The weirdest thing, to me, is that mattel board (who are 50/50 male and female) agreed to be represented as completely male and dumb in this movie - bizarre.
Honestly I didn't expect myself to root for Ken of all characters. He is dumb, stupid, obsessed and weak... and yet he is the only character who seems to actually have the guts to fight as an underdog. And instead of maturing and having a more nuanced view of the world, he just gets crushed. My poor heart...
He... does mature? He realizes that he is Kenough, and learns to stop defining himself by Barbie and his pursuit of her. In the beginning of the movie he defines himself by his relation to Barbie, by the end of the movie he becomes his own person.
My niece had one of those. As her mother pointed out, this Midge doll caused a lot of awkward conversations and confusion about how a woman actually gets pregnant.@@PointsofData
I don't have much else to say that hasn't been already, but Barbie pretending to like Ken's guitar for four hours and then tricking him really made me feel sorry for Ken. Being supportive of each others' interests is something I find extremely important in a relationship
No but okay THAT part pissed me off SO MUCH. Like those bints are proudly high fiving each other for fucking with the Ken’s minds and hearts, when we all know good and goddamn well that if the roles were reversed they’d be reeeeing about the patriarchy pitting women vs women They also low key admitted that the only way to overthrow the Kenoccracy was to use underhanded subterfuge, when the Kens legally dismantled the Barbatorship *within 48 hours of trying*
Barbie is strawmanning feminist talking points so much that it comes off as satire, and it's easy to assume that the movie is very clever by making fun of both sides. But when you watch and read interviews with Gerwig, that assumption is quickly put to rest.
Kenough for what? I have a friend who says the Turkish version of the line properly translates to "I am (Kenough) for myself" and apparently the pun still works, which is really cool
13:40 I've seen girls play with Barbies, and I have played with Barbies, and I've never seen girls in real life play like Barbieland. Ken is either a friend or boyfriend, and when a girl is done interacting with him, he "goes to work," which is usually something vague and businessy where he gets rich and is powerful and successful so he can give Barbie presents and take her out to eat and on trips. Ken is sweet to Barbie and Barbie is sweet to Ken because they are either friends or "in love." This was one of my main problems with the plot of the movie. Girls DON'T play with Ken and Barbie like Barbieland. Barbie treats Ken like poo in Barbieland. I've never seen that in real life. Girls playing want a happy home (hubby and kids) or romance or a successful career woman with a successful boyfriend/hubby. They don't want "girls night" and ignoring Ken. So Barbieland ISN'T the representation of girls' play, yet it also isn't any sort of reflection of the actual world we live in or even the "real world" of the movie. It doesn't make sense. (I thought Ken working at "Beach" was hilarious, though.)
Incidentally, I didn't have a Ken doll, and my Barbie was always a teen living on her own in an apartment raising several abandoned kids she'd found. Sometimes she would dress up and go on dates, and the guy was always perfect and kind and dreamy (like Prince Charming). He thought Barbie was amazing and she was falling for him. They were kind, loving, good, and interested in each other. I cant imagine any girl playing with just Barbies having them all hang out and tossing Ken to the side.
You know, I think I would like to go back to the days of the animated Barbie movies that were re-imaginings of classic stories with actually pretty darn decent voice acting and a clear effort to be creative.
Sasha: "Where do the Ken's Sleep?" Barbie: "Lol Idk" Fun fact: Males consistently make up the majority of the homeless population, as you stated. 1 minute later when the Kens went full Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité: Barbie: "You can't do that Barbieland was perfect!"
As a woman, I'm starting to really wonder if a well-made, well-written movie worthy of being taken seriously, yet generally of a feel-good nature, that also includes things women tend to like, like notable fashion and pop music, with a female protagonist that goes on the very basic arc of following a certain worldview, having said worldview being challenged, and ultimately changing as a person, is so much to ask for. They did it with Clueless back in 1995 - it can not be that hard. Don't even get me started on the people that come in like, "oh, it's just a movie about barbies, why are you men so angry, meh meh meh bla bla bla", because Greta Gerwig and co. brought this on themselves by shoving this movie into the current political conversation. If it had just been chill, as chick-flicks and feel-good summer movies used to be, it probably wouldn't be the subject of so much in-depth media analysis, and if it had been particularly creative or had particularly strong writing, it might have even been put in the spotlight due to its high quality. Instead, RFT is able to make a well-reasoned video like this, that just so happens to not look upon this movie very favourably - and that isn't due to him being a man or misogynistic, that's just because the film sucks balls. You don't want men getting grumpy and raining all over your favourite movie? Demand better female-targetted entertainment then. I'd join that cause in a heartbeat. Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed this video, Random! Entertaining and digestible as always, it really didn't feel like 90 minutes at all (:
this may come across as condescending but it isnt meant to belittle. the problem with good media for women is that the ideal doesnt reflect the financial situation. last i looked into it, women make the majority of purchases. feminists say 'women earn 77 cents of a mans dollar' but the statistic they are reading shows that women spend about 80 cents a man earns, as well as most of what she makes as well. these two together mean that women make up 90% of the consumerbase. and that in turn means that if you can get a woman to decide to make a transaction, it is far more likely to occur and cheaper to do. showing popular fashion is fine, but it doesnt necessarily drive sales. the change in zeitgeist which occured like 20 years ago is a shift from creating independently good products, to seeing entertainment products as vehicles of advertising. space balls with the comment about merchendising was pretty on the nose. frozen, a disney brand, was an attempt to revitalize the themepark segments. the movie ticket is just to get people to start spending, as once you start spending it becomes harder to stop. you first buy the movie ticket, then there is another celebration of the brand come dress up as harry potter to the next book release, then there is a home release and some themed merch to figure out how much people will pay. im digressing. if you want a story where the protagonist is a person instead of a consumer, that limits product placement. if you have a flawed character, a fair number of women will hear that as preachy and condescending. instead you would need a character which isnt flawed persay, and isnt resisting adversity, but who changes with mood. the more the mood intensity, and more she goes with her gut and female audiences project themselves and vicariously experiance this world as the main character, the better the show will do. if you push in pop music, you might get some extra sales, but those who pay for music likely already bought it. the shrek approach of having the cast do covers of the music will sell more, but there is still a huge shift from digital purchases to streaming- and there isnt much money there. the best id expect would be a feature length commercial where you have a woman with a problem, and the solution is shopping at the store. it would be nice if people made better media. and it would be about as nice if consumers were willing to pay for it. most of us want media at constant prices, and the industry focuses on graphics like with guardians, because it is litterally something everyone can see. but it would be better if indie media companies were able to get shoestring budget projects which were still solid. it is sad that studios either go for global appreciation, or broke- deliberately trying to lose money. but the young people starting up just dont have the right encouragement. maybe they start on youtube, and that is very shoestring cause ad structure. a while back there was a video game project which honestly kinda sucked called minecraft, but it had lots of soul in it. we need to only buy good media, and that means we need to look local, and expect it to cost a bunch. quality costs arent much higher than what is implied by movie theaters, but the ticket price has to be different to show to outsiders that they are trying something different. i dont even go to movies because i know they are longform ads that i pay for. it feels like im being spit on and so i dont. but we can actively improve things.
