@HiTwo yeah like for those who haven't seen it, part of the plot is literally the Barbies purposefully emotionally manipulating the kens so that they'll become jealous of each other and forget about the elections, allowing the Barbies to take power again. I legit kept waiting for Barbie to come to the realization that this was wrong and unfair (which would then lead into a nice morale about equality and representation) but NOPE, that's exactly what happened. Literally Barbie was morally correct in manipulating the overtly incel-coded kens
During the second half of the movie the feminist message becomes incredibly preachy imo. Let me get one thing straight, I consider myself a feminist and humanist and I'm not going to dislike something just because it's feminist, so my dislike of this facet of the movie isn't because of that. Instead, it's just.... The movie is incredibly preachy. The plot of the movie literally involves one of the human characters 'unbrainwashing' the patriarchy-brainwashed Barbies by having her rant at them about how difficult it is to be a woman in the real world. You can tell this movie was created by a woman who rants about patriarchy on twitter. And, again, I consider myself to be a feminist, I know first hand that there are difficult parts about being a women (I will continue this I just need to go to the bathroom)
ok movie is done and I have THOUGHTS. bus comes in half an hour so I'll try to write them down as my review. There will be some spoilers but honestly the plot isn't actually that crucial to what makes the movie entertaining
So basically, the parts that worked for me were anything involving ken. Ryan was incredibly, ridiculously entertaining. Basically ken goes to the real world and discovers that he has agency under patriarchy (which he didn't have under the heavy handed matriarchy of barbieland). He brings patriarchy to barbieland and liberates the other kens there. This is honestly the funniest part of the movie and is absolutely as meme-able as you would hope it would be. It's definitely worth watching for those parts
Basically, if you're watching the movie for the memes, just mute it any time America Ferreras character starts talking. I'm not joking. And what makes me sad is that the movie ALMOST got it right. It draws a direct parallel between women's struggles in the real world and kens struggles in barbieland but ken's is always played for a laugh. It's like they were SO close to realization but just never failed to make it. For example, I thought for SURE it was going to end up with barbieland being a more equal place for kens. That's what it seemed like it was setting up! It seemed like Barbie would come to the realization that 'wait maybe heavy handed matriarchy isn't fair for ken' but it didn't. It literally ended with barbieland being ruled by all women. There was even a joke of the kens asking for a seat on the supreme court and president barbie being like "Nope! Maybe a judge in a lower district court" and the narrator saying that "maybe kens will some day work their way up to having as much representation as woman have in the real world" and I could just picture all the Twitter feminists laughing and clapping at this joke. Again, they were SO CLOSE to making a nice balanced ending it honestly broke my heart a bit because I really like parts of this movie
Now the part that I didn't like was that the movie was extremely, explicitly feminist. Now in fairness it's a movie about Barbie and her impact on the real world so of course it is. To its benefit it doesn't take a strong stance in the 'Barbie is objectification' vs 'Barbie is empowering' ideological war and actually comments on it, handling it well. This part of the movie's feminist message is handled well in general and isn't overbearing. Unfortunately....
@caekislove also a joke at Jews lol. The CEO of Mattel is trying to convince Barbie how woke he is basically and says 'i have lots of Jewish friends!' I laughed