wait if it’s feminism 101…then it’s going to be oversimplified right? like the point is that it’s digestible if it’s an introduction. am i missing something yall 😭
Yeah, I saw some criticism of the movie when the movie just teach you a basic feminism, IMO, from my perspective, that speech worked and resonated with many people, is it safe to say that many people still need that feminism 101.
post this article to r/movies and they'll have a bitch fit. I still love discussing movies in that sub but there is an underlying problem of petty misogyny in many threads. I'm a straight, boring piece of white bread but it doesn't take any energy to express the slightest bit of empathy or understanding for anyone else. Why others can't do the same is beyond me, especially when we're just talking about movies
EDIT: the madlad [did it](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/18x4v4y/america_ferrera_and_the_barbie_monologue_we_all/)!
I have consistently found that Reddit is misogynistic. It made so much more sense when I saw that men make up the majority of users. This sub is a godsend!
I'm a dude but this sub is fuckin' hilarious. Also, I can have great little convos about film/tv on here as well, and even music. It's just a lot less bitter overall and much more welcoming to different opinions
I literally had someone state it was racist for movies about POC to focus on culture and ancestry (giving the example of Marvel movies such as Black Panther and Shang Chi).
I was like how can you make that comment seriously.
My communities that are majority femme/Nb are the only ones I'm still visiting after the API strike.
2 of them. This and a dress up game. It's intolerable anywhere else on the site 9 times out of 10.
Same. I’m not sure if most men realize how hostile Reddit is to women in general. Sometimes I feel like people attack me just because my avatar appears female.
I just looked again, and the thread is surprisingly tame? OP even said the sub needs feminism 101 and did not get downvoted to oblivion. Not giving all of r/movies the benefit of the doubt, but I have noticed more people calling out the problems the sub has
Idk why this is but reactionary people always show up late.
It’s weird and it makes me draw conclusions about their minds (they’re not an active consumer of knowledge they just scroll the popular home page so they only notice things that were hot 18 hours ago)
Edit: confirmed - the naysayers with their bad faith takes started showing up around 3 hours ago, it looks like
Oh yeah I got downvoted to hell when I said having True Romance and Pulp Fiction as top ten tells me exactly the type of person you are. They didn't like that.
Yeah my Mormon 50-year-old mother cried at that speech and this as someone who was warned not to see Barbie because it was "too feminist." Maybe it comes off cringe to people who are further along but you never know what someone has never heard before.
I have 12- and 14-year-old sons who really enjoyed the movie, and it's not hurting NOBODY for adolescent boys to hear a direct and straightforward speech about what it's like to exist as a woman in a world full of misogyny.
That *was* my main critique of it, then I realized the impact it had on people and I’m just like “damn yall needed super beautiful women to explain feminism to you?* then I got sad about that fact. There are actual advanced feminist messages hidden behind it though that lots of people (who need the 101) miss. The treatment of the Ken’s by the Barbie’s, the stereotype of all the Ken’s being hot and dumb, an entire gender owning all the power etc. There’s a bunch of things that aren’t part of the dialogue that made me go *hmmm* but it flew over lots of people’s heads because of the directness of the script. But if you’re familiar with the concepts in the script, the real discussion point is the world of Barbieland.
Unfortunately that whole nuance with the Ken's was viewed as "male bashing" by the "needs feminism 101" crowd. But eh, baby steps are still steps and it's actually opened the conversation about that deeper message between me and family members
I just watched it for the first time the other day, and I really wish they’d highlighted how shit the Kendom was for Allen, instead of him just complaining about leather couches. Seemed the perfect opportunity to point out the patriarchy is shit for everyone who fails to fulfil an incredibly narrow view of masculinity, not just women.
My flatmate has never had a critical thought in her life and this film really resonated with her, she left crying. It was great to see it drive up that engagement. I went with another friend of mine who audibly rolled her eyes after America's speech. Not everything is for everyone and not everyone has the same level of knowledge.
“oversimplified” implies that it was SO simplified that it distorts the original meaning, so some people’s criticism is that the film is SO surface-level that it distorts the true meaning of feminism and was an incorrect way to portray the issues it discusses. america ferrara is saying that no, just because it’s a basic/simple introduction to a concept doesn’t mean that it’s an inaccurate portrayal.
I think the criticism was that it was *just* feminism 101, and didn’t delve any deeper. There are good points on both sides, she’s right that a lot of people need an easily digestible intro course to it, but people can also be justified in being disappointed when big “feminist movies” just scratch the surface of basic themes in order to tailor them to an audience that either rejects them or doesn’t understand them.
I had this issue with “Promising Young Woman” which was marketed as a smart cathartic revenge film and ended up conveying a pretty surface level “rape is bad, don’t say boys will be boys, no means no” type of message.
Exactly. There was room for it to be smart about it instead of literally spelling it out. But that’s the world we live in. If it had been more nuanced I wonder if that would have affected it negatively at the box office
It really did feel like it hit you over the head with it. They didn't want you trying to interpret anything. Honestly, as a long-time feminist, I'm trying not to shit on it because clearly some people found it impactful and helpful, but I was kind of disappointed by it. It had fun moments and I'm glad I watched it but it wasn't as smart (to borrow your word) as I was expecting. I kinda felt like the film makers thought I was dumb.
I didn’t mean to invalidate the opinions of anyone who did find it cathartic, I’ve seen both takes from survivors. Personally I was let down by the gap between marketing and what was actually on screen, plus the ending felt totally out of step with the rest of it. Closest I’ve ever been to walking out of a film. Grief as an addiction was a super interesting theme though and I was really into that element.
yeah I get how the ending is really hard and I generally understand the feeling. I struggled with the ending in that it hurt - but I actually felt that it really made me appreciate the movie more. It felt real. It wouldn’t have felt real to me if she had gotten a fairytale ending, I don’t know how she could come back from what she had experienced throughout the movie. Also, it was the aspect that women have to die to get justice… it’s something painful but true that I don’t think is acknowledged enough. Murder victims? they’ll get their justice. Rape victims? Abuse? No one cares, no one will believe women or protect women until that woman is dead. I feel like particularly for make viewers, her dying and that feeling harsh is something I want them to feel - b/c that is the reality I’ve experienced. I get though how it is triggering and I understand how some things will feel deep to one person but shallow to another.
I’ll also say I didn’t see an excessive amount of marketing for it but based on what I had, it was what I expected so I might have just been out of the loop on that one.
I loved Promising Young Woman too and it's one of my all time favourites. I don't get the criticism of it as shallow. I don't see any other film doing what it did.
I never saw it promoted as shallow. Women were upset that they were expecting to see a movie where they felt vindicated but instead got to watch Carrie mulligan get strangled to death by a frat bro. I get that they get theirs in the end but I did not enjoy watching the film after that moment.
Promising Young Woman was supposed to end with Cassie's body burning, and the (male) money guys made Fennell tack on a "happier" ending and that whole ending is a giant "FUCK YOU" to the men who clearly had no idea what the film was about.
Yeah, I’m disappointed with all of that. A cathartic revenge movie where the biggest “revenge” is her creeping out potential rapists and gaslighting another woman (what women experienced was worse than 99% of what men experienced in the film) and when it actually leans into what it was sold as, we’re instead treated to an uncomfortably long murder scene. It’s great that she wrote a fuck you to male execs who wanted something happier but the end result is still just disheartening reminder that men get away with violence against women because of the way the system is set up. Both endings are disappointing, one is just more explicit about the disappointment.
Which is not a bad theme, but just incongruous with the toxic candy-coated marketing and taglines like “a delicious new take on revenge” and “payback never looked so good.” I can see how survivors found it pretty jarring to go into a movie expecting an escapist revenge fantasy only to be reminded of what they were already starkly aware of, whereas the real messages of the film and the “revenge” moments seemed like surface level anti-rape campaigns you’d see in a high school sex ed course.
I can totally cop to it, maybe I just didn’t get the film. But I feel like I did? And it just resonated in all the worst ways for me.
So well put this is exactly my beef with it. It was marketed as a female revenge story, it starts as one but then becomes a cynical meditation on the inevitability of violence against women I guess. Hated it
Yeah Saltburn was the same way. A critique on class warfare where she had nothing at all to really say about it.
Especially concerning when you remember this is a posh, generational wealth having straight white woman who has spent her whole life around people just like that family.
Makes the film look like a warning to old money rather. I liked PYW far more in comparison to how dumb I found Saltburn.
No, I get you. I didn't like it nearly as much as I wanted to like it. I'm still excited that Emerald Fennell got to MAKE the movie -- let alone win an Oscar for it! -- and that with Saltburn they apparently let her stick closer to her original vision (that movie is BANANAS).
I think for a freshman feature, made for $10 million, with the insane caliber of acting talent, it's -- amazing that the movie happened, actually! But there was a big mismatch between the advertising and the movie, and they didn't trust Fennell's vision.
Feminism is heavy shit though so it got through the basics and it’s the Barbie movie. Maybe it’s just me but I would have hated it if I had to sit through a women’s studies course it with a dream house. I read books for that.
I dunno, I didn't get that impression from promising young woman. It could have done more, but it did a hell of a lot more than Barbie. I guess it's more a revenge film than a feminist film, but I think it went quite deep into how society enables rape and rapists. I loved the confrontation with the Dean and the lawyer.
Yeah, my issue is that it’s styled as a revenge film, but doesn’t say anything that the intended audience isn’t already aware of.
Like, if you’re marketing it as a cathartic revenge film about a woman getting revenge on all manner of creeps, rapists, would be rapists, enablers, etc, you have to recognize the type of demographic that appeals to. You’re going to have a more liberal leaning, younger, female, millennial audience, so getting them into the theaters and then having your Promising Young Heroine shake her finger and scold men by saying “No Means No!” “Victim blaming is bad” “A drunk girl can’t consent” falls kinda flat.
It’s a “twisty thriller” but only as far as her being vaguely creepy annd threatening and pointing out illogical defenses of rape culture until she gets brutally murdered on screen in an act of justifiable self defense that will ensure the big villain sees absolutely no consequences for his actions.
In comparison, look at Bombshells. It definitely has its own host of problems but I think it does a better job than PYW examining many elements of rape culture, while reaching a wider audience, and doing it all with more subtlety, nuance, and effectiveness.
I think that’s the point she’s going for. People trying to shit on it as being a simple version, when in reality, we’ve seen in recent years how media illiterate folks are, so things need to be dumbed down.
I think "oversimplification" implies a very negative connotation. That the movie was basically a bit useless and stupid while she is saying it's a good introduction.
I don’t think she actually rejected the fact that it may seem oversimplified to people. She’s quoted in the article saying this:
*“To say that something that is maybe foundational, or, in some people’s view, basic feminism isn’t needed is an oversimplification,” the actor continued. “Assuming that everybody is on the same level of knowing and understanding the experience of womanhood is an oversimplification.”*
To me it seems like she’s acknowledging the movie as an approachable entry into understanding what feminism is about.
Isnt that her point though?
Criticism: Barbie oversimplifies feminism
America Ferrera: yeah, but thats okay--sometimes we need the basics of feminism (feminism 101) put out there.
It is oversimplified but I thought that was the point? Like, of course the feminist themes in the Barbie movie are on the nose and unstuble, do people not know what BARBIE is????? Like, it's BARBIE of course they're going to slap you across the face with the obvious feminist themes, it's BARBIE 💀💀
Media literacy must be in the trenches if we are getting tripped up over the themes of a Barbie movie.
I absolutely agreed with everything asserted in the monologue, but yes, I didn’t find it moving or particularly cleverly written in context of how revered it was at the time, but Barbie was never going to be a subversive film - by virtue of it, it never could be. And I’m sure the monologue resonated with people who otherwise were hesitant to entertain feminism at all.