Most people are stupid though and its profitable to appeal to the lowest common denominator. More than that, they disguised the misandry in this film remarkably well before its release. Having said that most people don't seem to have noticed a problem with it even after seeing it so what do I know.
the movie could have been something women AND their boyfriends (or you know, any other man that accompanied them, or even men on their own) would enjoy. Heck, wheneve I was at my aunt's place as a kid, my cousin and me always played with her Barby dolls and mansions and cars and whatnot. Barbie was a pop culture phenomenon (maybe it still is) everyone has some memory of engaging with. Of course the movie is mainly marketed towards women, like the doll is mainly targeted towards girls, but that doesn't mean that men (and boys) can't partake. This didn't need to be a fucking "us vs them" story, this could've been something to instill just wholesome values... you know, like family movies used to do.
I kinda feel like The Devil Wears Prada fits that description. Not 100% and **wow** a couple of her friends and her boyfriend are written horribly and never get called out for their behavior, but overall Andrea has her worldview challenged, she learns to appreciate fashion and style where she fully rejected it before, she grows as person to the point where she can walk away from two major things in her life that aren't working - her job and her boyfriend - and the ending is very positive.
I thought the parody was intentional. It's still a dumb movie, but it makes more sense that all the jokes are pointed at both sides, making the target audience the majority of people who take the middle ground. The patriarchy sucks and the feminists are bad too, but the jokes are so over the top that at no point do we get a perspective they aren't making fun of.
i thought that was kinda the point. from what i remember it was a parody of feminists and an aburdist comedy. it isnt supposed to make sense, thats part of the joke
@@joshuaduck4139 Nope. Watch interviews with Gerwig; it is entirely serious in its fêmînîßt talking-points, not satirical at all-she explicitly affirms this.
New subscriber here! Spent the last couple of weeks bingeing all your Rings of Power, and Hobbit videos. I not only am very entertained but I also learned a lot about writing good screenplays and fantasy stories. And I clicked immediately when I saw the Barbie premier. Keep up the great work.
Women tend to spend time with other women that have similar interests and life experience. Therefore, working women hang out with women with jobs, stay at home moms hang out with other moms, etc, etc. I was a full-time mom while I raised my kids. When I was with my friends, we talked a lot about our kids and having babies. Nobody was ever bored of the subject because it was the focus of our lives. The writers of the Barbie Movie have a very narrow view on womanhood while claiming to speak for all women.
Ok but as a stay at home mom who also is friends with stay at home moms we do talk about needing breaks from motherhood and the mundaneness of motherhood. We’re open about that with each other. When my friends brother watched the kids for a while and started complaining how boring and depressing it was we told him it was that way for us too and maybe he will be more compassionate with his future wife.
@@valenciasaintilus9573 Everyone needs a break from whatever they do, but repeated studies show that stay-at-home moms are the happiest women. I respect that you're different, but you ARE different.
You missed that the Kens are singing a song about a man getting abused by his girlfriend. The film attempts to frame this like this is the men saying they will abuse the barbies, but the song at that chorus switches to the view point of the abuser. What is actually happening is that the kens are calling out the barbies for manipulating them for decades.
When did this supposed abuse take place? This comment section just comes across as a bunch of incels mad that a movie wasn't made specifically for them lmao. Y'all so sensitive
We live in a world where a Barbie movie my 7 year old neice watched is more politically charged than a movie about the inventor of the Atomic Bomb, THIS IS WHY THE ALIENS HAVEN'T INVADED
You know the film is PG13, right? There are Barbie films out there far more aseptic and meant for actual kids (maybe a bit too many) Complaining about the Barbie film that delves on the political side of Barbie that was there from the very begining for being political is like complaining about Jacques Cousteau's Undersea World having an enviromentalist message
@@Nechtan13 This message was not part of Barbie from the very beginning. It is, in fact, rather the opposite; Barbie was supposed to represent a liberation of women, not oppression of men.
@56paisano Barbie is just a copy of another doll at the time and the reason they made Barbie was to sell something that clearly has a market because dolls beyond just babies were actually a thing before Barbie. Almost like the 2001 parody at the beginning of the film was a lie. Imagine my shock, that the same film that says nonsensical, contradictory, and dumb stuff did that.
@@Nechtan13 lmao I wish that had showed up when I did an essay on the history of Barbie and the creator in 8th grade. It wasn't mentioned anywhere that I saw (didn't pass the first result page) but it was back in 2008 or 9.
Barbie land would've actually been a lot funnier, if the barbies were treated like actual barbie dolls for individual use. Just in the middle of a conversation, one's head pops off but they just keep talking because it's entirely normal. There's so many barbies in Barbie land that they all have to fight whose going to be the president barbie or the firefighter barbie and there's just the right amount of Ken's to equally take over some of the jobs and try and settle some of the chaos of all the barbies. If they really wanted a social message, maybe have some sub plot about how the president barbies are mad because now Ken thinks he's doing a better job, but they resolve it by simply comparing how effective he is versus them and how him being a Ken has nothing to do with it, and merely that he just had better ideas. Some other jobs the Kens took over go back to the Barbies because those Kens are worse at the job, and they realize that hey, letting the Barbies run things all on their own led to all this chaos and maybe we need to work together now to prevent it in the future. I don't know, but something had to be better then this. This cannot be the best plot someone suggested in the writers room. They don't go to the real world ever, because this movie's portrayal of men actually makes me loose brain cells.
So I can understand why every man in the real world looked and hit on Barbie as she is supposed to be the representation of the perfect woman. Skipper ... if I remember was a baby sitter. So, not having kids in Barbie would might make her sad/crazy to go try and get a kid. It's a bit strange they have a scene where Ken and Barbie get in trouble for taking clothes.... as California decriminalized retain theft under $900 and actively punishes stores/employees for trying to stop crime.
Interesting thing Greta said in an interview about filming Margot Robbie & Ryan Gosling on the boardwalk: She commented on how many women and men openly came up to Ryan and asked for autographs, selfies, and complimented him on his costume. With Margot, hardly anyone approached her, and all the attention she got (especially from men) was from a distance. _Greta_ admitted that she assumed it was because the men were leering and objectifying Margot, proving that men still objectify and oggle and like women because they look pretty. Of course, anyone who isn't chugging blue-haired body-positive "woe is whamen" Kool-Aid can tell that it's because feminists constantly complain that catcalling and unwanted attention and any compliment is sexual harassment. Greta and her fellows have crafted a small bubble of the perfect society they want and they *STILL* aren't happy. (Credit to The Little Platoon for finding that article)
Or noone recognized her outside of playing Harley Quinn. It's a dumb take, I know. She's a fine actress but it's probably safe to say that HQ propelled her career and most remember her for it.
I was gonna comment the same thing. Talking to women/commenting on them = evil men/patriarchy. NOT doing that = evil men/patriarchy. It takes some special double think to be a modern feminist.
@@30noir you know well and good that “ simply talking” not what women mean when we talk about sexual harassment. Being talked to isn’t problem. When I have grown men follow me around at 15-18 years old telling me how big my breasts/butt are and asking to take me to hotel or asking me if they can eat my vagina that is sexual harassment. When my coworker just a few weeks ago told me “ come here sister, come sit on my lap” that is sexual harassment. It is so disingenuous when women bring up a real problem and men twist it and downplay as if we are upset by men who are “ just talking”.
@@valenciasaintilus9573 My heart breaks when I read all the hardships you have to suffer. I really hope you can stay sane in such a violent and harassing world!
