I can walk comfortably past a construction site and no one's going to say anything to me, cause men are scared to death of women now.
Speaker 2:So I think that's the issue. I think like this movie might have been like super progressive five or 10 years ago. I just think that now it's clear like women are getting power. Women are doing really well and I think there's a lot of literature to show that in some ways women are thriving. And yes, there's still a long way to go in terms of institutionalized sexism. But actually feminism really is about men and women doing well and there's a lot, a lot of people that recognize men are getting hit hard by the lack. The patriarchy doesn't serve men either, and men are struggling with mental health. They are struggling with empowerment. I actually think today if Ken was walking down the road in those clothes, barbie would get away with it and be fine, and it would be Ken that would actually receive roasted, the flak for wearing something like that, walking past construction workers.
Speaker 1:I personally think what Barbie says in that moment. In that scene as well, I'm sensing undertones of violence.
Speaker 2:Rapey.
Speaker 1:I know, but I just find it stupid.
Speaker 2:You hated it in all those moments where they just stated the obvious, like I know that I'm just a girl, I'm just a Barbie, so I shouldn't be having conjectures that are based on an adjacent reality. Whatever that sentence is that she says.
Speaker 1:Like that, those type of lines How's that targeting children or appealing to children when they talk that way?
Speaker 2:Well, those bits are for adults and those bits, I think that magic show don't tell is like a really effective film technique and this film just like ignores that and is like I'm just going to tell you what I'm trying to say here.
Speaker 1:This movie is just tell everything that everyone is ever thinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like trying to be clever, but the clever part would be showing it in a clever way and not just being like I'm going to insert a line here that forces you to get my point without really bothering you to show you that in an elegant way. Oh, can I do a top five thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Top five things that are really not that feminist at all.
Speaker 1:Okay, top five things that are unfeminist about Barbie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in a movie that claims to be really feminist, is the context right and you can disagree with me.
Speaker 1:Count them down, babe. Oh sorry, I can't say babe.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can say babe.
Speaker 1:No, according to Barbie, we can't say babe, that's not feminist.
Speaker 2:Let's just do the five. So one of them was about I don't know. They talked about like pregnant Barbie. They said pregnant Barbie, you can't have a pregnant Barbie. That's just weird. They said it was discontinued. I'm like why there is no explanation as to why pregnant Barbie is weird. Why is that weird?
Speaker 1:Who said it?
Speaker 2:One of the Barbies was like oh, pregnant Barbie, that's just weird.
Speaker 1:The narrator said pregnant Barbie was discontinued.
Speaker 2:That's right. I don't understand why and it's not explained.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make sense anyway, because there's a line earlier in the film with the narrators saying that girls didn't want to play with dolls because they don't want to be mothers or whatever.
Speaker 2:Right, maybe it's something around. They didn't want young girls to aspire to be pregnant, something like that, anyway.
Speaker 1:I mean, isn't that unfeminist in itself, because you're telling girls that they can't be mothers or that they shouldn't aspire to be mothers because it's the traditional way? But what if a woman wants to be a mother?
Speaker 2:Right. That's why I just think it was like a weird. It was just a weird throwaway thing that I just think needed a little bit more explanation because it didn't make sense to me how that was fitting in a story that's trying to be feminist or like okay, what's that?
Speaker 1:Number four, just say like number four.
Speaker 2:Number four was I wish I knew that, ladies. I think she was like the Spanish lady, the main character, other than Barbie.
Speaker 1:We don't even know her name.
Speaker 2:Okay, the mother. So she was obviously a just a grandmother, didn't have a good relationship with her daughter anymore and she was like I'm just a boring mom with a boring job, with a daughter who hates her. Like I'm going on this Barbie adventure and I was just like, look, I just don't really see how saying that someone's a boring mom is a feminist comment. I think again we're past the stage of saying that it's not feminist to just to be a mother, and I think it's again offensive to women to say just a mother or even to say that a mother has to be boring and she's not saying it has to be boring, but just even representing that character. Yeah, I just don't feel like it's a very inspiring message for women to hear that, to see that. So I don't really understand how that is an inspiring feminist message to kind of, yeah, recreate that narrative of just that being a mother is just being a mother or that it's boring.