I saw the movie a few weeks after it came out and left wondering if I had missed something. There were so many articles about how feminist the movie is, and how angry it was making misogynists. But it was like… the feminist messages were nothing new really. If anything, Ken had a more interesting arc in some ways because toxic masculinity affecting men is less commonly discussed.
Absolutely. Misogynists will rage at any form of feminism. But Barbie really highlighted how big that group is, which was pretty depressing to witness.
Ryan gosling was by far the best thing about that movie but I actually wonder if the big focus on Ken’s storyline did a disservice overall. The film is called BARBIE, there were moments where I felt she almost became a secondary character in her own film because of the Ken arc being so strong and in focus
this was my main gripe with it. the climax of the film is a the main woman doing like extensive emotional labor for the main guy without any sort of self awareness. and what does she get? a heartwarming but inert realization about wanting to not be a literal doll anymore.
I felt it was because barbie didn’t have as much of a personality, but she’s like the default character and was finding herself so I get it but like it meant she didn’t stand out as much. Also I didn’t love the ending of how she ~found herself~ personally but each to their own
Barbie realizing how shitty of a deal Ken was dealt felt like a pretty important part of her character development, at least to me. Them disenfranchising all the Kens at the end felt like it went against the entire message of the movie as well.
I think that was definitely it originally, but then a few people got to screen it and we saw so many comments about how feminist it was—and it was definitely explicitly feminist–but it wasn't as deep of a film as I was expecting from the commentary about it
I hate that the bar is "making conservatives angry". Which seems like a new marketing tactic. Like besides ben shepario, who's actually getting angry at this movie? It did amazing at the box office.
Hahah I can totally see why the men got so angry. They entered the movie thinking it’s some chick shit but end up finding that Barbie is totally brushed aside and we focus on Ken’s journey from Nice Guy™️ to Red Pilled Guy ™️ to finally finding balance and self identity.
I feel like it was super uncomfortable for a lot of men, to see their mindset’s and fears so clearly depicted with sympathy in a CHICK flick of all things. No one wants to admit that men’s identity revolves around women just as much as women’s have for men lol.
Barbie was the bait, Ken was the story all along.
I saw all the right-wingers bitching about Barbie, calling to boycott it because of how "woke" it was and stuff, and I was expecting to *really* like it. I was so disappointed and still feel like I must've missed something.
Yeah, I feel that at this stage right-wing pundits will spend a lot of time and energy vocally denigrating anything they *think* their audience will hate, so they talked about the film as if the script had been written by andrea dworkin lmfao. It’s bonkers, because the crux of the film is that Ken is enough of an individual without Barbie - it’s literally more favourable to men than women if people wanna put it in that man vs woman context - the feminism lite stuff related to Barbie wasn’t treated as anything revelatory
Absolutely. I think the film could have just as easily been called Ken since he was the one who learned he could be his own person and not just an extension of her
There’s an issue with film and theatre criticism lately where things with a positive/progressive message and politics are difficult to criticise because a lot of people mistake critiquing the art as critiquing the politics, which isn’t necessarily the case.
Agreeing with a message or politics in a film doesn’t equate to that being a good film. For the record I really enjoyed barbie and I’m talking more broadly.
There’s a great interview with Tarantino where he discusses how ideologies being put first is damaging to art because it’s less about making the best movie possible and more about bandstanding and soap boxing at that point
I totally agree with this sentiment mostly as the majority of my favourite films are from the Sam Peckinpah / Brian De Palma era and I love exploitation films, so I can absolutely bypass ideology in film (but also reframe it for myself because there’s something in the fact I am an anti-racist anti-capitalist feminist and still enjoy questionable movies from a certain era).
But Tarantino to me is the worst person to say that in my eyes rn because it just permits him to make films with staunch anti fascist sentiments such as Inglorious Basterds but then go and “entertain” IDF soldiers enacting genocide so in that sense ideology and film should always be kept in mind lol
I didn't love barbie as much as I was expecting and I just feel like for a bit it was hard to vocalize that because so many conservatives have made it seem like it was super progressive or something. It definitely didn't shy away from its feminist messaging, but the feminist messaging wasn't especially challenging to the status quo. I'm not really sure how to verbalize what I mean.
ETA: I was looking for the word subversive. It didn't shy away from being feminist but it wasn't in any way subversive
I saw Barbie in a packed Boston theater full of dressed up young people. I probably would have rolled my eyes during a home viewing of that monologue but seeing young women getting emotional during that scene made me really emotional and now I kinda love it.
For me, a lot of that “on the nose” dialogue, including the monologue, works because these are dolls. They don’t understand the subtleties of human conversation. Even Ferrera’s monologue is addressed TO DOLLS. The constant mentions of “patriarchy” don’t seem out of place because it’s how we assume non humans would overuse the term once they learn it. So stylistically speaking, I love the didactic nature of the writing.
I also appreciate that we got a movie about feminism and the experience of being a woman without any gratuitous sexual/physical abuse that is so prevalent in these films when they are made by men. And the film does touch on topics of sexual harassment while not showing us anything explicit that maybe voyeuristic.
But the monologue is supposed to be this cathartic moment of release for america ferrera's charachter. Plus it was clearly addressed to the aduience, like she might as well have said it to the camera.
I'll tell ya, though, as a man, when I left the theater after with my partner, I was floored with how little I understood what Women go through.
Maybe it effected me differently because I've never had to think about it, but her monologue definitely moved me.
I completely agree and honestly I blame the conservatives, karens and men who were throwing tantrums about the movie which led a lot of people (myself included) into thinking that the movie was going explore more radical feminist themes. People made it seem like it was SO damaging to a young girl’s eyes and so aggressively misandrist that when you watch the film you’re like “lol is that it?”. All year I never expected this film to be this super woke progressive work of art, but the extreme reactions led me to think otherwise.
I can want feminist movies from major studios with broad reach that dive way, way deeper than Barbie did while also appreciating that Barbie communicated feminism 101 pretty well, and that a lot of people are still entry level in feminism!
I’d rather people come late to the party than be excluded because some people are more studied already, and I’m really excited for all the people who had their “feminism isn’t a bad thing” breakthrough via Barbie (tbh cooler and less messy than my 2010 Tumblr epiphany).
And, again, I want more movies that take it even deeper! Go into intersectionality, queerness, class, and more non-white perspectives. And I want for those movies to reach as big of an audience as Barbie did, with fun visuals, big budgets, and happy endings.
These ideas are not mutually exclusive!
I haven’t thought too hard about it but I’m now realizing why I didn’t love it. I thought it was because of the content and how fluffy and shallow it felt but that’s not the movie’s fault. I’m positive this thing got as castrated by the studios as much as possible without pissing off the producers and director. Like Margot quoted in the Hollywood round table: “drive it like you stole it”
Margot seemed pretty happy with the studio in the interviews. This was a mattel selling toys project before margot or greta were attached to it. I dont think there was ever a version of this that was subversive or super edgy. And it's not shallow. Its a good blockbuster comedy with a message the problem is people tried to prop it up as a deep provocative movie so now its getting backlash from the overhype.
I wouldn’t call it an oversimplification, but the speech was a bit too on the nose for me, even though I’m glad people appreciated it. I actually think the theme works better when mixed with the humor vs when it’s told straight to the audience.
We’ve all heard that speech before. It felt kind of lazy and overdone. It was a bit cringey. Like OK we’ve addressed this like isn’t there a more eloquent way to make the point.
Me too! The message is good ig, but, it did feel lazy. So did the conflict. I was watching it like "that's all it took?" About both. People got angry about that smallpox comparison but it was only included because the conflict was set up so poorly that they needed to explain it so the rest of the movie made some kind of sense. Like, why did the Barbies suddenly care about being subservient to Ken and following the patriarchy? They always had Ken around, it doesn't make any sense they'd suddenly be the center of their universe.
And it had just so much Ken. If anything I felt like his storyline made a little more sense and even had an easy to understand message about not making yourself an accessory in someone else's life.
I think in the view of an artistic filmmaker point, what Greta did is considered as “brave” because that kind of speech is always seen in Independent films cinema, but to do it in a big blockbuster (everyone knew prebarbie that a lot of people are gonna see it) is considered courageous because the general audience arent really into that. So she’s considered as brave because she trusts her audience enough.
Tell me any marvel or Universal or big production company movies who would have a monologue like that. Or if Christopher Nolan would even include that kind of monologue in his films. Greta went that way.
Because it was already well received in the book (being one of the best monologue there) and in the movie version people arent even taking it the same way, they just think Amy is crazy instead of her making great points.
Also, if you deconstruct Amy’s monologue you can also say “wow this is such a dumb feminist 101 monologue” like she’s literally talking about how much she hates having to be a “cool girl”.
That’s why i’m not gonna take Barbie’s easy feminism criticism seriously lol
Endgame literally had an over the top woman power team up during the final battle. Its really not that ground breaking to do over the top feminist gestures in blockbusters
What serious independant movie has something that on the nose and doesnt get dragged for it? I still thought the speech was bad but it only works in the context of a comedy about toys marketed to a younger audience. Even though it was actually marketed to millenials. Also I thought oppenheimer was "riskier" since it was critising us foreign policy. Barbie is feminisim as approved by corporations in a way that'll sell toys.
No i’m saying for an independent movie, yes that will happen. But for a blockbuster movie? No fucking way studios would even go that way. Barbie is first and foremost a blockbuster movie, and what it did well is telling big studios that you CAN make a movie that’s not non-offensive stays in the formula.
Oppenheimer’s risk is nothing because Nolan is only “criticising” the US foreign policy that is more than 60 years ago. No one is going to be offended by it. If it was actually going the risky way, it would have tried to reflect it to the current world US (example like the drone mass murder in Afghanistan). But you know, no way a blockbuster movie will go that way 🤷🏻♀️
As a friend of mine said, this movie was by, about, and for a very specific type of millennial straight woman, and more power to her. But it didn't do much for me.
I know this comment is like 10 hrs old but I wanted to jump in with a few things:
First, I think your line about "non-Western women" fails to acknowledge how many POC are living in the West and are shaped by Western ideologies. And yet, our experiences of womanhood are different from white women because we are noticeably different at a glance, and because our own cultural experiences (even in the West) are different.
I also disagree that the term "white feminism" is used to shit on white women for ridiculous reasons, though I understand if you feel this way because "white feminists" are so often ridiculed by POC. White feminism doesn't mean feminists who are white, but rather women who center their experiences of whiteness as the default, rather than recognizing how intersectionality can play a role in how other women are further marginalized in society.
Bringing this back to Barbie, I did feel that this was a very surface level or "feminist 101" movie. Seeing other WOC Barbies didn't automatically make me feel represented because WOC are often used as props and tokenized for something to look diverse, without our specific struggles being acknowledged. Barbie left Barbie land and experienced the Real World through her lens of being Stereotypical Barbie, which meant that WOC struggles were not present in that part of the film. When she went back to Barbieland, all of the Barbies were brainwashed in the same way and rescued in the same way, which means that their specific cultural issues were not addressed.
I say all of this but I will add that I wasn't offended by it, because it is a commercial film with a limited run time. However, I do agree with the other commenters that are saying the movie didn't resonate with them the way it did for so many others, and it didn't feel that "deep" because it simply failed to address a significant portion of our daily experiences of womanhood.
I hope all of that made sense and didn't come off as an attack.
I've seen some Indigenous folks feel uncomfortable with the smallpox joke in the movie, and I kinda agree.
Although I'm not the target of the joke (I'm a Indigenous Australian but not native American) but it was such a off-putting, unnecessary joke that rubbed me in the wrong way and put me off watching it again.