Kind of crazy how during the monologue trying to list all the hard things for a woman that come from societal pressures, many of those that I myself as a man was thinking to myself “no as a matter of fact [insert name of a woman I know] isn’t like this and I myself as a man would be totally supportive of her not being pressured to do that.” As you pointed out the financial thing. As a guy when I’m dating I do not give a single shit how much a girl I meet appears to make or have. Also as you pointed out, some of the social pressures listed in the monologue that the film thinks only apply to women, in my head many of those I noticed seemed to line up with what society pushes me as a man to do/be.
That hole plot line of Barbie Land being "brain washed" by the patriarchy and the way the characters "deprogram" everyone is easily the movie's most obvious problem with this movie and how it handled it's message, it portrayed the patrirchy way to positively and delt with it in a way that makes feminists out to be people how brainwash/emotionally manipulate anyone who disagrees with them, it completely fails as feminist propaganda.
But it's only brainwashing when the bad people do it--this is entirely consistent with feminist propaganda. In their eyes, that is actually true. As the joke goes, if they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all. And also, just to add an additional point; the movie opens criticize the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which struck down a law prohibiting private citizens from engaging in free speech about politics if it was too close to an election because it was ostensibly unfairly "influential"...but kidnapping voters and putting them through forced struggle sessions where you emotionally berate them the DAY before a vote is totally fine.
That is exactly where the movie lost me tbh. I was excited to see it as part of Barbenheimer, and I knew it was going to be feminist, so I wasn’t blindsided by it being political. I was totally flabbergasted at that whole plotline. The Kens peacefully convinced the Barbies to join the patriarchy by… asking nicely. And all the Barbies are happy, but that is only because they are brainwashed. The idea that women who support the patriarchy are brainwashed or have internalized misogyny is a taking point in feminism, but the way it is shown occurring in Barbieland makes no sense in the context of the film. It seemed to be added specifically to bring up “brainwashing” while ignoring the actual events shown in the movie. And the Barbies win through emotional manipulation. Very empowering.
@@macojo2477 I thought that at one point. But it does make some semblance of sense I suppose on a second watch (my mom forced us). He believes that men are the ones that work every job in “our world”, which explains why he doesn’t believe she is a doctor. This is the only time I will defend this movie, cause it’s not very good. Except Ken stuff, he was the dumb fun the movie thought it was being the whole time
Great breakdown! Little Platoon did a detailed breakdown too but yours definitely resonates more with me. Thanks to the more critical lens used here. Hope this review gets tons of views.
With regards to domestic violence, if you look more into it, it's much closer to 50/50. Men being abused in relationships is severly under-reported, due to the societal stigma and aproaches to this problematic. Add lack of any safe-housing for abused men (the one that opened was protested by feminists and the dude behind it was driven to suicide) and you have pretty screwed up situation. And far lefties will tell you it's "patriarchy hurting men".
Actually, the rare studies that took into account equally men and women found on average slightly more male victims than female ones. With the results still being biased by the reluctance to talk of men. That is also the case for studies about rape and SA in a meager measure. Besides, pretty much every meta-analysis about DV I've ever stumbled upon found the violences to be reciprocal in more than half cases, whether the couple was heterosexual, gay or lesbian. I could go on but I think this will be enough depressing revelations for today.
@@americafy9195 While domestic abuse can be terrible, it is also unfortunate how often that fact is ignored; some woman can hit you, scream obscenities, start destroying property, but if you lightly smack her back into reality, you're basically a serial killer. Physical violence isn't a good response to things generally, but it's also ridiculous to ignore context. We used to have a rule in the US that is technically still on the books about "fighting words"; you couldn't verbally instigate a fight and then claim you were assaulted because the other person lost their temper and swung first. We need to bring that back. Sometimes people fight, and that shouldn't automatically be a crime, anymore than spanking your partner in a sexual way shouldn't be one either (yes, people have been arrested for that).
Also, women are actually more lethal in their attacks because they use weapons like kitchen knives. The idea being they are physically weaker than men so they grab a weapon and now instead of punching (which even when men do it, it’s almost never lethal) they are stabbing.
This was really a great review of this movie. So many other reviews seem to get so many things wrong, so I appreciate you acknowledging the different perspectives. Honestly though, intentional or not, the movie did a really good job at showing how people can all watch the same movie and walk away with completely different understandings of what it was about.
Another banger by RFT!!!!! This man doesn't miss!!! I cant explain my excitement when i see a new video out. Thank you for being able to articulate what so many of us think, and feel. You dropped this 👑
So I left Barbie with my family hating the film and my entire family loving it. I wasn’t able to articulate why it was bad and why I felt the way I did. I tried to see why it was bad but most explanations were heavily political and were not well made. So seeing this show up and explaining exactly why I felt the way I did is excellent. Immediate subscribe and I will most certainly be looking forward to seeing your future work!
38:50 - 39:07 Mattel actually turned Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House into an actual toy in 2024 (as a Comic-Con exclusive), which either makes the entire point of the movie either completely pointless or a prophecy of things to come. Make of that what you will.
In the Philip K Dick novel 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch', life on Mars is so incredibly boring that the colonist take to acquiring "Perky Pat" dolls, and all the accessories so that they can take a certain drug that allows them to live through the dolls. Like they turn into the dolls and then live in the accessorized world they built while not on drugs. Other stuff happens, but this is all reminding me of that particular part of the plot, except it's reversed, and Philip K Dick is a vastly superior writer.
I don't think the motherhood messaging conflicts. The first scene showing them smashing their baby dolls is a message against instilling the idea in children that motherhood is not just your only option, it is THE goal. You're meant to grow up and make babies, period. The realistic and positive portrayal of the mother and daughter later in the movie is to show that being a mother and a parent is still a valid and important choice.
I sort of agree, but then, I also think it's confusing. The motherhood angle really feels tacked on in general. The opening was a very deliberate homage, done very, very well, but the remaining scenes are just kinda there. They don't seem to relate too terribly well to bitchy daughter and whiny mom, and despite what some people say, Barbie expresses no interest in becoming a mother, so the few motherhood dialogues just seem...random. So I can somewhat understand someone really absorbing that opening scene while not really taking note of the later scenes that sort of re contextualize what the director was trying to say.
With the preggo barbie being considered an outcast I don't think the movie is supporting motherhood as a whole. By how she looks and when barbie was created, Preggo Barbie is probably a stereotypical house wife which obviously feminists don't want. They promote good motherhood but only when the woman is successfull and not tied down by her husband at all.
also also feminists; if a woman wants to work out 3 hours a day so she can make money showing off her ass in bikinis on Instagram, that's empowering and wonderful! And if she doesn't want kids exclusively because it might affect her body, that's a totally fine and healthy choice!
Did you make the ken Kronk look? Its amazing. Would love if you had different outfits for everything you reviewed, but I'm sure that could be time consuming.
I have really found myself fluctuating about the Barbie movie. At first I was completely apathetic towards it because...well...it's a *Barbie* movie. Those always seemed cheesy to me even when I was a little girl playing with Barbies. Then the reviews from people I trust started rolling in and I very much wanted to *not* watch it. Hearing a staunch libertarian lady and her daughter (who had actually liked the old movies and show) vent their disgust at its propaganda was...not entirely unexpected, but I certainly didn't expect their reaction to be quite so vehement. Then, I watched a rather interesting debate between Ben Shapiro and Brett Cooper over whether it was really that bad or not. Some of Brett Cooper's arguments made sense, and I started hearing Az and others talk about Ken's side. I like musicals, so I actually started to consider that maybe people are becoming too sensitive to messaging that isn't intended and maybe I should give it a chance. Maybe I would find put it's a political spoof. Then I saw B Cooper "watch" and react to LOTR. Yeah, she expresses herself well enough, but if your takeaway from the military buddy expression of Sam and Frodo, Legolas and Gimli, and Aragorn's farewell to Boromir is "Wow! They're so close! They've got such a sweet hidden gay romance going on!" then I no longer trust your judgement on any social interaction or portrayal thereof. So now I'm back to, " *Not* gonna watch Barbie, but I'll enjoy the YT roasts."