Speaker 1:I just don't feel it undervalues, dismisses the role of a mother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I actually think true feminism is about making choices that work for you, and I don't think it's feminism to just act like the mother role is somehow not valuable or not worthy or something to be dismissed or scoffed at, or there's something gross about it. Life has to end. No, it doesn't. It's an archaic way of viewing motherhood. As modern women, we can do much better than just fulfilling that stereotype of the boring mother. It doesn't have to be like that, in my opinion. So I wasn't thrilled about that depiction.
Speaker 1:What are we up to? Number three Number three.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so that same character. She was a super sweet character, the main lady, the Spanish lady. She said something about ordinary Barbie. She's like let's make an ordinary Barbie who's just trying to get through the day and I'm like awesome. But again she's just on this massive speech about how life is so hard for women and then if it's just as hard for a doll who's just representing a woman, then everything's just screwed and everything's so hard.
Speaker 2:But actually I think what the message needed to be is like a doll does not ever, ever, ever represent a woman. A doll cannot represent a woman. It cannot represent the complexity of a woman. It doesn't matter how many Barbies you make, doesn't matter what they're called. Even trying to define that an ordinary Barbie is a type of woman, it is going to exclude certain women. It is going to limit what a woman can be. Just by saying that that is an ordinary Barbie. I just feel any attempt to define the struggles of womanhood and expect that a doll can capture that is ridiculous. You can't define what a woman is in a doll. A kid just can't.
Speaker 2:You, can you can Do you mean can?
Speaker 1:Can't, oh can.
Speaker 2:Canf, I am canf.
Speaker 1:That was an okay joke, All right. What was your number one?
Speaker 2:We skipped number two.
Speaker 1:Did we.
Speaker 2:I just talked a lot about number three and four.
Speaker 1:All right, number two non-feminist moments.
Speaker 2:I feel like weird Barbie being called the weird Barbie. Like I know they apologize it for a later, but I'm like what's so weird about her? She's just got short hair. Like sure she had drawing on her face but she didn't. Later in the movie she was just like smart, wise, had answers to questions, accepted people that were on the fringes. I don't understand how she's a weird Barbie.
Speaker 1:There was something she said, though, that was like you either become really weird or you're brainwashed. Do you remember that line?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That was a stupid line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, it's just saying like you're this or you're that and I think any attempt to just say that these are the two options. And that's what the movie does over and over again. It says men can either be super violent or submissive. They can be over-dominating or submissive.
Speaker 1:They're either bros or they're insecure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like where's the middle ground?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're rapists or they're incels. There's no in-between, there's no gray area in this movie. Everything is just black or white.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if I was to think of number one and I will get to stuff that I did like about the movie too, but number one, I think again it kind of links number three.
Speaker 2:But the fact that, like, if stereotypical Barbie is supposed to represent the stereotypical, if Barbies represent women and stereotypical Barbie is supposed to represent like a stereotypical woman and her having serious thoughts and her having thoughts about death or anything serious, is a problem and the world is melting when she has these complex thoughts.
Speaker 2:And even later, oh my gosh, I'm just remembering something as I'm speaking, when they're talking about this other Spanish lady, the main character, being weird and twisted and saying that she's dark and she's got all these thoughts so she doesn't fit the mould of being a woman. And then, in order to integrate and deal with all of this, they decide to make a whole list of Barbies with mental health issues and they have depression Barbie and they represent depression Barbie as somebody who is eating on the couch and wearing tracks, pants for seven days, checks the Instagram all the time, and I just thought again, it's just defining and a little bit ridiculous. There are plenty of high functioning people with depression. There are plenty of ways that people can have mental health disorders where they don't look like that or act like that. Again, I think it's not a very liberating message to kind of reduce a woman's experience to that.
Speaker 1:Do you think that the final scene could be considered anti-feminist?