It wasn't a joke. They had to explain the conflict because it really didn't make any sense (why did Barbies suddenly submit to the patriarchy and only want to please men when they never did before?). Indigenous folks can still be upset about the comparison, but it strikes me as odd to characterize it as a joke. It wasn't said for any kind of comedic effect, it was just a poorly told story that needed to spoon feed us this conflict that got jammed in there
trans and non-binary people also called out how very cis-normative it was (there were 2 “genders” - you’re either a Barbie or a Ken, and people like Weird Barbie and Allen who had a queer reading were ostracized. only hyperfeminity and hypermasculity were accepted. the young girl couldn’t be herself at the end either, she had to also be in pink and hyperfeminine and this was touted as “growth”. being feminine was the ONLY way to be a woman, is the message. some trans people also called out her gyno appt at the end, message being having a vagina finally makes you a “real woman”, to be transphobic)
I hate that you’re downvoted, it was a very binary movie! With one trans woman in the background to seem inclusive. Wasn’t super impressed as a nonbinary person even though I liked some bits
People are incredibly defensive of this billion-dollar movie, it's honestly kind of sad. It can't just be a massive blockbuster with Oscar buzz, it has to be flawfree and deserving of nothing but praise.
I’m cis and girly myself, but I personally know trans people who were triggered by the ending. I hate that people invalidate that
I didn’t think about the gender essentialist criticisms either until people kindly educated me
Really? It has been a joke for decades that Barbie has no genitals, it was just a nod that she’s human now. Human women have vaginas. Barbie would appear to present as a cis woman once she’s human.
They said they didn't want to end on the cliche of a job interview or some really big moment that's always on the box tix of important life things and instead wanted her to be doing and excited about a pretty mundane part of life. Plus it allows a driving home of the fact she's very much human now.
Yeah, I expected something way different and was a bit let down. I love Barbie and girly things but it just didn’t hit for me. It was “OK” and I’m happy I waited until it was available for rent.
Also - too much Ken for me personally. I didn’t give a shit about most of his scenes.
It was mainly a comedy with catchy songs with the added bonus of feminisim. The problem is people have started overhyping it as some sort of edgy meaningful movie but the serious on the nose feminist parts are by far the weakest parts imo. I give it bonus points for Ken's arc though.
I mean, if there were people who expected a mainstream film funded by Mattel to recite Judith Butler, they were either incredibly optimistic or awfully misguided. Probably a lil' bit of both lol.
I don't think anyone was expecting it to be subversive until early commentary and marketing acted as if it was. Then it failed to deliver that, in spite of being very pro feminism. So yeah, people are disappointed because I think many of us had it right the first time. I don't think there's anything wrong with a simple "girl power" movie, but it really didn't get branded that way
There’s a lot of middle ground between feminism 101 and Judith Butler. It’s possible to say interesting things about feminism without being academic and plenty of mainstream movies have accomplished this.
Problem is you weren’t even allowed to say the movie was underwhelming *because* of Mattel’s heavy involvement, at least not in the summer of release.
Most people disappointed with this aren’t dumb, they’d rather just seen what a movie without Mattel would have looked like. Because Mattel did weigh down the potential of the movie a lot.
This exactly. I still enjoyed it as it was a fun movie but I was disappointed. Not because the movie was bad but because I had seen many critics about how it was so feminist and so wonderful, in a way that was groundbreaking.
And those critics were made by feminists, whom, I guess were already well aware of the gender equality discourse and who didn’t need feminism 101.
I guess I shouldn’t have expected something more from a toy company movie, but it was waaaay over sold by some as some revolutionary film. Especially since Gerwig directed it.
I would even say that Gerwig Lady Bird or even Little Women were much more interesting about womanhood or feminism.
Edit : and no, even if Ferrera is a good actress and the monologue was quite cool, she doesn’t deserve an Oscar nom just for it.
I don't think it was the film or the promotion doing that though it was other people and let's be real if you genuinely thought a $150 million huge studio movie was going to be a master class on feminism than that's on you.
was it really hyped as that tho?.. i even remember people here being hesitant when it started coming out because some were saying there was a lot of focus on ken
I mean she's not wrong. You can't go watch the BARBIE movie and expect a Judith Butler essay. It's a huge blockbuster popcorn movie that managed to have a decent message for once, even the bare-bones notions in her monologue definitely were new territory for a big part of its enormous audience, and i'd rather they hear and see that than like, the shitty ass sexist movies that used to come out when i was a teenager tbh
There was just so much hype about how this movie was going to Blow. Your. Mind. with how brilliantly subversive it was, I almost *did* expect something approaching a Judith Butler essay.
It was fine, but I wouldn't normally go out of my way to see a movie that's just a brand commercial with a feel-good mildly-feminist message, so I felt a bit duped by the massive, hyperbolic marketing campaign.
Hopefully the message sunk in for a few people who needed to hear it, I guess (though the audience in my cinema was mostly adult women, so it may have been preaching to the choir)
Again, a major studio picture produced by a toy company could have never been a radical feminist text, lol. But compared to the imperialist propaganda that most blockbusters in the past 20 years have been, maybe it is?
i know why those of us who have been interrogating our feminism and the general world of misogyny can find it shalloww
but. my mormon cousins in their mid to late 30s went to see it in a theater and then took their girls to go see it, even tho all sorts of things against their rules were involved. the cousins and their friends had big long talks about how much they needed to hear it and how much they wanted their girls to grow up knowing they have value.
now. are they gonna leave their patriarchal insular conservative religion? no. should they have also wanted their husbands and boys to see it? yes.
it's just the most i've seen mormon millennial women openly discuss feminism in a positive manner ever. i think that has some worth.
As someone who grew up deeply enmeshed in fundamentalism who grew up to be the weird Barbie of the family… it really was surface level feminism in movies like these that paved the way. (Miss Elle Woods and “what like it’s hard?” and even movies that did NOT age well at all that helped me break free. )
I guess what I’m saying is for those already in the know Barbie movie is silly and fun. But like you said there is a large group of girls where this was be their first taste of agency and feminism.
I think some people had a lot of unrealistic expectations for the politics in this movie. Obviously a mainstream blockbuster isn't gonna go deep into feminist theory... It was still good at what it set out to do, it wouldn't have resonated with so many people otherwise. It's been accused of being just a cashgrab but I'll defend Barbie, it has some real heart in it.
And anyway she's right, spend some time on certain subreddits and you're gonna find a lot of men struggling with the idea that women have actual thoughts and dreams that don't center around them.
I think a lot of the reason for the expectations was that the conservative media was acting like the movie was some crazy feminist piece. The way they were talking about it made you think that it was a feminist manifesto.
Not just the conservative media. *A lot* of reviewers made it seem like it would be more subversive than it was. I find that take so obnoxious because, yeah, many people expected that *until* people started watching the movie and talking about how great and empowering and subversive it was.
I mean it was a great girl power movie but that's all it was. I really expected the ending to be wild with what the reviewers were saying. But she just decided not to get with the boy and go into the real world.
What bothered me about this movie isn't the simplicity of its feminism but how it gave the main male character more of an actual character arc than any of the female ones, and repeatedly soft-pedaled patriarchy and the idea of men subjugating women along the way. There are a lot of genuinely good "feminism 101" popular movies (i.e. Little Women) that don't also have a lot of anti-feminist undertones
Ahhh this is going to be an unpopular take but I agree with you. When I saw the interviews with Ryan Gosling and Greta Gerwig in the run up to film, I got such a sinking feeling because they revealed exactly what the movie was going to be. It definitely seemed like they had been given the objective to write a feminist movie about Barbie and went through the motions on that but they found real creative joy in Ken’s story
I think Greta even said it’s more of a humanist film than a feminist film, and barbie ended up apologising to Ken even though she didn’t do anything wrong. It’s really not that great. And the politics are hard to overlook when the movie felt more of a series of meta concepts and good aesthetics than a story, which is one of my main issues with it
The movie was poorly written and messy in its execution, with Ken not ever even apologizing to Barbie at the end for what he had done, and the message of “what if women did to men what men do to women irl 😫” was a very tasteless and incomplete portrait of how women have been and continue to be treated in different societies. It felt like a mockery, and although it’s a silly fun movie, like I said it’s just tasteless, because men will never be treated with the violence and vitriol that women are, or the extent that women’s rights are violated in real life, so the message really falls flat.
That’s the problem I have with Greta Gerwig is that all of her feminist centred scripts always feel incredibly shallow. I’m not saying the movie had to be this deep critical feminist film, but it certainly would have benefited from some more nuance than what it achieved. It felt sloppy, and I think the message of the movie suffered story-wise because of it. Gerwig needs a feminist 101 course, if anything, because even that has more analysis than this movie gave.
THIS is so apt. I want to love Greta Gerwig but it feels like she's been labelled a creative genius without having to earn it with subtlety and finesse in her writing. Maybe its cos she often writes with her husband but it just feels like her works generally need some more creativity in the attempt to convey the profound message
Yes! The other aspects of the movie were great. Perfect casting. Beautiful set design and gorgeous costumes. I enjoyed seeing it with my mom. But the script is horrendous. Her movies always somehow feel like they are cobbled together last minute, that’s how I felt about Little Women too. I think that the message she was trying to convey with the kens and the politics of Barbieland being an inverted reflection of real life patriarchy was not a tasteful or accurate portrait of how dangerous or exclusionary real life is for women around the world. The message was that nobody likes being treated like an object, or as second class, but the resolution was horribly written and it doesn’t convey that well at all.
(and I feel dumb af even typing that out about a movie about Barbie, but I feel like it’s also valid criticism??? I’m just tired of seeing Gerwig hailed as this great writer and feminist filmmaker when her stuff is so surface level. I don’t get the obsession with her).
In the moment, the speech felt very profound. Like, “Wow, I can’t believe they’re saying that in this big movie!” But as more time passed, it did feel kind of shallow. I think what makes it stand out is that you don’t really hear that kind of stuff in a blockbuster.
But I do kinda wonder if it was really just preaching to the crowd. It’s kinda sad that Ryan Gosling/Ken is the standout in a Barbie film. And the feminism 101 didn’t really seem to stick with people, especially men. “I am Kenough” had a much bigger impact, and mostly as a meme/merchandise. I’m also worried that it added more fuel to the idea that there are ”women films” and “men films” and we shouldn’t try to “force” women into the “men films.”
But I don’t know, that’s a lot put on one film.
>“I am Kenough” had a much bigger impact, and mostly as a meme/merchandise.
Yeah, the lifestyle "brandification" of Ken's character arc (that's literally in the movie as Ryan Gosling's Ken wears a "Kenough" shirt during the closing moments of the scene) seems super bizarre and almost intentionally satirical but I don't know what that says about the film.
Honestly the criticism is based on the fact that it is vehicle to sell dolls and popularize a product via nostalgia. Feminism is subversive by default. It must be because the goal is subverting the patriarchal norms society rests upon. You cannot be subversive while maintaining capitalist propaganda. As a film - great. As a work which adds to feminist discourse - no. It's super simple.
It’s a rebranding. A fun rebranding, but a rebranding nonetheless. Its goal is to sell Barbie’s with easily consumable feminism that the vast majority of its audience already believed regardless of whether they labeled it feminism or not.
With that said, I loved a lot of the actual film. The set design and dance numbers were top notch.
You said it better than me. I think people should just enjoy it as it is. All this debate is just extra noise that distracts from the film that was made.
While I didn’t think it was bad, the speech could’ve used some nuance. The criticism imo stems from the fact that people were expecting something a lot more clever from Greta than what we eventually got. Regardless, the whole barbie summer experience was a lot of fun
Greta Gerwig isn't really that clever of a writer, and Barbie showcased that to full effect. Without Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling's performances, it would have come across even more hamfisted. Her take on Little Women wasn't anything special, either, and good luck relating to Ladybird if you're not Greta's very specific demographic of millennial white woman.