Honestly I feel like there are 3 missing opportunities to this & that was from one of the trailers I watched; the trailer in question showed us this very corporate, office style room and I think their could have been a possibility that the movie could explore how corporations exploit the appeal of things like feminism, "antiracism", women's rights, the LGBTQ+ "community" etc. to further their profit-based agenda (with virtue-signalling being made into an industry of its own accord) & how all these corporations, especially Disney & basically the entirety of Hollywood, in truth, really don't give a damn in the end. Another one could be on conformity to the corporate collective to be just a another one of the billions of Barbie or Ken dolls churned out by the toy factories and how their individuality (besides certain differences like skin colour or clothing) is eroded away from and how they struggle to find it within themselves to just be WHO THEY TRULY ARE! The 3rd missing opportunity (and the one that would probably hit home the most for modern audiences) is that Barbie and Ken are essentially in a simulation of being toys in their little Barbie world and how their finally "awake" in the ACTUAL world in the movie, akin to the Matrix with the whole "redpill/bluepill" phenomenon going around. Instead of the 3 possible ideas I have put forward, we just have another "smash the patriarchy!" film & it's just sad :(
As someone who leans toward the "evil liberal commie" side of the sociopolitical spectrum, this review was rather refreshing. Everything I've seen about this movie has either been Girl Power Awesome or Woke Garbage Manhate, so it was nice to see a more nuanced analysis. This movie seems to suffer from wanting to have it's cake and complain about it too, bringing up some actually interesting points but then glossing over them. This could have been a movie with actual social commentary, but undercut its own messages at every turn. Anyway, good job!
The opening segment showed Barbie Land under the matriarchy was shallow, plastic and boring. Then during the climax the Barbies used deception and manipulation (i.e. toxic femininity) to take over. And then in the conclusion Barbie learned to see Ken as an individual and helped him realize his value. The core message in the movie was life is hard and people should support each other.
As a stay at home mom I thoroughly enjoyed your comments on the mom character. I quit working because I realized I was working to pay for someone else to raise my kids. How dumb. Hollywood can't comprehend that "having it all" comes with consequences. Always love your content man, I share it often because I think it cuts through the crap and gets to the point really well. Can't wait to see you hit 100k!
"I never get to do anything" male power fantasy is to have the ability to protect their friends and family and live up to their responsibilities. Female power fantasy is the power to do what they want at any time with no repercussions for their actions.
"Female power fantasy is the power to do what they want at any time with no repercussions for their actions." Is that really a fantasy though? Seems pretty on point to me.
You took that narration after the Supreme Court joke way more positive than I did. I assumed it was speaking from the PoV of the movie's real world implying that the Kens still wouldn't get any say like women don't in the "real world" .
Ken’s pitch to all of Barbieland to adopt patriarchy: “Men will do all the jobs for everyone and women can just be pretty and sweet, eventually have kids and be totally fulfilled raising them and surrounding all of us in loving families.” Brainwashing complete in one sentence.
Brilliant video, very well constructed. I also wasn't able to fully articulate why I didn't like this movie when I first watched it so this really helped!
Very excited to see what you have to say about Barbie. I loved Rings of Power when I first watched it but on rewatch I couldn't understand why I didn't like it as much. Your reviews made it VERY clear what is wrong with the series. 10/10 reviewer. Would recommend.
This review is not only my favorite review of this movie, but one of my favorites on TH-cam. You accurately and effectively explained my similar stance on this movie.
In regards to the opening scene and your speculation of it communicating “anti-motherhood” themes, I don’t think that was the purpose at all. Babydolls only let little kids play the role of a parent. But Barbie dolls essentially let kids play the role of “god” as they are in control of the daily activities of a fully grown woman. So that opening scene is about letting kids play with something that makes them and their imagination larger than life. It’s like playing the Sims.
That would require a lot of research to do it justice. Ahsoka is certainly bad on its own but if you go back to TCW to see how well Ahsoka was written and performed and then jump to Rebels which one could spend an entire video alone on all the things wrong with that show and how it's infected modern Star Wars but 'The Cosmonaut Variety Hour' (which I highly recommend checking out on TH-cam) already did two videos on Rebels that perfectly communicates why that show and the characters in it was so awful. Since Ahsoka leans so heavily into events that happened in Rebels, it was already doomed from the start.
This is a fantastic video. I saw you on EFAP briefly and thought to check out your channel. Your writing, research, and voiceover are all great (visuals are a bit lacking, but I understand how hard it is to produce interesting visuals for 1.5 hours of talking over a copyrighted movie). It's so nice to see solid critiques like this, especially for a movie like Barbie. I can count on one hand the number of reviews I've read that offered anything more nuanced than "feminism bad, barbie killed my family" or "best movie of all time, slay queens!" You've managed to identify the unhinged multilayered social commentary tripping over itself AND demonstrate why it's bad without straying into partisan talking points. You've managed to criticize it as a social commentary AND as a piece of entertainment. Truly impressive stuff. You've gained my respect.
When they filed the roller blade scene Margot complained that tons of people (men and women)came up to Ken and told him how good he looked and wanted pictures and all that, but no one came up to her. Take from that what you will.
Well ya I would tell a bro he be looking fly and crushing it. But if there's one thing decades of feminism has taught me is you shouldn't tell a pretty girl she looks pretty
@doomsdaybooty1072 Yup, the whole "I'm going to the gym in my underwear, and when a guy glances at me, shakes his head in amusement, and goes back to his workout, I'm going to blast it on tick tock" routine.
This is by far the strangest movie ever. Weird plot, strange characters and no world building. Would you be interested in doing a video for Oppenheimer? I watched it in the cinema recently and was hooked by it from start to finish.
42:00 also said Smallpox epidemic killed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) and paved the way for one of the worst genocides on the western hemisphere, so Gloria's comparison was in extremely poor taste if you ask me.
As a woman, thank you for this video! Your points are so we’ll articulated and I always appreciate people pointing out the harm that feminism is doing to women and men. Also this movie portrays women in such a terrible way and yet calls it good- that is extremely degrading. Thank you for being bold and saying what needed to be said!
This movie is not feminist. It is a neo-liberal caricature of what US east coast elites think feminism is. Real intersectional feminism is about deconstructing the ways in which current social systems and conceptions actually hurt almost everyone in society, even those who have social power. I, as a cis white male person benefit just as much from real feminism as any woman, in that it removes the pressures on me to be the primary breadwinner (although I can be if I want to) in my relationship, removes the need to be assertive and dominant in social settings (although, again, I can still be if I want to), and generally frees me to just live life as I want. RFT actually brought up the fact that women will generally not want to date men that are financially worse off than them. THAT is patriarchy in action. We all perpetuate it, and it hurts everyone, from men to women, intersex people, nbs, etc. Corporations like to co-opt progressive aesthetics to boost sales, but they don't actually get it nor care to get it. Real leftists and feminists will push back against this co-opting just as much as any reactionary. The people who do cheer this on are mostly mentally ill and terminally online twitter users, while the vast majority of people is mostly apolitical and doesn't care much, just being happy to be clobbered over the head with the "you are one of the good ones" messaging, which is why this is so profitable.