Speaker 2:Okay, describe which part you mean.
Speaker 1:Well, okay. The movie ends with Barbie going to the gynecologist, so we're supposed to understand that now she has a vagina.
Speaker 2:Well, she's become a human.
Speaker 1:Because she's become a human. It's not explained well at all. It's never explained.
Speaker 2:I think what's cute is that Ruth tries to explain it in their Dumbledore moment, like Dumbledore, harry moment, where they're in this grey cloud. She's saying you have a choice you can go back to Bible and or you can come into the real world and embrace humanity. And that's cute because she's like choosing imperfection over perfection. And that's liberating because, yay, we're all human and we're imperfect and even someone that's perfect would choose it. How liberating.
Speaker 1:So you don't consider it anti-feminist that like she becomes liberated at the end by going to the gynecologist, so she's now defined by her female genitals.
Speaker 2:Interesting. I saw it as I mean, I was expecting her to get a job, because that's usually like okay, she's rejected. The story of I have to end up with a guy, my programming was like, okay, the next thing is like to choose the career over the guy. So I was expecting her to go for like a job interview. But then she's obviously going to the gynecologist, which I saw is kind of cute because she's taking interest in her body and she's obviously thinking about her own health. But I can, I can see the whole the thought of her being defined by her genitalia in that moment. Yeah, so I thought it was an interesting ending. It didn't say that much to me really.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Except that she's taking responsibility for her, her sexual health or her personal wellbeing, which is good, I guess.
Speaker 1:You know, someone brought up to me. They were like I thought this movie would be fun and charming, like disenchanted. Did you ever say disenchanted?
Speaker 2:No, really Should we watch it.
Speaker 1:Well, it'd be better than this. Yeah, it's like Cinderella. I think it's Cinderella. It's one of the Disney princesses essentially escaping Disney in like animated, and going into the real world and her and the prince and all the other characters go in the real world and it's like a fishy out of water kind of story. It's what this could have been.
Speaker 2:Should we look at the camera, babies? That where the people are. Hey people, sorry.
Speaker 1:I just like looking at you. Yeah, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:Where I see love, she sees a friend.
Speaker 1:You want to beat you off.
Speaker 2:So yeah, disenchanted, better Is that.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean, there's lots of things I'd rather watch or do over this film.
Speaker 2:Does it? Yeah, you saw it twice For you. Hey, I was saying it for you so that we could do this. Yeah, that's love, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Didn't work out well for me on my end.
Speaker 2:Look, I've got to say disenchanted, and with everybody falling in love. I don't remember, but that was one good thing about Barbie.
Speaker 1:That disenchanted has a much simpler message and it was before the woke era of Hollywood, so I doubt it went down the whole path of this bullshit went through. I doubt that the princess goes to the real world and all the construction workers are like hey, baby, take off that dress and let me have sex with you. I don't think that happens in disengaged.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think. It sounds like it's more in for children. Look, I have to say it was a good message how Bobby didn't end up, because even will ferrell, he goes. Okay, we need an ending, right, the ending. All right, bobby and Ken end up together. That's the ending.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this movie is so lazy that it just has characters announce what the ending should be. They just go. What should the ending be, guys, I don't know what should we end up with Bobby and Ken together? And then the characters are fighting over the ending of the movie and I'm just like just end, just end.
Speaker 2:There were some bits that did drag on a little bit. What did you think of the character Alan?
Speaker 1:He was kind of useless, pointless, don't know what they were trying to communicate with that character.
Speaker 2:I think he represented a gay guy, don't you think? Or like, just like a non-defined, you know, a man that isn't masculine and is a little bit of a question mark.
Speaker 1:Oh, because he was the only good guy.
Speaker 2:No, because he was the only one that wasn't called Ken.
Speaker 1:So the movie's trying to say that gay guys are the only good guys, because heterosexual men obviously rapists and serial killers.
Speaker 2:Ken was heterosexual and he can I tell you what, for those of you at home in Seoul, means.