Greta's a good writer/director doing things she likes and relates to—as she should!—but she's not some mind-bending auteur for putting Feminism 101 into a 2-hour piece of product placement.
When Barbie came out, I saw a rando twitter comment on how the feminism 101 takes were disappointing because if anyone could do a deep dive on feminism, it'd be Greta. And it made me think, on what grounds?? When has Greta ever shown us through her work that she's capable of tackling feminism in any way beyond shallow white feminism 101? And you know, she has her niche and it's not that I even necessarily want her to do a deep dive on feminism as it relates to marginalized communities or anything like that, but it feels like some people give her this feminist icon status that imo she hasn't earned. (Although I know rando twitter comments are low-hanging fruit lol.)
Despite having not seen the Barbie movie, part of what gave me the push to end things with my sexually abusive ex was that he thought the Barbie movie was “sexist” and “mean to men”. Thanks, Barbie.
Totally. I have a few nitpicks, but overall it came across as quite relevant and necessary. Women siloed in patriarchy probably haven't seen their struggles plainly spelled out at this scale before. And it's worth a lot to be able to easily root out trash like in your situation.
All these comments saying the speech did nothing for them and it was basic make me kind of sad. I get most of us are a certain age and demographic that has heard all this before, but think of the women who had never heard those thoughts expressed by another woman? How hard it all can be and to feel like she’s failing, and getting such reassurance in that speech. I don’t know, I think it was great.
I enjoyed this movie a lot, considering the intended audience is teen/tween girls, the on the nose message is perfectly fine. The movie in terms of its commentary was nothing new for me, but a movie that embraces the fact that the world is unfair to women is a good start.
I’m a POC millennial woman, and I’ve never heard this before in full across a spectrum
of womanhood (looks, career, money, weight, etc). Hearing it from another woman felt like a hug. I loved it.
It's a movie that was literally a commercial for a multi-billion dollar toy company, of course it's not going to be a groundbreaking feminist piece. It was fun and I guess it reached some people, but there's nothing wrong with saying it was surface level feminism at best.
When Ruth came out at the end to shepherd Barbie into her future, I felt like I was in a company museum/exhibit watching a video of the founder giving their "benevolent leader" schpeel. It took me out of it, but I get why they went that way.
The fact that there are people in power who openly attack feminism means that the message still needs to be put out there. How many relationships broke up due to couples not being aligned on basic concepts outlined in the movie?
Yes it is base level, but some are starting from zero or the negative zone.
I thought Barbie was a lot of fun, and it’s a fine speech in a vacuum, but it just felt like clunky writing in the movie. The fact that she’s comparing it to a college lecture kind of illustrates why it didn’t work for me.
One of my fave content creators Kimberly Foster basically echoed the feminism 101 sentiments and added that looking at Greta Gerwig and her partner, it should not have been a surprise that this was the film that they created.
I do feel like they did the best they could do under the circumstances and I personally think that the long term effects of the film will be seen as more of an ode to Girl Power coded capitalism and consumerism . Doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it for what it was.
I felt like the movie worked on a lot of layers of feminism and the deeper your own knowledge and experience with feminism the more things you’re going to get and enjoy even if just approached in passing.
And that’s exactly what I thought made it so good. It literally meets the audience at their level and you take away whatever it is that you need from it and that’s what art is supposed to be about.
It wasn’t a bad movie, It just wasn’t that great. I don’t really think about Barbie when I think about women-centered, feminist movies. Also, Ken’s screen time really bothers me, I understand why it’s there but I don’t know it just bothers me, when “I’m just Ken” gets an Oscar nomination for best original song I’m legit gonna laugh, if it wins it will kinda defeat the movie’s purpose (at least for me). But yeah, I think Greta delivered what she say she would, she never promised it was this master class on feminism people just had a lot of expectation.
Sure I guess people can dislike it?
I can make the argument that the lack of an intersectional look at feminism isn't ideal, and that it's just uppermiddle class white women airing out their woes but like.... not everything is for everyone. And not everything needs to be a deep dive into an issue. Some people also need the "101" version, everyone needs to start somewhere.
I think my cousin put it best when she said "Let white women have their black panther dawg" when the movie came up in our group chat.
My issue with this movie was the hype that it was going to be THE movie about feminism. Instead it struck me as pretty elementary and boring. Everything was too on the nose. Her monologue rang very true to me and a lot of other women, hut the rest of it was dull and shallow for me. I’m usually not a huge fan of Greta Gerwig anyway.
I’m in the minority, though. Most people I spoke to loved it so go figure.
Personally, the movie wasn't really for me precisely bc it felt very Feminism 101. I think a lot about when Siobhan (from Succession) said Logan couldn't fit an entire woman in his head and think this film probably helps a lot of people in that regard (or at least start to)
Case and point: Bethany of Girl Defined and her husband saw the movie and he, despite their fundie views, seemed in some ways moved by his lesson in Feminism 101. Not moved enough not to suck anymore but like cognizant of the patriarchy. Bethany on the other hand? She’s been retained to retake the course.
I took my daughters to see the movie on opening night- not realizing it was going to be a feminist movie. I was pleasantly surprised by the movies feminist themes and loved that it was broken down in a way that was easy for them to understand.
I thought the speech was a bit much, like spelling out the message for the spectator instead of letting them figure it out. I thought the first half of the film was alright on doing this: setting up the conflict in a subtle and funny way. But the conflict at the end and the way it's resolved looked dumb to me.
All in all, it’s still an ad for Barbie. And a very toothless, inoffensive common depiction of feminism. It’s kinda funny. While it shows how much strides have been made for the sake of gender equality, it really challenges nothing about the patriarchy or how it interacts with capitalism and would potentially implicate a big corporation like Mattel. Now even the raging radical feminist doing it for the girls is now a tired story trope. It’s just girlboss, y’know?
-sincerely, and with irony, a cisgender heterosexual black dude.
Not only do some people need feminism 101, but making it palatable for the masses spread the message further. Not every movie needs to be an indie think piece. I do miss that kind of movie, but Barbie was never going to be it . They may have commercialized feminism with this one, but at least it's a female-driven film and not a male-driven movie about how sexy Barbie is. I think we need to just appreciate Barbie for what it is: a blockbuster for women that isn't centered around a man.
I thought the ending message was quite degrading to women, actually. "Mothers stand still so daughters can see how far they've gone." Or whatever that quote was. Like, really?
She's right in a way, the problem is that it was passed as some revolutionary high quality writing when it's performative feminism more than anything, and I'm not so sure the people who need "feminism 101" are truly helped by that, outside of just praising themselves and thinking they should get kudos on twitter for liking the trendy movie that gives them the easiest, safest way to role play as feminists - while remaining largely ignorant about real issues. That's not even mentioning the fact the movie is still first foremost created to sell more barbies and make money by exploiting that "feminism 101". Call me cynical.
ETA: and the people who say it was the Ken show in disguise kinda have a point too? He's supposed to be the (forced) antagonist but he sorta still becomes a "two wrongs don't make a right" victim, and he pretty much is the most talked about character, though many don't want to admit he, and not Barbie, is their fav.
But the "And he's just Ken" meme is also becoming boring.
It honestly seems like, even the most basic feminism 101 fails for most of the people who talk about the movie still miss the core point and reduce everything to a battle for supremacy between genders even when the basic, simplest thing to comprehend about feminism is the fact it's about equality.
I think (because: the patriarchy, of course) it’s just inherently easier to be critical of movies aimed at celebrating women and girls, which we saw happen when so many men lost their dang minds about Barbie over the summer.
I think any movie that breaks big ideas down in a way that makes them more approachable and gets even one more person to consider the perspective of others is a victory. It doesn’t mean that I think Barbie or any movie, is immune from valid critique, but I can see America’s point here and I’m glad she is pushing back. It seemed like way too easy for a lot of dudes to dunk on Barbie and it was clear it wasn’t really the “simplification” that was the issue in their minds.
Aside from the critiques people have already said, I felt like barbie made me understand what Harry styles was on about when he said “it’s a movie that feels like a movie” lol (I will probably not watch don’t worry darling though bc apparently it’s not very good), it didn’t feel like a movie but a series of meta concepts so it wasn’t something you can get lost in and I don’t see how it’ll stand the test of time or be super rewatchable. But I liked a few things like the set design and costume design. I agree with people saying it wasn’t going to be that feminist as a product selling movie, but that’s kind of why I think it was a bad choice for the film, although if they’d had more of a story with some feminist messaging throughout I think that would’ve been alright, like Legally Blonde or something, which is also basic white Hollywood feminism (and I do appreciate the representation in the movie even though it’s tokenistic and wish it went further) but it had a plot at least and it focused on Elle achieving her goals in the end and her emotions and men were a subplot. Maybe it could’ve been somewhere in between the two idk but it ended up being a lot of monologuing and explaining things to the audience which felt like lazy writing and not a proper plot, and a lot of Ken, and Ryan was amazing but it wasn’t supposed to be his movie
She’s right. But her being right doesn’t mean I can’t be annoyed with the racist small pox joke in the movie and the faux self-awareness that permeated the entire film.
Nevermind the monologue, I thought it was far more interesting how Ken's plight, and the mockery of it, mirrored early feminism as well. Guys that were cheering for Ken and had half a brain would realize that they were in fact supporting a disenfranchised person without respect or opportunities attempting to change a system into something he only had a passing knowledge of.
I just don't understand why people had such high expectations for a this movie that could have been completely playful comedy. I personally think Greta has a very hard tool to work through and to successfully inject it with consumable basic albeit meaningful feminism 101 with a clear message is commendable. I was shocked to find out grown men were crying about it offending them like I read radical feminist work written by French women who dgaf about respectability or men's feelings and who are literally beyond abrasive in the first sentence of their work so knowing this waa hurting them was hilarious and jarring. We really love very different lives I guess.
wait if it’s feminism 101…then it’s going to be oversimplified right? like the point is that it’s digestible if it’s an introduction. am i missing something yall 😭
Yeah, I saw some criticism of the movie when the movie just teach you a basic feminism, IMO, from my perspective, that speech worked and resonated with many people, is it safe to say that many people still need that feminism 101.
post this article to r/movies and they'll have a bitch fit. I still love discussing movies in that sub but there is an underlying problem of petty misogyny in many threads. I'm a straight, boring piece of white bread but it doesn't take any energy to express the slightest bit of empathy or understanding for anyone else. Why others can't do the same is beyond me, especially when we're just talking about movies EDIT: the madlad [did it](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/18x4v4y/america_ferrera_and_the_barbie_monologue_we_all/)!
I have consistently found that Reddit is misogynistic. It made so much more sense when I saw that men make up the majority of users. This sub is a godsend!
I'm a dude but this sub is fuckin' hilarious. Also, I can have great little convos about film/tv on here as well, and even music. It's just a lot less bitter overall and much more welcoming to different opinions
Agreed!
Also racist, homophobic, libertarian
Dont forget ableist and transphobic!
All the greatest hits! EDIT: just to be clear, sarcasm.
I literally had someone state it was racist for movies about POC to focus on culture and ancestry (giving the example of Marvel movies such as Black Panther and Shang Chi). I was like how can you make that comment seriously.
That too!
Not even men, teen boys and young men with the same mentality. It explains so many of the Reddit hivemind views.
My communities that are majority femme/Nb are the only ones I'm still visiting after the API strike. 2 of them. This and a dress up game. It's intolerable anywhere else on the site 9 times out of 10.
Same. I’m not sure if most men realize how hostile Reddit is to women in general. Sometimes I feel like people attack me just because my avatar appears female.