@@wfb.subtraktor311 "Real leftists" and progressives are mentally ill terminally online twitter users. There are men, there are women, and everything else is either a mental illness or a medical condition. "Patriarchy" is whatever the looney left want to criticize at some particular moment. We frankly have the least masculine generation in history, and people are still whining about "patriarchy". If women want a man who can take care of them then that is not "patriarchy", that's likely millions of years of evolution in action, where women want a man who has enough resources to take care of them and their offspring. Saying that "feminism" removes your responsibility is simply stupid. Feminism is ultimately "women right, men wrong" or the essential message of the Barbie Movie.
@@darkbum1510 If you have an IQ of 80, are capable of zero nuance, and your daily diet of media is The Quartering and Critical Drinker then it may seem that way to you.
This is the problem with modern entertainment, everything is only surface deep. Nothing is actually explored, and no nuanced is ever presented. Even with the success of this movie, in a year, no one will remember it. I suppose we'll need to wait for the next tripe they send our way. I can't wait.
I was honestly confused for a moment when you said being a stay at home mom was a viable/logical option in the USA (Especially in Cali), but then I remembered you aren't American. Not to be rude or anything like that, of course. It's just that that's just not really an option for most women now and days unless they want to live with roommates or their parents. Especially in Cali. Even with a husband with a decent wage. (I'm must add that this is from the prospective of a Pacific Northwesterner. Could be different for other parts of the USA.)
@BilboBaggMan I actually live in oregon but I visit and have a lot of friends in Cali. That being said, it's also freaking terrible here too. The cost of living far out reaches what a normal person can pay to the point where most of my female friends have elected not to have children at all. I mean, you can see from the birth rate readings how forked Oregon is right now. It just keeps going down. Wait, no... I lied. Cali is still worse. We might have decriminalized drugs, but y'alls cost of living is absolutely out of control. Oof. I'd much rather deal with the druggie on the max.
@@ColKizumi trust me friend there was no lack of druggies in California! And "California sober" is a thing for a reason XD I have family in Portland, so I've heard lots of horror stories. Me and my girl have already decided we can't afford ourselves let alone another human being, sad to hear everyone is in that boat.
I'm glad you added that, but still, yeah, your opinion on what it's like in the vast majority of the country is about as relevant as that of our British TH-camr here. Stay-at-home moms are still common, there are many millions of them.
I think that the daughter calling Stereotypical Barbie a fascist is more a dig at the use of fascist as a label to give someone to discredit them instead of you know, someone who supports facism.
Why? Absolutely nothing supports that. Furthermore, the director said she deliberately gave that screed to that character, because she wanted a "smart" character to give that "correct" deconstruction of Barbie. People really need to stop defending everything stupid in this movie as satire on no other basis than "It's so stupid, it must be satire." No, it's just stupid.
@@BWMagus After that scene Stereotypical Barbie is crying next to a tree and says "She thinks I'm a fascist? I don't control the railways or the flow of commerce!" while sobbing, so clearly the movie does know that fascist is silly to say there. I agree that the movie has it's many faults but here it just made a joke.
The entire movie is dependent on how much faith you have in the writers. Is it a self aware movie clowning on gender politics or is it just a clown movie obsessed with gender politics?
When I was 11? I had an old Big Jim doll. One of my friends also had an old Big Jim doll. And a girl we knew had an old Barbie doll, and... ...and one day she, I think, came up with a game based on a movie ore tv show she knew of or had seen. Anyway, the Big Jim's was Vice Cops trying to bust Barbie, the brothel madam. That was a fun summer!
To be honest, I don't feel like I wasted my money when going to see Barbie. Yeah sure there was the Barbenheimer meme going strong (and Oppenheimer was certainly something) but even putting that aside, I'd argue it was worth my time. Would I ever pay to see Barbie again? No, not in a million years, it's a one time wonder and a fresh experience for us normies who only get the most formatted sludge these days... But it's really not a good movie and certainly not on the level of its counterpart. But still, I will praise the movie where I believe it should be praised. For all its flaws, it had a very unique artistic direction which tremendously helps in making the film more memorable. That being said... Even putting aside all the clunky social commentary, this film fails really badly at worldbuilding. Sure, I accepted it from the very begining that things could get silly, I let pass the portal sequence and several other things, but the sillyness had absolutely no place in the "real world". I will tolerate Barbieland for doing dumb stuff, it's another dimension with separate rules, but seeing real people get this stupid all the time like they were in a cartoon despite clearly being in the non cartoonish part of the Barbie-verse, that's a big no. And then of course we had all the bullshit the movie tried by not explaining things that should have gotten explained, there are plenty of mechanics and plot points that are just swept under the rug despite being very important at first glance. Overall... yeah it wasn't exactly a stellar movie, it falls apart completely once you remove the glitter.
I left youtube playing last night and your videos started to play while I slept, your hobbit video made my dream funky. I dunno what to do with this info but here ya go.
It is a work of genius, being so controversial which makes everyone talk about it - which has always been the best way to promote a product (namely Barbie and related accessories, not the movie itself). It seems cookie-colored and fun enough for those who love Barbie to love the movie, and for adult humans to dress in pink while going to the movie, which is obviously self-promotion to the outside world as well. It is controversial enough for everyone with intact brains to criticize at least parts of it, which keeps the talk ongoing even within that group. The group in the middle, who never cared about Barbie (which I account myself into), can't escape the exposure. It's a strike of genius.
Nice video, Names. Or Mr Names, not sure how generous I feel. On a side note, I consider myself close to fluent in English- I understand all of sir Humphrey's monologues and I know all the Monty Python records by heart. Yet whenever I listen to a synopsis of this movie I get a feeling there is some basic grammatical rule I have no concept of. I'm afraid to look up the synopsis in my native Russian, least it turns out I don't understand that language as well.
You've just articulated my thoughts on this film far more eloquently than I managed when I was discussing it with a female work colleague who LOVED it. Any chance of those notes so that I can drop them on her desk on Tuesday morning? Please?
Avid Barbie kid here. I grew up in the 80s and during my childhood I had many Barbies and Kens. And the thing is Ken was a doctor too. For every job Barbie had Ken also had because they couldn’t be away from each other for even a moment apparently. So it feels like Greta whatever didn’t really play with any more of the dolls than just Barbie or maybe Midge. Either that or she chose to ignore all the jobs Ken had as well. Also, her having Skipper commit kidnapping 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️. Skipper is a TEENAGER!!!! Why on earth would she abduct a kid? It would just be one more child she’d have to babysit. Again it’s like she doesn’t know Barbie at all.
I really wish that at the end of the movie Ken had found solace in his fellow Kens::/ If he'd had closer connections with the other Kens, then I think a good portion of this movie wouldn't have happened ngl
Your deconstruction of bad movies (and TV shows) is a work of art. I have not seen this movie nor will I. I have no need or want to gaze into the mind of an angry spoiled average looking female teenager who, 20 years on, is still angry that the captain of the football team didn't call her back after she gave up her virginity to him in the back of the bleachers after practice. One can learn much about her psychological state from this. She is clearly very unhappy and being unhappy herself, wants everyone else to be miserable also. A world of happy Barbies under a patriarchy? BURN IT DOWN!!! It's a good think Barbie world doesn't have to worry about things like clean water, food production, electricity, etc. or all those feminist barbies would be living in caves until they became mountain lion food. Anyway just like the Rings of Power series (which I also have not seen) the only thing good about it *is your review of same*. So I appreciate you enduring this so I don't have too. You are doing yeoman's work protecting the rest of us and entertaining us while doing it. 5 stars.