Speaker 1:Involuntarily celibate. Yeah, so like a guy that can't is having trouble trying to have sex with women.
Speaker 2:Because they don't. They're not interested.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the women aren't interested, because they're like low value, whatever. Whatever stereotypical thing you think. They live in their basement, they never coming out, they play World of Warcraft all the time, whatever kind of stereotype.
Speaker 2:Okay, One of the most touching, moving moments of the whole film for me. Do you want to know what it was? Was it Ken it was a Ken moment oh.
Speaker 1:I am Ken enough, was it that?
Speaker 2:It was the moment. Oh, it gets me now when I think about it. It was when Ken and Barbie fighting. You know, she's come back and he's basically I can't remember exactly what happens, but he calls out and says to her you failed me, right.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, that actually yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're kind of fighting and saying, like Barbie was saying, I failed the world, I failed the world and Peter Huck has failed some people. Blah, blah, blah. And then Ken just breaks down and he's like no, you failed me and I just got goosebumps and you could just see his pain in that moment, the browness and the dismissiveness and the selfishness and all the stuff that he was doing. It was because he was so hurt that she didn't value him and didn't respect him and didn't think he was significant. And I thought that was the most powerful part of the movie. That was really showing the crux of the problem here that when men and women don't value each other and respect each other, each of them are going to do crazy stuff that is just going to cause hurt and pain for everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can get behind that message. That's a good message that was lost in the shuffle of all this other crap. But it's buried under all this cringe dialogue and manhating moments and womanhating moments. And yeah, it's just buried underneath there. But like that's why I said to you, if they made a Ken movie and it was just like that story, that could have been interesting.
Speaker 2:Do you think people would have an issue with you saying that the Barbie movie should have been a Ken movie?
Speaker 1:No, because I'm saying that because Ken was the only fun, interesting aspect of the whole movie was Ken. He was the only interesting character for me because there was somewhere for the character to go and to learn. And he was more endearing because of Ryan Gosling. He was likable, he was sympathetic, whereas I didn't care about Barbie's journey or struggles at all. I didn't care when the corporation was chasing her down, when they said to her we want to just put you in a box. I didn't care about anything she was going through.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, her journey wasn't that substantial, to be honest. I mean you feel sorry for her because she's upset, but she doesn't want cellular, she doesn't want to have thoughts of death. She's having to face things that are human, but she's really only scratching the surface. They're very, very small things that she's having to deal with. Obviously she has to deal with being thrown out of a house, but I can't just remember him, but Ken's character. He's endearing, he's vulnerable, he's tortured. We can relate to his struggles. He actually depicts the human struggles really well.
Speaker 1:Make a Ken movie. I mean, the movie made a joke about them making a Ken movie, so they probably are going to make a Ken movie. I don't know how that would work, because who's going to watch it?
Speaker 2:I don't think she hates men.
Speaker 1:I think she definitely hates men.
Speaker 2:I think she tried to make a point that she made that point about like it's okay to cry. Barbie told Ken it was okay to cry, that was a good thing, but he did appear to be quite pathetic, like her depiction of him was not empowering for young men.
Speaker 1:It's purely just because Ryan Gosling is a good actor that anything is good about Ken. If any other actor was to handle that character, he would have been probably I don't know maybe greater girl. We didn't even want Ryan Gosling, maybe she did want someone more pathetic to play the character so she could crush men and be like oh you men, you're all little pawns in my game, in my world of Barbie, because women are better.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, Look, women are pretty good. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 1:I love women. I just think that you can make a movie that celebrates women without putting shit on men. I think there's lots that can be done to celebrate women without shitting on men.
Speaker 2:Yeah and look, you can say, oh, but it's just supposed to be a bit of fun, but no, it's deliberately trying to make some social, cultural statements.