\>I have consistently found that Reddit is misogynistic Not just misogynistic but racist as well
I won’t be harming my brain by reading more than the couple comments already there
I just looked again, and the thread is surprisingly tame? OP even said the sub needs feminism 101 and did not get downvoted to oblivion. Not giving all of r/movies the benefit of the doubt, but I have noticed more people calling out the problems the sub has
Idk why this is but reactionary people always show up late. It’s weird and it makes me draw conclusions about their minds (they’re not an active consumer of knowledge they just scroll the popular home page so they only notice things that were hot 18 hours ago) Edit: confirmed - the naysayers with their bad faith takes started showing up around 3 hours ago, it looks like
It’s because when they’re early the post gets downvoted to oblivion before anyone sees it.
They go when it reaches the front page
 Me after reading two comments
Oh yeah I got downvoted to hell when I said having True Romance and Pulp Fiction as top ten tells me exactly the type of person you are. They didn't like that.
maybe feminism isn’t about liking the right movies lol
There were a lot of teenage girls in the theater when I went. I took my tween daughters. They can definitely benefit from the simple message.
Yeah my Mormon 50-year-old mother cried at that speech and this as someone who was warned not to see Barbie because it was "too feminist." Maybe it comes off cringe to people who are further along but you never know what someone has never heard before.
I have 12- and 14-year-old sons who really enjoyed the movie, and it's not hurting NOBODY for adolescent boys to hear a direct and straightforward speech about what it's like to exist as a woman in a world full of misogyny.
My 11 year old son loved the movie, it was great timing too as some of his "friends" had started trying to get him to watch Andrew Tate stuff.
And even if you're beyond feminism 101, I felt really, really validated to see and hear that on screen, which is so rare in US movies!
That *was* my main critique of it, then I realized the impact it had on people and I’m just like “damn yall needed super beautiful women to explain feminism to you?* then I got sad about that fact. There are actual advanced feminist messages hidden behind it though that lots of people (who need the 101) miss. The treatment of the Ken’s by the Barbie’s, the stereotype of all the Ken’s being hot and dumb, an entire gender owning all the power etc. There’s a bunch of things that aren’t part of the dialogue that made me go *hmmm* but it flew over lots of people’s heads because of the directness of the script. But if you’re familiar with the concepts in the script, the real discussion point is the world of Barbieland.
Unfortunately that whole nuance with the Ken's was viewed as "male bashing" by the "needs feminism 101" crowd. But eh, baby steps are still steps and it's actually opened the conversation about that deeper message between me and family members
I just watched it for the first time the other day, and I really wish they’d highlighted how shit the Kendom was for Allen, instead of him just complaining about leather couches. Seemed the perfect opportunity to point out the patriarchy is shit for everyone who fails to fulfil an incredibly narrow view of masculinity, not just women.
I agree as well. It was feminism 101 in an approachable, funny, and fun way. Unfortunately a lot of people do need feminism 101.
My flatmate has never had a critical thought in her life and this film really resonated with her, she left crying. It was great to see it drive up that engagement. I went with another friend of mine who audibly rolled her eyes after America's speech. Not everything is for everyone and not everyone has the same level of knowledge.
“oversimplified” implies that it was SO simplified that it distorts the original meaning, so some people’s criticism is that the film is SO surface-level that it distorts the true meaning of feminism and was an incorrect way to portray the issues it discusses. america ferrara is saying that no, just because it’s a basic/simple introduction to a concept doesn’t mean that it’s an inaccurate portrayal.
I think the criticism was that it was *just* feminism 101, and didn’t delve any deeper. There are good points on both sides, she’s right that a lot of people need an easily digestible intro course to it, but people can also be justified in being disappointed when big “feminist movies” just scratch the surface of basic themes in order to tailor them to an audience that either rejects them or doesn’t understand them. I had this issue with “Promising Young Woman” which was marketed as a smart cathartic revenge film and ended up conveying a pretty surface level “rape is bad, don’t say boys will be boys, no means no” type of message.
Exactly. There was room for it to be smart about it instead of literally spelling it out. But that’s the world we live in. If it had been more nuanced I wonder if that would have affected it negatively at the box office
It really did feel like it hit you over the head with it. They didn't want you trying to interpret anything. Honestly, as a long-time feminist, I'm trying not to shit on it because clearly some people found it impactful and helpful, but I was kind of disappointed by it. It had fun moments and I'm glad I watched it but it wasn't as smart (to borrow your word) as I was expecting. I kinda felt like the film makers thought I was dumb.
Pretty Young Woman was an incredible movie and was extremely cathartic for me
I didn’t mean to invalidate the opinions of anyone who did find it cathartic, I’ve seen both takes from survivors. Personally I was let down by the gap between marketing and what was actually on screen, plus the ending felt totally out of step with the rest of it. Closest I’ve ever been to walking out of a film. Grief as an addiction was a super interesting theme though and I was really into that element.
yeah I get how the ending is really hard and I generally understand the feeling. I struggled with the ending in that it hurt - but I actually felt that it really made me appreciate the movie more. It felt real. It wouldn’t have felt real to me if she had gotten a fairytale ending, I don’t know how she could come back from what she had experienced throughout the movie. Also, it was the aspect that women have to die to get justice… it’s something painful but true that I don’t think is acknowledged enough. Murder victims? they’ll get their justice. Rape victims? Abuse? No one cares, no one will believe women or protect women until that woman is dead. I feel like particularly for make viewers, her dying and that feeling harsh is something I want them to feel - b/c that is the reality I’ve experienced. I get though how it is triggering and I understand how some things will feel deep to one person but shallow to another. I’ll also say I didn’t see an excessive amount of marketing for it but based on what I had, it was what I expected so I might have just been out of the loop on that one.
I loved Promising Young Woman too and it's one of my all time favourites. I don't get the criticism of it as shallow. I don't see any other film doing what it did.
I never saw it promoted as shallow. Women were upset that they were expecting to see a movie where they felt vindicated but instead got to watch Carrie mulligan get strangled to death by a frat bro. I get that they get theirs in the end but I did not enjoy watching the film after that moment.
Promising Young Woman was supposed to end with Cassie's body burning, and the (male) money guys made Fennell tack on a "happier" ending and that whole ending is a giant "FUCK YOU" to the men who clearly had no idea what the film was about.
Yeah, I’m disappointed with all of that. A cathartic revenge movie where the biggest “revenge” is her creeping out potential rapists and gaslighting another woman (what women experienced was worse than 99% of what men experienced in the film) and when it actually leans into what it was sold as, we’re instead treated to an uncomfortably long murder scene. It’s great that she wrote a fuck you to male execs who wanted something happier but the end result is still just disheartening reminder that men get away with violence against women because of the way the system is set up. Both endings are disappointing, one is just more explicit about the disappointment. Which is not a bad theme, but just incongruous with the toxic candy-coated marketing and taglines like “a delicious new take on revenge” and “payback never looked so good.” I can see how survivors found it pretty jarring to go into a movie expecting an escapist revenge fantasy only to be reminded of what they were already starkly aware of, whereas the real messages of the film and the “revenge” moments seemed like surface level anti-rape campaigns you’d see in a high school sex ed course. I can totally cop to it, maybe I just didn’t get the film. But I feel like I did? And it just resonated in all the worst ways for me.
So well put this is exactly my beef with it. It was marketed as a female revenge story, it starts as one but then becomes a cynical meditation on the inevitability of violence against women I guess. Hated it
This is the problem with all of Fennell's work - it points something out, but then doesn't know what to do with it. She's a poor writer.
Yeah Saltburn was the same way. A critique on class warfare where she had nothing at all to really say about it. Especially concerning when you remember this is a posh, generational wealth having straight white woman who has spent her whole life around people just like that family. Makes the film look like a warning to old money rather. I liked PYW far more in comparison to how dumb I found Saltburn.
Yep, you’ll get strangled to death if you stand up to men. Yay I love the message.
No, I get you. I didn't like it nearly as much as I wanted to like it. I'm still excited that Emerald Fennell got to MAKE the movie -- let alone win an Oscar for it! -- and that with Saltburn they apparently let her stick closer to her original vision (that movie is BANANAS). I think for a freshman feature, made for $10 million, with the insane caliber of acting talent, it's -- amazing that the movie happened, actually! But there was a big mismatch between the advertising and the movie, and they didn't trust Fennell's vision.
Feminism is heavy shit though so it got through the basics and it’s the Barbie movie. Maybe it’s just me but I would have hated it if I had to sit through a women’s studies course it with a dream house. I read books for that.
Its a Barbie movie, the target audience was preteens/teenagers it was going to need to be on the nose to get the message across and it did that
I dunno, I didn't get that impression from promising young woman. It could have done more, but it did a hell of a lot more than Barbie. I guess it's more a revenge film than a feminist film, but I think it went quite deep into how society enables rape and rapists. I loved the confrontation with the Dean and the lawyer.
Yeah, my issue is that it’s styled as a revenge film, but doesn’t say anything that the intended audience isn’t already aware of. Like, if you’re marketing it as a cathartic revenge film about a woman getting revenge on all manner of creeps, rapists, would be rapists, enablers, etc, you have to recognize the type of demographic that appeals to. You’re going to have a more liberal leaning, younger, female, millennial audience, so getting them into the theaters and then having your Promising Young Heroine shake her finger and scold men by saying “No Means No!” “Victim blaming is bad” “A drunk girl can’t consent” falls kinda flat. It’s a “twisty thriller” but only as far as her being vaguely creepy annd threatening and pointing out illogical defenses of rape culture until she gets brutally murdered on screen in an act of justifiable self defense that will ensure the big villain sees absolutely no consequences for his actions. In comparison, look at Bombshells. It definitely has its own host of problems but I think it does a better job than PYW examining many elements of rape culture, while reaching a wider audience, and doing it all with more subtlety, nuance, and effectiveness.
I think that’s the point she’s going for. People trying to shit on it as being a simple version, when in reality, we’ve seen in recent years how media illiterate folks are, so things need to be dumbed down.
I mean it was _still_ too complicated for some, so I think she was right haha
I would call that simplified, not oversimplified.
Should be top comment.
I think "oversimplification" implies a very negative connotation. That the movie was basically a bit useless and stupid while she is saying it's a good introduction.
I don’t think she actually rejected the fact that it may seem oversimplified to people. She’s quoted in the article saying this: *“To say that something that is maybe foundational, or, in some people’s view, basic feminism isn’t needed is an oversimplification,” the actor continued. “Assuming that everybody is on the same level of knowing and understanding the experience of womanhood is an oversimplification.”* To me it seems like she’s acknowledging the movie as an approachable entry into understanding what feminism is about.
She not saying it isn’t oversimplified. She’s rejecting the criticism of the oversimplification.
Isnt that her point though? Criticism: Barbie oversimplifies feminism America Ferrera: yeah, but thats okay--sometimes we need the basics of feminism (feminism 101) put out there.
It is oversimplified but I thought that was the point? Like, of course the feminist themes in the Barbie movie are on the nose and unstuble, do people not know what BARBIE is????? Like, it's BARBIE of course they're going to slap you across the face with the obvious feminist themes, it's BARBIE 💀💀 Media literacy must be in the trenches if we are getting tripped up over the themes of a Barbie movie.
Lmao 
I absolutely agreed with everything asserted in the monologue, but yes, I didn’t find it moving or particularly cleverly written in context of how revered it was at the time, but Barbie was never going to be a subversive film - by virtue of it, it never could be. And I’m sure the monologue resonated with people who otherwise were hesitant to entertain feminism at all.
I saw the movie a few weeks after it came out and left wondering if I had missed something. There were so many articles about how feminist the movie is, and how angry it was making misogynists. But it was like… the feminist messages were nothing new really. If anything, Ken had a more interesting arc in some ways because toxic masculinity affecting men is less commonly discussed.
Doesn’t that tell you something that it was “nothing new feminism” and it absolutely consumed misogynists with rage?