Those domestic violence stats are completely wrong, there have been more than enough studies to show its closer to 50/50 when looked at properly...i.e actually getting men to report, understanding its generally reciprocal violence (both parties hit each other) and of course the big one being the reporting and even the laws are set up following a feminist methodology from the 60s saying that basically no matter what the men are always in the wrong, and even the women who developed it have since come out and said they were completely wrong in their assumptions. Just had to put this out there. Lets see how long till someone whos done no reading on it tells me im wrong and when they do ill pull out the receipts and see if they can prove them wrong 😂😂
The good news -- and the reason Barbie did so well -- is that most audience members are not going to spend this much (or any) effort analyzing the cohesion of the film. Lord knows ... the writers didn't.
There's one point (joke) you made that I disagree with, "manipulate" is only gendered in a feminist's mind. It comes from the Latin word for "hand,' "manus." However, "patronize" comes from the word for "father," so a more accurate (though less on point about feminists) reversal would be "matronize."
The fact that this hyper successful blockbuster was written by women, kind of disproves it’s own premise. It would be less jarring if they weren’t implying strongly that our actual reality operates the same way as their fiction.
Can someone please give Random some more watchers? Honestly your videos are so darn good. I think you deserve to be named amoung other names like The critical drinker, Mauler or The little Platoon~
If there’s one thing we now have a huge collection of, it’s movies and TV shows that unintentionally show us, in detail, the inner workings of upper middle class, unmarried/divorced, liberal, female minds. Between this, Velma and She-Hulk, someone could teach an entire course in psychology. And the list just keeps growing.
Yeah its not like people would go metal about the fact dols are alive. That they look like real live people, and are human in many ways, without dying and aging. The fact there is a barbie world makes it already a Pandorax box scenario. The moment they went into the real world. But the movie doesn't want you to think about that. That isn't even the plot of the movie. So this movie is all over the place. But the congrats to the marketing I thought it would be a comedy funny kids movie.
23:14 An ad kicked in for me at this point, and I initially thought Random was doing a bit where he just stood with his arm up silently; it was hilarious
Because whoever criticizes the movie to a general audience risks serious consequences, like being fired (weird, why would the patriarchy do that?). RFT's audience is one that appreciates logical consistency in movies, which tends to filter out political extremists of all kinds, thus it's safe to be honest about the movie here.
The weirdest thing, to me, is that mattel board (who are 50/50 male and female) agreed to be represented as completely male and dumb in this movie - bizarre.
Nah mate.....it's the patriarchy! 😂
It made a billion dollars. Mattel knew what it was doing. Money has nothing to do with pride or dignity.
@@charlestonjew7587 This film was supposed to star Amy Schumer.....
They did it because $$$.
I wish it had. @@wrayday7149
Honestly I didn't expect myself to root for Ken of all characters. He is dumb, stupid, obsessed and weak... and yet he is the only character who seems to actually have the guts to fight as an underdog. And instead of maturing and having a more nuanced view of the world, he just gets crushed. My poor heart...
Yes, I love how his payoff is being told to go be an incel.
@@BWMagus TFW I will never be crushed by a Barbie supremacy.
- Adûnâi
He... does mature? He realizes that he is Kenough, and learns to stop defining himself by Barbie and his pursuit of her. In the beginning of the movie he defines himself by his relation to Barbie, by the end of the movie he becomes his own person.
I distinctly remember a pregnant Barbie where you could pop off her stomach and PRESTO; a baby.
Imagine that nightmare fuel in Barbie world.
That was a version of Midge, who's in the movie (but sidelined as "weird".)
My niece had one of those. As her mother pointed out, this Midge doll caused a lot of awkward conversations and confusion about how a woman actually gets pregnant.@@PointsofData
My sister had the creepy one xD
My sister had that one, it was her favorite for years.
@@PointsofData the message i got was that Midge doesnt have a carreer, so she is not a good woman, at least according the the moviemakers
I don't have much else to say that hasn't been already, but Barbie pretending to like Ken's guitar for four hours and then tricking him really made me feel sorry for Ken. Being supportive of each others' interests is something I find extremely important in a relationship
No but okay THAT part pissed me off SO MUCH. Like those bints are proudly high fiving each other for fucking with the Ken’s minds and hearts, when we all know good and goddamn well that if the roles were reversed they’d be reeeeing about the patriarchy pitting women vs women
They also low key admitted that the only way to overthrow the Kenoccracy was to use underhanded subterfuge, when the Kens legally dismantled the Barbatorship *within 48 hours of trying*
Barbie is strawmanning feminist talking points so much that it comes off as satire, and it's easy to assume that the movie is very clever by making fun of both sides. But when you watch and read interviews with Gerwig, that assumption is quickly put to rest.
This film may be broken beyond repair, but we gotta remember, lads: that we are Kenough.
I don't usually slap down $60 for a hoodie but I NEED the Kenough one
His name was Ken Paulson
@@realistic_delinquentHis name was Ken 'Robby' Paulson!
Kenough for what?
I have a friend who says the Turkish version of the line properly translates to "I am (Kenough) for myself" and apparently the pun still works, which is really cool
@@PointsofData which kinda defeats the point of his resolution
13:40 I've seen girls play with Barbies, and I have played with Barbies, and I've never seen girls in real life play like Barbieland. Ken is either a friend or boyfriend, and when a girl is done interacting with him, he "goes to work," which is usually something vague and businessy where he gets rich and is powerful and successful so he can give Barbie presents and take her out to eat and on trips. Ken is sweet to Barbie and Barbie is sweet to Ken because they are either friends or "in love."
This was one of my main problems with the plot of the movie. Girls DON'T play with Ken and Barbie like Barbieland. Barbie treats Ken like poo in Barbieland. I've never seen that in real life. Girls playing want a happy home (hubby and kids) or romance or a successful career woman with a successful boyfriend/hubby. They don't want "girls night" and ignoring Ken. So Barbieland ISN'T the representation of girls' play, yet it also isn't any sort of reflection of the actual world we live in or even the "real world" of the movie. It doesn't make sense. (I thought Ken working at "Beach" was hilarious, though.)
Incidentally, I didn't have a Ken doll, and my Barbie was always a teen living on her own in an apartment raising several abandoned kids she'd found. Sometimes she would dress up and go on dates, and the guy was always perfect and kind and dreamy (like Prince Charming). He thought Barbie was amazing and she was falling for him. They were kind, loving, good, and interested in each other.
I cant imagine any girl playing with just Barbies having them all hang out and tossing Ken to the side.
It is Kenceptually broken, but inKencivably it has Kenly on point message about Men being actually Kenough.
You know, I think I would like to go back to the days of the animated Barbie movies that were re-imaginings of classic stories with actually pretty darn decent voice acting and a clear effort to be creative.
I JUST WANTED TO SEE THAT OR SOMETHING LIKE BARBIE LIFE IN THE DREAMHOUSE BUT LIVE ACTION😭
pirate bay is right there, what is stopping you? you can have them all. betcha wont
@@banquetoftheleviathan1404 Honestly don't have to. My younger sister already owns them all on DVD from back when we were kids.
Sasha: "Where do the Ken's Sleep?"
