It’s finally that time. Time for you to get my superior, big-brain take on the Barbie movie. I know you’ve been waiting on a real review of this film, and who better to get it from than the guy who starred in it, since I am literally Ryan Gosling,
There are a lot of bad takes out there on this film and I completely understand why. Especially from people who are more aligned with some of our worldviews. Shit-tubers went into it and saw what they expected to see, instead of taking a clear-eyed look. The Critical Drinker really leaned into this and lost some cred to me around Barbie, but I get it. At the end of the day, he is a YouTube outrage bait generator and he knows what his audience wants. I could easily do that here. I could tell you it was full of woke goyshit and was all about hating men with no redeeming value and all that stuff. Instead, I am going to get your panties in a twist.
I’m not going to recap the full plot but I will point out a few things.
The movie is a big-budget arthouse indie-type film from an indie director. It is surreal and fantastical but it uses this to say things about the human condition, male and femoid both. Unlike Boba Phil’s dismissal, I will tell you it is much more nuanced than you may have been told. I noticed a lot of reviewers quoting lines in the movie that were never said, or they misquoted. Points were missed by jaundiced eyes. The movie will make you think a strong message is being sent when it later makes a blatant point to contradict that point with common sense. This happens throughout the movie.
People didn’t seem to understand the Kens and Barbies held ideas and reflected their real-world owners who played with them. The main Barbie is very much influenced by the Mother character in the film, a woman who isn’t very happy and sees her husband as an annoyance. So in Barbieland, Barbie is having an existential crisis. The Mom starts playing with the toys out of nostalgia. Barbie starts to mirror her and Ken is treated with the same obvious disinterest and semi-to-blatant disregard the woman is implied to treat her feckless husband with. With this in mind, Barbie views the real world through the same eyes as the Mom once she arrives.
At the same time, Ken wanders into a far-right Instagram little Dark Age edit, and is instantly red-pilled into seeing how bad he has been treated.
I think this was unintentional but it has made for some great far-right Barbie edits! He goes out and starts trying to be treated like a real-world man. Now, here is one of the places where “our side” gets twisted into knots. We have been hearing all about the patriarchy at this point and Ken goes out to take advantage of his male privileges. But, exactly as we are always being told about men running the world, Ken is told being a man isn’t enough to just have it made. He runs into a femoid doctor and he is told things aren’t really like that.
If you went into this movie without an axe to grind, you will notice many instances of the characters talking about the patriarchy but then events prove it to not be the case. At the end of the movie, the creator of Barbie sums it up by explaining that things like “the patriarchy and Barbie-land are just things made up by people to cope. Things are complicated for everyone. That’s the ultimate message of the movie. See how a lot of rage-baiters got it wrong?
I will hit a few points of interest for me.
Firstly the Ken revolt. Kens take over Barbieland after Ken-prime comes back and shows them how badly they have been treated. The implications of “incel” and how a lot of men feel they have been treated (and have been in reality) is handled with an honest care and a light touch.
It’s a heavy subject and I think it’s done in a way that does address it without being demeaning. Does it succeed at saying something of value on that subject without being man-hating or coming off like 3rd wave feminist insanity? I think it does. Gosling really sells his pain at points. It was heavier than I expected. It is a light touch and a tightrope is carefully walked of both saying something important while keeping it fun.
Next comes the Barbies taking back Barbieland from the Ken Patriarchy. Barbie-prime comes back with the Mother and Daughter and is horrified to see all the other Barbies “brainwashed.” They feel the need to save them. The funny thing is all of them are obviously having much more fun.
Barbie and the two humans “deprogramme” them by the Mom lecturing them on how awful it is to be a real-world human femoid. They take over completely by manipulating the Kens into making them feel loved then essentially ruining them by more or less cheating on them with a different Ken from their natural paired Ken.
This is not flattering for women, but it is an honest depiction of how women will fuck with men to get their way. This was not a moment of truth leaking into art accidentally.
Now, does it have some woke in it? Yeah, of course it does. You can’t make a movie in 2023 and it not have some degenerate pandering. There is a trans Barbie in it. I wish I could say it kills itself 43 percent of the way into the film, but it doesn’t. The other wokeness is the annoying super-leftist slogan spouting daughter of color, which is lampshaded a bit though.
Ryan Gosling (literally me) stole the movie. I say that unironically. He has the best lines, the best arc, and a fucking awesome and hilarious musical number. This is not an Alan Moore Rorschach moment either, no honest person can watch the movie and not agree even if they think the movie is far-left femoid propaganda goyslop. He is entertaining from start to finish. God help me, even that little dork Michael Cera is entertaining in it.
The biggest weakness of the film is Will Ferrel who stopped being funny around 2008.
Check it out. It’s pretty fun. 3.5 Ryan Goslings out of 5
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