Speaker 1:If this movie wasn't targeted at children then I would say, oh, it's just a bit of fun, it's just a stupid movie. But when you target children and this movie, both times that we saw it in the cinemas there were kids commercials playing before the film. So clearly this was being targeted to children. So this is all part of some agenda, some propaganda, that they want to fill young children's minds with this shit. So that's my problem with it. If the movie was like M and it was made for it was obviously targeted, I would just be like, oh, it's just some more woke garbage.
Speaker 2:What is it rated I?
Speaker 1:think it's rated PG.
Speaker 2:Should I check that.
Speaker 1:You can check that. I mean I'm looking at the previews and the way that the marketing and everything has been targeting it's appealing to children.
Speaker 2:Children are going to see it.
Speaker 1:Children are going to see it with their mums and their mums are probably.
Speaker 2:PG. So parental guidance is recommended because it's got suggestive references.
Speaker 1:That just reminded me of something else.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Another line from the movie that's super cringe and also problematic, being that it's appealing to children. There's a line where the weird Barbie says oh, you're with that, ken, right? Oh, I'd love to see what bold she's got under those shorts.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's okay to objectify men and talk about their privates, but if the roles were reversed and that line was applying to Margot Robbie, oh, that would not work.
Speaker 2:Look, I think it's a bit of a washing machine. Let's be honest, it's a bit of a washing machine. I don't think it holds the solution for male, female empowerment. I think the gender wars I think the movie shows that the gender wars that happen, there's one winner and that winner is capitalism and the economy and the toy production companies and all the shops.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what it's all about really. I mean, it's all about Hollywood trying to make people, men and women hate each other as much as possible so that they can be alone and miserable, so that they can buy more shit that they don't need fueling the consumerism which is ironic because this movie even mentions that Barbie herself is some fascist. That reinforces consumerism and all that crap, but this movie itself is just more of that anyway.
Speaker 2:Trying to leave it on a note where, like the cute moments, was there any cute moments we can leave people with?
Speaker 1:Maybe we'll just fade out with the arm. Just kins, I'm just Ken and I hate this film. You should not watch this, and I'm so glad I don't have to talk about this anymore. I'm just Ken, where I'm down, she's seen, she's seen. I'm so disappointed in you. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got a few more points, but I feel like we've made our points, haven't we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's wrap it up. Let's wrap it up before they make Barbie too.
Speaker 2:Oh, they'll probably be a Barbie too.
Speaker 1:I know they will be.
Speaker 2:I'm probably gonna have to say it.
Speaker 1:Well, hopefully there's not as much hype for a Barbie too.
Speaker 2:There'll be more.
Speaker 1:There shouldn't be more hype for a Barbie too, because now everyone knows that Barbie is really trash.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And it was just overhyped.
Speaker 2:People loved it.
Speaker 1:I have not found one woman that said they liked it. When I post on social media, I get comments. Well, I mostly got men commenting being like, oh, did you actually watch that? I was like, yeah, I had to watch it. I got one woman that sent me like a skull. I don't know what the hell she was trying to say to that. I don't know if that was like a message like you're going to die for hating on Barbie.
Speaker 2:Well, it's one of those kind of thought prisons, because a lot of people are saying if you hate the movie, that you are anti-feminist. So you can't really win in that way.
Speaker 1:Any movie where someone says if you hate this, then you're this. I always just hate the movie because I'm like fine and hate the movie. What are you going to do about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard because it doesn't give people the space to have critical thinking and thought around things.
Speaker 1:Well, at the end of the day, it's a movie. If people can't accept people's opinions of a movie, then there's no chance for us going forward growing as a society, because that means that we're not accepting of other opinions, values.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we need to be able to have conversations and share opinions so that we can see what the opposite sex or other people are thinking and feeling about reality, because the truth is, people are going to have a different experience of reality and we need to have conversations to find out what other people's experience of reality is, instead of trying to be like, no, this is the only reality. That's my final point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, watch Openheimer instead. Let's end on that. All right, that's it for me. I am Ken enough.
Speaker 2:You are Ken enough.
Speaker 1:All right, if you enjoyed the show, please like, share and subscribe and check out more videos from this channel. That's me, guys. I'm just kidding, I'm dead.