Barbie: "Lol Idk"
Fun fact: Males consistently make up the majority of the homeless population, as you stated.
1 minute later when the Kens went full Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité:
Barbie: "You can't do that Barbieland was perfect!"
Wow if a woman were stretch that much to get offended you would call them am SJW. You are an SJW
As a woman, I'm starting to really wonder if a well-made, well-written movie worthy of being taken seriously, yet generally of a feel-good nature, that also includes things women tend to like, like notable fashion and pop music, with a female protagonist that goes on the very basic arc of following a certain worldview, having said worldview being challenged, and ultimately changing as a person, is so much to ask for.
They did it with Clueless back in 1995 - it can not be that hard.
Don't even get me started on the people that come in like, "oh, it's just a movie about barbies, why are you men so angry, meh meh meh bla bla bla", because Greta Gerwig and co. brought this on themselves by shoving this movie into the current political conversation.
If it had just been chill, as chick-flicks and feel-good summer movies used to be, it probably wouldn't be the subject of so much in-depth media analysis, and if it had been particularly creative or had particularly strong writing, it might have even been put in the spotlight due to its high quality. Instead, RFT is able to make a well-reasoned video like this, that just so happens to not look upon this movie very favourably - and that isn't due to him being a man or misogynistic, that's just because the film sucks balls.
You don't want men getting grumpy and raining all over your favourite movie? Demand better female-targetted entertainment then. I'd join that cause in a heartbeat.
Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed this video, Random! Entertaining and digestible as always, it really didn't feel like 90 minutes at all (:
this may come across as condescending but it isnt meant to belittle.
the problem with good media for women is that the ideal doesnt reflect the financial situation.
last i looked into it, women make the majority of purchases. feminists say 'women earn 77 cents of a mans dollar' but the statistic they are reading shows that women spend about 80 cents a man earns, as well as most of what she makes as well. these two together mean that women make up 90% of the consumerbase. and that in turn means that if you can get a woman to decide to make a transaction, it is far more likely to occur and cheaper to do.
showing popular fashion is fine, but it doesnt necessarily drive sales.
the change in zeitgeist which occured like 20 years ago is a shift from creating independently good products, to seeing entertainment products as vehicles of advertising. space balls with the comment about merchendising was pretty on the nose. frozen, a disney brand, was an attempt to revitalize the themepark segments.
the movie ticket is just to get people to start spending, as once you start spending it becomes harder to stop. you first buy the movie ticket, then there is another celebration of the brand come dress up as harry potter to the next book release, then there is a home release and some themed merch to figure out how much people will pay.
im digressing.
if you want a story where the protagonist is a person instead of a consumer, that limits product placement. if you have a flawed character, a fair number of women will hear that as preachy and condescending. instead you would need a character which isnt flawed persay, and isnt resisting adversity, but who changes with mood. the more the mood intensity, and more she goes with her gut and female audiences project themselves and vicariously experiance this world as the main character, the better the show will do.
if you push in pop music, you might get some extra sales, but those who pay for music likely already bought it. the shrek approach of having the cast do covers of the music will sell more, but there is still a huge shift from digital purchases to streaming- and there isnt much money there.
the best id expect would be a feature length commercial where you have a woman with a problem, and the solution is shopping at the store.
it would be nice if people made better media. and it would be about as nice if consumers were willing to pay for it. most of us want media at constant prices, and the industry focuses on graphics like with guardians, because it is litterally something everyone can see. but it would be better if indie media companies were able to get shoestring budget projects which were still solid. it is sad that studios either go for global appreciation, or broke- deliberately trying to lose money. but the young people starting up just dont have the right encouragement. maybe they start on youtube, and that is very shoestring cause ad structure.
a while back there was a video game project which honestly kinda sucked called minecraft, but it had lots of soul in it. we need to only buy good media, and that means we need to look local, and expect it to cost a bunch. quality costs arent much higher than what is implied by movie theaters, but the ticket price has to be different to show to outsiders that they are trying something different. i dont even go to movies because i know they are longform ads that i pay for. it feels like im being spit on and so i dont. but we can actively improve things.
Most people are stupid though and its profitable to appeal to the lowest common denominator. More than that, they disguised the misandry in this film remarkably well before its release. Having said that most people don't seem to have noticed a problem with it even after seeing it so what do I know.
the movie could have been something women AND their boyfriends (or you know, any other man that accompanied them, or even men on their own) would enjoy. Heck, wheneve I was at my aunt's place as a kid, my cousin and me always played with her Barby dolls and mansions and cars and whatnot. Barbie was a pop culture phenomenon (maybe it still is) everyone has some memory of engaging with. Of course the movie is mainly marketed towards women, like the doll is mainly targeted towards girls, but that doesn't mean that men (and boys) can't partake. This didn't need to be a fucking "us vs them" story, this could've been something to instill just wholesome values... you know, like family movies used to do.
I kinda feel like The Devil Wears Prada fits that description. Not 100% and **wow** a couple of her friends and her boyfriend are written horribly and never get called out for their behavior, but overall Andrea has her worldview challenged, she learns to appreciate fashion and style where she fully rejected it before, she grows as person to the point where she can walk away from two major things in her life that aren't working - her job and her boyfriend - and the ending is very positive.
@@tank_0r I enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada, and I agree, it's a good example of that kind of movie. I might give it a rewatch at some point.
The fact that this “movie” managed to propaganda so hard they accidentally parodied themselves is the funniest thing I’ve seen in years
I thought the parody was intentional.
It's still a dumb movie, but it makes more sense that all the jokes are pointed at both sides, making the target audience the majority of people who take the middle ground.
The patriarchy sucks and the feminists are bad too, but the jokes are so over the top that at no point do we get a perspective they aren't making fun of.
i thought that was kinda the point. from what i remember it was a parody of feminists and an aburdist comedy. it isnt supposed to make sense, thats part of the joke
@@KatefischThese guys misinterpreted satire as LITERAL propaganda.
These are the anti woke crowd, and they have zero media literacy
@@joshuaduck4139 Nope. Watch interviews with Gerwig; it is entirely serious in its feminist messaging.
@@joshuaduck4139 Nope. Watch interviews with Gerwig; it is entirely serious in its fêmînîßt talking-points, not satirical at all-she explicitly affirms this.
New subscriber here! Spent the last couple of weeks bingeing all your Rings of Power, and Hobbit videos. I not only am very entertained but I also learned a lot about writing good screenplays and fantasy stories. And I clicked immediately when I saw the Barbie premier. Keep up the great work.
Same here! I just watched the rings of power vids too. Punched the subscribe button myself just now
Same here
Also on board and share the same sentiments as above comments, keep it up man! Cheers!
Women, find a man who hates every peril you face as much as RFT hates bad writing.
Women tend to spend time with other women that have similar interests and life experience. Therefore, working women hang out with women with jobs, stay at home moms hang out with other moms, etc, etc. I was a full-time mom while I raised my kids. When I was with my friends, we talked a lot about our kids and having babies. Nobody was ever bored of the subject because it was the focus of our lives. The writers of the Barbie Movie have a very narrow view on womanhood while claiming to speak for all women.
Ok but as a stay at home mom who also is friends with stay at home moms we do talk about needing breaks from motherhood and the mundaneness of motherhood. We’re open about that with each other. When my friends brother watched the kids for a while and started complaining how boring and depressing it was we told him it was that way for us too and maybe he will be more compassionate with his future wife.