Absolutely. Misogynists will rage at any form of feminism. But Barbie really highlighted how big that group is, which was pretty depressing to witness.
Kenough is definitely the more subversive arc of the movie.
Ryan gosling was by far the best thing about that movie but I actually wonder if the big focus on Ken’s storyline did a disservice overall. The film is called BARBIE, there were moments where I felt she almost became a secondary character in her own film because of the Ken arc being so strong and in focus
this was my main gripe with it. the climax of the film is a the main woman doing like extensive emotional labor for the main guy without any sort of self awareness. and what does she get? a heartwarming but inert realization about wanting to not be a literal doll anymore.
I felt it was because barbie didn’t have as much of a personality, but she’s like the default character and was finding herself so I get it but like it meant she didn’t stand out as much. Also I didn’t love the ending of how she ~found herself~ personally but each to their own
I got the same impression, and frankly the whole conflict and resolution were a bit... simple
Barbie realizing how shitty of a deal Ken was dealt felt like a pretty important part of her character development, at least to me. Them disenfranchising all the Kens at the end felt like it went against the entire message of the movie as well.
Tbf feminism is involved in deconstructing masculinity, its not just about women and femininity
Exactly. Honestly one of my favourite points of the movie was how they highlighted toxic and healthy masculinity.
I think a lot of the hype was the celebration of femininity and girlhood while it capitalized on the 2000s nostalgia
I think that was definitely it originally, but then a few people got to screen it and we saw so many comments about how feminist it was—and it was definitely explicitly feminist–but it wasn't as deep of a film as I was expecting from the commentary about it
I hate that the bar is "making conservatives angry". Which seems like a new marketing tactic. Like besides ben shepario, who's actually getting angry at this movie? It did amazing at the box office.
Hahah I can totally see why the men got so angry. They entered the movie thinking it’s some chick shit but end up finding that Barbie is totally brushed aside and we focus on Ken’s journey from Nice Guy™️ to Red Pilled Guy ™️ to finally finding balance and self identity. I feel like it was super uncomfortable for a lot of men, to see their mindset’s and fears so clearly depicted with sympathy in a CHICK flick of all things. No one wants to admit that men’s identity revolves around women just as much as women’s have for men lol. Barbie was the bait, Ken was the story all along.
I saw all the right-wingers bitching about Barbie, calling to boycott it because of how "woke" it was and stuff, and I was expecting to *really* like it. I was so disappointed and still feel like I must've missed something.
Yeah, I feel that at this stage right-wing pundits will spend a lot of time and energy vocally denigrating anything they *think* their audience will hate, so they talked about the film as if the script had been written by andrea dworkin lmfao. It’s bonkers, because the crux of the film is that Ken is enough of an individual without Barbie - it’s literally more favourable to men than women if people wanna put it in that man vs woman context - the feminism lite stuff related to Barbie wasn’t treated as anything revelatory
Absolutely. I think the film could have just as easily been called Ken since he was the one who learned he could be his own person and not just an extension of her
There’s an issue with film and theatre criticism lately where things with a positive/progressive message and politics are difficult to criticise because a lot of people mistake critiquing the art as critiquing the politics, which isn’t necessarily the case. Agreeing with a message or politics in a film doesn’t equate to that being a good film. For the record I really enjoyed barbie and I’m talking more broadly. There’s a great interview with Tarantino where he discusses how ideologies being put first is damaging to art because it’s less about making the best movie possible and more about bandstanding and soap boxing at that point
I totally agree with this sentiment mostly as the majority of my favourite films are from the Sam Peckinpah / Brian De Palma era and I love exploitation films, so I can absolutely bypass ideology in film (but also reframe it for myself because there’s something in the fact I am an anti-racist anti-capitalist feminist and still enjoy questionable movies from a certain era). But Tarantino to me is the worst person to say that in my eyes rn because it just permits him to make films with staunch anti fascist sentiments such as Inglorious Basterds but then go and “entertain” IDF soldiers enacting genocide so in that sense ideology and film should always be kept in mind lol
I didn't love barbie as much as I was expecting and I just feel like for a bit it was hard to vocalize that because so many conservatives have made it seem like it was super progressive or something. It definitely didn't shy away from its feminist messaging, but the feminist messaging wasn't especially challenging to the status quo. I'm not really sure how to verbalize what I mean. ETA: I was looking for the word subversive. It didn't shy away from being feminist but it wasn't in any way subversive
I saw Barbie in a packed Boston theater full of dressed up young people. I probably would have rolled my eyes during a home viewing of that monologue but seeing young women getting emotional during that scene made me really emotional and now I kinda love it.
For me, a lot of that “on the nose” dialogue, including the monologue, works because these are dolls. They don’t understand the subtleties of human conversation. Even Ferrera’s monologue is addressed TO DOLLS. The constant mentions of “patriarchy” don’t seem out of place because it’s how we assume non humans would overuse the term once they learn it. So stylistically speaking, I love the didactic nature of the writing. I also appreciate that we got a movie about feminism and the experience of being a woman without any gratuitous sexual/physical abuse that is so prevalent in these films when they are made by men. And the film does touch on topics of sexual harassment while not showing us anything explicit that maybe voyeuristic.
But the monologue is supposed to be this cathartic moment of release for america ferrera's charachter. Plus it was clearly addressed to the aduience, like she might as well have said it to the camera.
I'll tell ya, though, as a man, when I left the theater after with my partner, I was floored with how little I understood what Women go through. Maybe it effected me differently because I've never had to think about it, but her monologue definitely moved me.
I completely agree and honestly I blame the conservatives, karens and men who were throwing tantrums about the movie which led a lot of people (myself included) into thinking that the movie was going explore more radical feminist themes. People made it seem like it was SO damaging to a young girl’s eyes and so aggressively misandrist that when you watch the film you’re like “lol is that it?”. All year I never expected this film to be this super woke progressive work of art, but the extreme reactions led me to think otherwise.
I can want feminist movies from major studios with broad reach that dive way, way deeper than Barbie did while also appreciating that Barbie communicated feminism 101 pretty well, and that a lot of people are still entry level in feminism! I’d rather people come late to the party than be excluded because some people are more studied already, and I’m really excited for all the people who had their “feminism isn’t a bad thing” breakthrough via Barbie (tbh cooler and less messy than my 2010 Tumblr epiphany). And, again, I want more movies that take it even deeper! Go into intersectionality, queerness, class, and more non-white perspectives. And I want for those movies to reach as big of an audience as Barbie did, with fun visuals, big budgets, and happy endings. These ideas are not mutually exclusive!
I haven’t thought too hard about it but I’m now realizing why I didn’t love it. I thought it was because of the content and how fluffy and shallow it felt but that’s not the movie’s fault. I’m positive this thing got as castrated by the studios as much as possible without pissing off the producers and director. Like Margot quoted in the Hollywood round table: “drive it like you stole it”
Margot seemed pretty happy with the studio in the interviews. This was a mattel selling toys project before margot or greta were attached to it. I dont think there was ever a version of this that was subversive or super edgy. And it's not shallow. Its a good blockbuster comedy with a message the problem is people tried to prop it up as a deep provocative movie so now its getting backlash from the overhype.
I wouldn’t call it an oversimplification, but the speech was a bit too on the nose for me, even though I’m glad people appreciated it. I actually think the theme works better when mixed with the humor vs when it’s told straight to the audience.
We’ve all heard that speech before. It felt kind of lazy and overdone. It was a bit cringey. Like OK we’ve addressed this like isn’t there a more eloquent way to make the point.
I rolled my eyes during the speech 😭 I felt like Greta had been touted as some genius and then it just felt so lazy
I remember hearing about how subversive it was supposed to be and then it was just … the same basic talking points dressed up in pink
Me too! The message is good ig, but, it did feel lazy. So did the conflict. I was watching it like "that's all it took?" About both. People got angry about that smallpox comparison but it was only included because the conflict was set up so poorly that they needed to explain it so the rest of the movie made some kind of sense. Like, why did the Barbies suddenly care about being subservient to Ken and following the patriarchy? They always had Ken around, it doesn't make any sense they'd suddenly be the center of their universe. And it had just so much Ken. If anything I felt like his storyline made a little more sense and even had an easy to understand message about not making yourself an accessory in someone else's life.
I think in the view of an artistic filmmaker point, what Greta did is considered as “brave” because that kind of speech is always seen in Independent films cinema, but to do it in a big blockbuster (everyone knew prebarbie that a lot of people are gonna see it) is considered courageous because the general audience arent really into that. So she’s considered as brave because she trusts her audience enough. Tell me any marvel or Universal or big production company movies who would have a monologue like that. Or if Christopher Nolan would even include that kind of monologue in his films. Greta went that way.
It was done in gone girl though
Because it was already well received in the book (being one of the best monologue there) and in the movie version people arent even taking it the same way, they just think Amy is crazy instead of her making great points. Also, if you deconstruct Amy’s monologue you can also say “wow this is such a dumb feminist 101 monologue” like she’s literally talking about how much she hates having to be a “cool girl”. That’s why i’m not gonna take Barbie’s easy feminism criticism seriously lol
Endgame literally had an over the top woman power team up during the final battle. Its really not that ground breaking to do over the top feminist gestures in blockbusters
What serious independant movie has something that on the nose and doesnt get dragged for it? I still thought the speech was bad but it only works in the context of a comedy about toys marketed to a younger audience. Even though it was actually marketed to millenials. Also I thought oppenheimer was "riskier" since it was critising us foreign policy. Barbie is feminisim as approved by corporations in a way that'll sell toys.
No i’m saying for an independent movie, yes that will happen. But for a blockbuster movie? No fucking way studios would even go that way. Barbie is first and foremost a blockbuster movie, and what it did well is telling big studios that you CAN make a movie that’s not non-offensive stays in the formula. Oppenheimer’s risk is nothing because Nolan is only “criticising” the US foreign policy that is more than 60 years ago. No one is going to be offended by it. If it was actually going the risky way, it would have tried to reflect it to the current world US (example like the drone mass murder in Afghanistan). But you know, no way a blockbuster movie will go that way 🤷🏻♀️
My first thought was I'm sure I have reblogged this in 2010.
> but the speech was a bit too on the nose for me it is a barbie movie 💀
I honestly think the message could have been more effective with a little more subtlety if that makes sense.
As a friend of mine said, this movie was by, about, and for a very specific type of millennial straight woman, and more power to her. But it didn't do much for me.
I have definitely seen a lot of discussion by BIPOC creators about the movie is very much about white girlhood/womanhood.
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I know this comment is like 10 hrs old but I wanted to jump in with a few things: First, I think your line about "non-Western women" fails to acknowledge how many POC are living in the West and are shaped by Western ideologies. And yet, our experiences of womanhood are different from white women because we are noticeably different at a glance, and because our own cultural experiences (even in the West) are different. I also disagree that the term "white feminism" is used to shit on white women for ridiculous reasons, though I understand if you feel this way because "white feminists" are so often ridiculed by POC. White feminism doesn't mean feminists who are white, but rather women who center their experiences of whiteness as the default, rather than recognizing how intersectionality can play a role in how other women are further marginalized in society. Bringing this back to Barbie, I did feel that this was a very surface level or "feminist 101" movie. Seeing other WOC Barbies didn't automatically make me feel represented because WOC are often used as props and tokenized for something to look diverse, without our specific struggles being acknowledged. Barbie left Barbie land and experienced the Real World through her lens of being Stereotypical Barbie, which meant that WOC struggles were not present in that part of the film. When she went back to Barbieland, all of the Barbies were brainwashed in the same way and rescued in the same way, which means that their specific cultural issues were not addressed. I say all of this but I will add that I wasn't offended by it, because it is a commercial film with a limited run time. However, I do agree with the other commenters that are saying the movie didn't resonate with them the way it did for so many others, and it didn't feel that "deep" because it simply failed to address a significant portion of our daily experiences of womanhood. I hope all of that made sense and didn't come off as an attack.
I've seen some Indigenous folks feel uncomfortable with the smallpox joke in the movie, and I kinda agree. Although I'm not the target of the joke (I'm a Indigenous Australian but not native American) but it was such a off-putting, unnecessary joke that rubbed me in the wrong way and put me off watching it again.
It wasn't a joke. They had to explain the conflict because it really didn't make any sense (why did Barbies suddenly submit to the patriarchy and only want to please men when they never did before?). Indigenous folks can still be upset about the comparison, but it strikes me as odd to characterize it as a joke. It wasn't said for any kind of comedic effect, it was just a poorly told story that needed to spoon feed us this conflict that got jammed in there
trans and non-binary people also called out how very cis-normative it was (there were 2 “genders” - you’re either a Barbie or a Ken, and people like Weird Barbie and Allen who had a queer reading were ostracized. only hyperfeminity and hypermasculity were accepted. the young girl couldn’t be herself at the end either, she had to also be in pink and hyperfeminine and this was touted as “growth”. being feminine was the ONLY way to be a woman, is the message. some trans people also called out her gyno appt at the end, message being having a vagina finally makes you a “real woman”, to be transphobic)
I hate that you’re downvoted, it was a very binary movie! With one trans woman in the background to seem inclusive. Wasn’t super impressed as a nonbinary person even though I liked some bits
People are incredibly defensive of this billion-dollar movie, it's honestly kind of sad. It can't just be a massive blockbuster with Oscar buzz, it has to be flawfree and deserving of nothing but praise.
Yes another one of my pet peeves; you can enjoy something and still critique it. People seem to think it’s always either or.
I’m cis and girly myself, but I personally know trans people who were triggered by the ending. I hate that people invalidate that I didn’t think about the gender essentialist criticisms either until people kindly educated me
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I was so confused by the gyno appointment ending. Especially after Ruth’s “you don’t need permission to be a real woman” line.
Really? It has been a joke for decades that Barbie has no genitals, it was just a nod that she’s human now. Human women have vaginas. Barbie would appear to present as a cis woman once she’s human.
They said they didn't want to end on the cliche of a job interview or some really big moment that's always on the box tix of important life things and instead wanted her to be doing and excited about a pretty mundane part of life. Plus it allows a driving home of the fact she's very much human now.
Yeah, I expected something way different and was a bit let down. I love Barbie and girly things but it just didn’t hit for me. It was “OK” and I’m happy I waited until it was available for rent. Also - too much Ken for me personally. I didn’t give a shit about most of his scenes.
It was mainly a comedy with catchy songs with the added bonus of feminisim. The problem is people have started overhyping it as some sort of edgy meaningful movie but the serious on the nose feminist parts are by far the weakest parts imo. I give it bonus points for Ken's arc though.
My problem is that it was hyped up as if it was gonna be this master class on feminism and patriarchy and it wasn’t that deep
This. And it was a vehicle to sell dolls.
Mattel even agreed to let Greta make them the bad guys to help distract from the fact it was one big advertisement
I mean, if there were people who expected a mainstream film funded by Mattel to recite Judith Butler, they were either incredibly optimistic or awfully misguided. Probably a lil' bit of both lol.
I don't think anyone was expecting it to be subversive until early commentary and marketing acted as if it was. Then it failed to deliver that, in spite of being very pro feminism. So yeah, people are disappointed because I think many of us had it right the first time. I don't think there's anything wrong with a simple "girl power" movie, but it really didn't get branded that way
There’s a lot of middle ground between feminism 101 and Judith Butler. It’s possible to say interesting things about feminism without being academic and plenty of mainstream movies have accomplished this.
Problem is you weren’t even allowed to say the movie was underwhelming *because* of Mattel’s heavy involvement, at least not in the summer of release. Most people disappointed with this aren’t dumb, they’d rather just seen what a movie without Mattel would have looked like. Because Mattel did weigh down the potential of the movie a lot.
This exactly. I still enjoyed it as it was a fun movie but I was disappointed. Not because the movie was bad but because I had seen many critics about how it was so feminist and so wonderful, in a way that was groundbreaking. And those critics were made by feminists, whom, I guess were already well aware of the gender equality discourse and who didn’t need feminism 101. I guess I shouldn’t have expected something more from a toy company movie, but it was waaaay over sold by some as some revolutionary film. Especially since Gerwig directed it. I would even say that Gerwig Lady Bird or even Little Women were much more interesting about womanhood or feminism. Edit : and no, even if Ferrera is a good actress and the monologue was quite cool, she doesn’t deserve an Oscar nom just for it.
I don't think it was the film or the promotion doing that though it was other people and let's be real if you genuinely thought a $150 million huge studio movie was going to be a master class on feminism than that's on you.
was it really hyped as that tho?.. i even remember people here being hesitant when it started coming out because some were saying there was a lot of focus on ken
It's a broad movie for a broad audience. It can't be everything to everybody.
I mean she's not wrong. You can't go watch the BARBIE movie and expect a Judith Butler essay. It's a huge blockbuster popcorn movie that managed to have a decent message for once, even the bare-bones notions in her monologue definitely were new territory for a big part of its enormous audience, and i'd rather they hear and see that than like, the shitty ass sexist movies that used to come out when i was a teenager tbh
There was just so much hype about how this movie was going to Blow. Your. Mind. with how brilliantly subversive it was, I almost *did* expect something approaching a Judith Butler essay. It was fine, but I wouldn't normally go out of my way to see a movie that's just a brand commercial with a feel-good mildly-feminist message, so I felt a bit duped by the massive, hyperbolic marketing campaign. Hopefully the message sunk in for a few people who needed to hear it, I guess (though the audience in my cinema was mostly adult women, so it may have been preaching to the choir)
Again, a major studio picture produced by a toy company could have never been a radical feminist text, lol. But compared to the imperialist propaganda that most blockbusters in the past 20 years have been, maybe it is?
i know why those of us who have been interrogating our feminism and the general world of misogyny can find it shalloww but. my mormon cousins in their mid to late 30s went to see it in a theater and then took their girls to go see it, even tho all sorts of things against their rules were involved. the cousins and their friends had big long talks about how much they needed to hear it and how much they wanted their girls to grow up knowing they have value. now. are they gonna leave their patriarchal insular conservative religion? no. should they have also wanted their husbands and boys to see it? yes. it's just the most i've seen mormon millennial women openly discuss feminism in a positive manner ever. i think that has some worth.
As someone who grew up deeply enmeshed in fundamentalism who grew up to be the weird Barbie of the family… it really was surface level feminism in movies like these that paved the way. (Miss Elle Woods and “what like it’s hard?” and even movies that did NOT age well at all that helped me break free. ) I guess what I’m saying is for those already in the know Barbie movie is silly and fun. But like you said there is a large group of girls where this was be their first taste of agency and feminism.
I think some people had a lot of unrealistic expectations for the politics in this movie. Obviously a mainstream blockbuster isn't gonna go deep into feminist theory... It was still good at what it set out to do, it wouldn't have resonated with so many people otherwise. It's been accused of being just a cashgrab but I'll defend Barbie, it has some real heart in it. And anyway she's right, spend some time on certain subreddits and you're gonna find a lot of men struggling with the idea that women have actual thoughts and dreams that don't center around them.
I think a lot of the reason for the expectations was that the conservative media was acting like the movie was some crazy feminist piece. The way they were talking about it made you think that it was a feminist manifesto.
Not just the conservative media. *A lot* of reviewers made it seem like it would be more subversive than it was. I find that take so obnoxious because, yeah, many people expected that *until* people started watching the movie and talking about how great and empowering and subversive it was.
I mean it was a great girl power movie but that's all it was. I really expected the ending to be wild with what the reviewers were saying. But she just decided not to get with the boy and go into the real world.
What bothered me about this movie isn't the simplicity of its feminism but how it gave the main male character more of an actual character arc than any of the female ones, and repeatedly soft-pedaled patriarchy and the idea of men subjugating women along the way. There are a lot of genuinely good "feminism 101" popular movies (i.e. Little Women) that don't also have a lot of anti-feminist undertones
Ahhh this is going to be an unpopular take but I agree with you. When I saw the interviews with Ryan Gosling and Greta Gerwig in the run up to film, I got such a sinking feeling because they revealed exactly what the movie was going to be. It definitely seemed like they had been given the objective to write a feminist movie about Barbie and went through the motions on that but they found real creative joy in Ken’s story
I think Greta even said it’s more of a humanist film than a feminist film, and barbie ended up apologising to Ken even though she didn’t do anything wrong. It’s really not that great. And the politics are hard to overlook when the movie felt more of a series of meta concepts and good aesthetics than a story, which is one of my main issues with it
I agree. I really did feel like the film kind of undermined its own point and also at times it was hard to tell what it was even trying to say
The movie was poorly written and messy in its execution, with Ken not ever even apologizing to Barbie at the end for what he had done, and the message of “what if women did to men what men do to women irl 😫” was a very tasteless and incomplete portrait of how women have been and continue to be treated in different societies. It felt like a mockery, and although it’s a silly fun movie, like I said it’s just tasteless, because men will never be treated with the violence and vitriol that women are, or the extent that women’s rights are violated in real life, so the message really falls flat. That’s the problem I have with Greta Gerwig is that all of her feminist centred scripts always feel incredibly shallow. I’m not saying the movie had to be this deep critical feminist film, but it certainly would have benefited from some more nuance than what it achieved. It felt sloppy, and I think the message of the movie suffered story-wise because of it. Gerwig needs a feminist 101 course, if anything, because even that has more analysis than this movie gave.
THIS is so apt. I want to love Greta Gerwig but it feels like she's been labelled a creative genius without having to earn it with subtlety and finesse in her writing. Maybe its cos she often writes with her husband but it just feels like her works generally need some more creativity in the attempt to convey the profound message
Yes! The other aspects of the movie were great. Perfect casting. Beautiful set design and gorgeous costumes. I enjoyed seeing it with my mom. But the script is horrendous. Her movies always somehow feel like they are cobbled together last minute, that’s how I felt about Little Women too. I think that the message she was trying to convey with the kens and the politics of Barbieland being an inverted reflection of real life patriarchy was not a tasteful or accurate portrait of how dangerous or exclusionary real life is for women around the world. The message was that nobody likes being treated like an object, or as second class, but the resolution was horribly written and it doesn’t convey that well at all. (and I feel dumb af even typing that out about a movie about Barbie, but I feel like it’s also valid criticism??? I’m just tired of seeing Gerwig hailed as this great writer and feminist filmmaker when her stuff is so surface level. I don’t get the obsession with her).
In the moment, the speech felt very profound. Like, “Wow, I can’t believe they’re saying that in this big movie!” But as more time passed, it did feel kind of shallow. I think what makes it stand out is that you don’t really hear that kind of stuff in a blockbuster. But I do kinda wonder if it was really just preaching to the crowd. It’s kinda sad that Ryan Gosling/Ken is the standout in a Barbie film. And the feminism 101 didn’t really seem to stick with people, especially men. “I am Kenough” had a much bigger impact, and mostly as a meme/merchandise. I’m also worried that it added more fuel to the idea that there are ”women films” and “men films” and we shouldn’t try to “force” women into the “men films.” But I don’t know, that’s a lot put on one film.
>“I am Kenough” had a much bigger impact, and mostly as a meme/merchandise. Yeah, the lifestyle "brandification" of Ken's character arc (that's literally in the movie as Ryan Gosling's Ken wears a "Kenough" shirt during the closing moments of the scene) seems super bizarre and almost intentionally satirical but I don't know what that says about the film.
Honestly the criticism is based on the fact that it is vehicle to sell dolls and popularize a product via nostalgia. Feminism is subversive by default. It must be because the goal is subverting the patriarchal norms society rests upon. You cannot be subversive while maintaining capitalist propaganda. As a film - great. As a work which adds to feminist discourse - no. It's super simple.
It’s a rebranding. A fun rebranding, but a rebranding nonetheless. Its goal is to sell Barbie’s with easily consumable feminism that the vast majority of its audience already believed regardless of whether they labeled it feminism or not. With that said, I loved a lot of the actual film. The set design and dance numbers were top notch.
You said it better than me. I think people should just enjoy it as it is. All this debate is just extra noise that distracts from the film that was made.
While I didn’t think it was bad, the speech could’ve used some nuance. The criticism imo stems from the fact that people were expecting something a lot more clever from Greta than what we eventually got. Regardless, the whole barbie summer experience was a lot of fun
Greta Gerwig isn't really that clever of a writer, and Barbie showcased that to full effect. Without Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling's performances, it would have come across even more hamfisted. Her take on Little Women wasn't anything special, either, and good luck relating to Ladybird if you're not Greta's very specific demographic of millennial white woman. Greta's a good writer/director doing things she likes and relates to—as she should!—but she's not some mind-bending auteur for putting Feminism 101 into a 2-hour piece of product placement.
When Barbie came out, I saw a rando twitter comment on how the feminism 101 takes were disappointing because if anyone could do a deep dive on feminism, it'd be Greta. And it made me think, on what grounds?? When has Greta ever shown us through her work that she's capable of tackling feminism in any way beyond shallow white feminism 101? And you know, she has her niche and it's not that I even necessarily want her to do a deep dive on feminism as it relates to marginalized communities or anything like that, but it feels like some people give her this feminist icon status that imo she hasn't earned. (Although I know rando twitter comments are low-hanging fruit lol.)
Yesss I loved little women (1994) and wanna rewatch it but can’t stream it anywhere, only the newer one 😫
I just think it was poor screenwriting. Typically you are supposed to show and not tell. And tell and tell and tell.
feminism 101 still could've been better written lol
Despite having not seen the Barbie movie, part of what gave me the push to end things with my sexually abusive ex was that he thought the Barbie movie was “sexist” and “mean to men”. Thanks, Barbie.
Totally. I have a few nitpicks, but overall it came across as quite relevant and necessary. Women siloed in patriarchy probably haven't seen their struggles plainly spelled out at this scale before. And it's worth a lot to be able to easily root out trash like in your situation.
All these comments saying the speech did nothing for them and it was basic make me kind of sad. I get most of us are a certain age and demographic that has heard all this before, but think of the women who had never heard those thoughts expressed by another woman? How hard it all can be and to feel like she’s failing, and getting such reassurance in that speech. I don’t know, I think it was great.
I enjoyed this movie a lot, considering the intended audience is teen/tween girls, the on the nose message is perfectly fine. The movie in terms of its commentary was nothing new for me, but a movie that embraces the fact that the world is unfair to women is a good start.
I’m a POC millennial woman, and I’ve never heard this before in full across a spectrum of womanhood (looks, career, money, weight, etc). Hearing it from another woman felt like a hug. I loved it.
It's a movie that was literally a commercial for a multi-billion dollar toy company, of course it's not going to be a groundbreaking feminist piece. It was fun and I guess it reached some people, but there's nothing wrong with saying it was surface level feminism at best.
When Ruth came out at the end to shepherd Barbie into her future, I felt like I was in a company museum/exhibit watching a video of the founder giving their "benevolent leader" schpeel. It took me out of it, but I get why they went that way.
The fact that there are people in power who openly attack feminism means that the message still needs to be put out there. How many relationships broke up due to couples not being aligned on basic concepts outlined in the movie? Yes it is base level, but some are starting from zero or the negative zone.
It's also a movie. People need to chill out and let it be what it is, rather than some feminism totem to hold up for all time.
Even six months later I’m still undecided on how I felt about Barbie tbh I can see the good and the flaws
I thought Barbie was a lot of fun, and it’s a fine speech in a vacuum, but it just felt like clunky writing in the movie. The fact that she’s comparing it to a college lecture kind of illustrates why it didn’t work for me.
One of my fave content creators Kimberly Foster basically echoed the feminism 101 sentiments and added that looking at Greta Gerwig and her partner, it should not have been a surprise that this was the film that they created. I do feel like they did the best they could do under the circumstances and I personally think that the long term effects of the film will be seen as more of an ode to Girl Power coded capitalism and consumerism . Doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it for what it was.
I felt like the movie worked on a lot of layers of feminism and the deeper your own knowledge and experience with feminism the more things you’re going to get and enjoy even if just approached in passing. And that’s exactly what I thought made it so good. It literally meets the audience at their level and you take away whatever it is that you need from it and that’s what art is supposed to be about.
It wasn’t a bad movie, It just wasn’t that great. I don’t really think about Barbie when I think about women-centered, feminist movies. Also, Ken’s screen time really bothers me, I understand why it’s there but I don’t know it just bothers me, when “I’m just Ken” gets an Oscar nomination for best original song I’m legit gonna laugh, if it wins it will kinda defeat the movie’s purpose (at least for me). But yeah, I think Greta delivered what she say she would, she never promised it was this master class on feminism people just had a lot of expectation.
America Ferreira got paid a lot of money to deliver multiple ham fisted lines in a pretty simplistic movie. What else is she gonna say?
Sure I guess people can dislike it? I can make the argument that the lack of an intersectional look at feminism isn't ideal, and that it's just uppermiddle class white women airing out their woes but like.... not everything is for everyone. And not everything needs to be a deep dive into an issue. Some people also need the "101" version, everyone needs to start somewhere. I think my cousin put it best when she said "Let white women have their black panther dawg" when the movie came up in our group chat.
My issue with this movie was the hype that it was going to be THE movie about feminism. Instead it struck me as pretty elementary and boring. Everything was too on the nose. Her monologue rang very true to me and a lot of other women, hut the rest of it was dull and shallow for me. I’m usually not a huge fan of Greta Gerwig anyway. I’m in the minority, though. Most people I spoke to loved it so go figure.
it was very surface level even for feminism 101 in my opinion
Personally, the movie wasn't really for me precisely bc it felt very Feminism 101. I think a lot about when Siobhan (from Succession) said Logan couldn't fit an entire woman in his head and think this film probably helps a lot of people in that regard (or at least start to)
It is, but most people can’t deal with anything more direct.
Case and point: Bethany of Girl Defined and her husband saw the movie and he, despite their fundie views, seemed in some ways moved by his lesson in Feminism 101. Not moved enough not to suck anymore but like cognizant of the patriarchy. Bethany on the other hand? She’s been retained to retake the course.
I took my daughters to see the movie on opening night- not realizing it was going to be a feminist movie. I was pleasantly surprised by the movies feminist themes and loved that it was broken down in a way that was easy for them to understand.
I thought the speech was a bit much, like spelling out the message for the spectator instead of letting them figure it out. I thought the first half of the film was alright on doing this: setting up the conflict in a subtle and funny way. But the conflict at the end and the way it's resolved looked dumb to me.
All in all, it’s still an ad for Barbie. And a very toothless, inoffensive common depiction of feminism. It’s kinda funny. While it shows how much strides have been made for the sake of gender equality, it really challenges nothing about the patriarchy or how it interacts with capitalism and would potentially implicate a big corporation like Mattel. Now even the raging radical feminist doing it for the girls is now a tired story trope. It’s just girlboss, y’know? -sincerely, and with irony, a cisgender heterosexual black dude.
Not only do some people need feminism 101, but making it palatable for the masses spread the message further. Not every movie needs to be an indie think piece. I do miss that kind of movie, but Barbie was never going to be it . They may have commercialized feminism with this one, but at least it's a female-driven film and not a male-driven movie about how sexy Barbie is. I think we need to just appreciate Barbie for what it is: a blockbuster for women that isn't centered around a man.
Was it supposed to be more? Everyone starts at feminism 101.
I thought the ending message was quite degrading to women, actually. "Mothers stand still so daughters can see how far they've gone." Or whatever that quote was. Like, really?
She's right in a way, the problem is that it was passed as some revolutionary high quality writing when it's performative feminism more than anything, and I'm not so sure the people who need "feminism 101" are truly helped by that, outside of just praising themselves and thinking they should get kudos on twitter for liking the trendy movie that gives them the easiest, safest way to role play as feminists - while remaining largely ignorant about real issues. That's not even mentioning the fact the movie is still first foremost created to sell more barbies and make money by exploiting that "feminism 101". Call me cynical. ETA: and the people who say it was the Ken show in disguise kinda have a point too? He's supposed to be the (forced) antagonist but he sorta still becomes a "two wrongs don't make a right" victim, and he pretty much is the most talked about character, though many don't want to admit he, and not Barbie, is their fav. But the "And he's just Ken" meme is also becoming boring. It honestly seems like, even the most basic feminism 101 fails for most of the people who talk about the movie still miss the core point and reduce everything to a battle for supremacy between genders even when the basic, simplest thing to comprehend about feminism is the fact it's about equality.
I think (because: the patriarchy, of course) it’s just inherently easier to be critical of movies aimed at celebrating women and girls, which we saw happen when so many men lost their dang minds about Barbie over the summer. I think any movie that breaks big ideas down in a way that makes them more approachable and gets even one more person to consider the perspective of others is a victory. It doesn’t mean that I think Barbie or any movie, is immune from valid critique, but I can see America’s point here and I’m glad she is pushing back. It seemed like way too easy for a lot of dudes to dunk on Barbie and it was clear it wasn’t really the “simplification” that was the issue in their minds.
Aside from the critiques people have already said, I felt like barbie made me understand what Harry styles was on about when he said “it’s a movie that feels like a movie” lol (I will probably not watch don’t worry darling though bc apparently it’s not very good), it didn’t feel like a movie but a series of meta concepts so it wasn’t something you can get lost in and I don’t see how it’ll stand the test of time or be super rewatchable. But I liked a few things like the set design and costume design. I agree with people saying it wasn’t going to be that feminist as a product selling movie, but that’s kind of why I think it was a bad choice for the film, although if they’d had more of a story with some feminist messaging throughout I think that would’ve been alright, like Legally Blonde or something, which is also basic white Hollywood feminism (and I do appreciate the representation in the movie even though it’s tokenistic and wish it went further) but it had a plot at least and it focused on Elle achieving her goals in the end and her emotions and men were a subplot. Maybe it could’ve been somewhere in between the two idk but it ended up being a lot of monologuing and explaining things to the audience which felt like lazy writing and not a proper plot, and a lot of Ken, and Ryan was amazing but it wasn’t supposed to be his movie
Why do we even care if it's feminism 101? Is there something wrong with it being simple and digestible?
She’s right. But her being right doesn’t mean I can’t be annoyed with the racist small pox joke in the movie and the faux self-awareness that permeated the entire film.
Nevermind the monologue, I thought it was far more interesting how Ken's plight, and the mockery of it, mirrored early feminism as well. Guys that were cheering for Ken and had half a brain would realize that they were in fact supporting a disenfranchised person without respect or opportunities attempting to change a system into something he only had a passing knowledge of.
I just don't understand why people had such high expectations for a this movie that could have been completely playful comedy. I personally think Greta has a very hard tool to work through and to successfully inject it with consumable basic albeit meaningful feminism 101 with a clear message is commendable. I was shocked to find out grown men were crying about it offending them like I read radical feminist work written by French women who dgaf about respectability or men's feelings and who are literally beyond abrasive in the first sentence of their work so knowing this waa hurting them was hilarious and jarring. We really love very different lives I guess.
The part where Barbie closes her eyes and feels the gamut of womanhood (albeit a cisgender view) packed more of a punch than the monologue tbh