@@valenciasaintilus9573 Everyone needs a break from whatever they do, but repeated studies show that stay-at-home moms are the happiest women. I respect that you're different, but you ARE different.
@@BWMagus umm… I’m not an “ unhappy” stay at home mom, Im just honest about how it can become depressing, exhausting and mundane.
@@BWMagus I’m not different, every mother I’ve talked to has faced the same difficulties as me because staying home to care for children is difficult.
You missed that the Kens are singing a song about a man getting abused by his girlfriend. The film attempts to frame this like this is the men saying they will abuse the barbies, but the song at that chorus switches to the view point of the abuser. What is actually happening is that the kens are calling out the barbies for manipulating them for decades.
supposing that the film makers didn't also miss that ^.^
When did this supposed abuse take place? This comment section just comes across as a bunch of incels mad that a movie wasn't made specifically for them lmao. Y'all so sensitive
The directors totally missed this.
R to 57:47 ro TFodf🎉🎉 🎉d
@@sidequestcellars1056 And you're an idiot willfully ignoring how bad & resentful the film actually is.
But, but, Random what about the hobbitses autopsy precious?
Stay tuned. I will give updates in Discord and on live streams.
@randomft you the best in the game man 🍻
@@randomft yessssss lets freaking go
We live in a world where a Barbie movie my 7 year old neice watched is more politically charged than a movie about the inventor of the Atomic Bomb, THIS IS WHY THE ALIENS HAVEN'T INVADED
You know the film is PG13, right?
There are Barbie films out there far more aseptic and meant for actual kids (maybe a bit too many)
Complaining about the Barbie film that delves on the political side of Barbie that was there from the very begining for being political is like complaining about Jacques Cousteau's Undersea World having an enviromentalist message
@@Nechtan13 This message was not part of Barbie from the very beginning. It is, in fact, rather the opposite; Barbie was supposed to represent a liberation of women, not oppression of men.
@56paisano Barbie is just a copy of another doll at the time and the reason they made Barbie was to sell something that clearly has a market because dolls beyond just babies were actually a thing before Barbie. Almost like the 2001 parody at the beginning of the film was a lie. Imagine my shock, that the same film that says nonsensical, contradictory, and dumb stuff did that.
@@8ligh7 the doll Barbie was based on was a sex toy, pal
I don't know if sex toy and dolls for girls share a market niche--
@@Nechtan13 lmao I wish that had showed up when I did an essay on the history of Barbie and the creator in 8th grade. It wasn't mentioned anywhere that I saw (didn't pass the first result page) but it was back in 2008 or 9.
He said women and men a physically different, he said the thing. Let's get him.
Barbie land would've actually been a lot funnier, if the barbies were treated like actual barbie dolls for individual use. Just in the middle of a conversation, one's head pops off but they just keep talking because it's entirely normal. There's so many barbies in Barbie land that they all have to fight whose going to be the president barbie or the firefighter barbie and there's just the right amount of Ken's to equally take over some of the jobs and try and settle some of the chaos of all the barbies.
If they really wanted a social message, maybe have some sub plot about how the president barbies are mad because now Ken thinks he's doing a better job, but they resolve it by simply comparing how effective he is versus them and how him being a Ken has nothing to do with it, and merely that he just had better ideas. Some other jobs the Kens took over go back to the Barbies because those Kens are worse at the job, and they realize that hey, letting the Barbies run things all on their own led to all this chaos and maybe we need to work together now to prevent it in the future.
I don't know, but something had to be better then this. This cannot be the best plot someone suggested in the writers room.
They don't go to the real world ever, because this movie's portrayal of men actually makes me loose brain cells.
So I can understand why every man in the real world looked and hit on Barbie as she is supposed to be the representation of the perfect woman.
Skipper ... if I remember was a baby sitter. So, not having kids in Barbie would might make her sad/crazy to go try and get a kid.
It's a bit strange they have a scene where Ken and Barbie get in trouble for taking clothes.... as California decriminalized retain theft under $900 and actively punishes stores/employees for trying to stop crime.
Maybe the clothes were $1000 as prices in LA can he outrageous
Interesting thing Greta said in an interview about filming Margot Robbie & Ryan Gosling on the boardwalk:
She commented on how many women and men openly came up to Ryan and asked for autographs, selfies, and complimented him on his costume. With Margot, hardly anyone approached her, and all the attention she got (especially from men) was from a distance.
_Greta_ admitted that she assumed it was because the men were leering and objectifying Margot, proving that men still objectify and oggle and like women because they look pretty.
Of course, anyone who isn't chugging blue-haired body-positive "woe is whamen" Kool-Aid can tell that it's because feminists constantly complain that catcalling and unwanted attention and any compliment is sexual harassment. Greta and her fellows have crafted a small bubble of the perfect society they want and they *STILL* aren't happy.
(Credit to The Little Platoon for finding that article)
Or noone recognized her outside of playing Harley Quinn. It's a dumb take, I know. She's a fine actress but it's probably safe to say that HQ propelled her career and most remember her for it.
I was gonna comment the same thing. Talking to women/commenting on them = evil men/patriarchy. NOT doing that = evil men/patriarchy. It takes some special double think to be a modern feminist.
@@30noir so maybe it was the paradoxical nature of a feminist speech that woke up all the barbie dolls
@@30noir you know well and good that “ simply talking” not what women mean when we talk about sexual harassment. Being talked to isn’t problem. When I have grown men follow me around at 15-18 years old telling me how big my breasts/butt are and asking to take me to hotel or asking me if they can eat my vagina that is sexual harassment. When my coworker just a few weeks ago told me “ come here sister, come sit on my lap” that is sexual harassment. It is so disingenuous when women bring up a real problem and men twist it and downplay as if we are upset by men who are “ just talking”.
@@valenciasaintilus9573 My heart breaks when I read all the hardships you have to suffer.
I really hope you can stay sane in such a violent and harassing world!
Kind of crazy how during the monologue trying to list all the hard things for a woman that come from societal pressures, many of those that I myself as a man was thinking to myself “no as a matter of fact [insert name of a woman I know] isn’t like this and I myself as a man would be totally supportive of her not being pressured to do that.” As you pointed out the financial thing. As a guy when I’m dating I do not give a single shit how much a girl I meet appears to make or have.
Also as you pointed out, some of the social pressures listed in the monologue that the film thinks only apply to women, in my head many of those I noticed seemed to line up with what society pushes me as a man to do/be.
That hole plot line of Barbie Land being "brain washed" by the patriarchy and the way the characters "deprogram" everyone is easily the movie's most obvious problem with this movie and how it handled it's message, it portrayed the patrirchy way to positively and delt with it in a way that makes feminists out to be people how brainwash/emotionally manipulate anyone who disagrees with them, it completely fails as feminist propaganda.
But it's only brainwashing when the bad people do it--this is entirely consistent with feminist propaganda. In their eyes, that is actually true. As the joke goes, if they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.
And also, just to add an additional point; the movie opens criticize the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which struck down a law prohibiting private citizens from engaging in free speech about politics if it was too close to an election because it was ostensibly unfairly "influential"...but kidnapping voters and putting them through forced struggle sessions where you emotionally berate them the DAY before a vote is totally fine.
That is exactly where the movie lost me tbh. I was excited to see it as part of Barbenheimer, and I knew it was going to be feminist, so I wasn’t blindsided by it being political. I was totally flabbergasted at that whole plotline. The Kens peacefully convinced the Barbies to join the patriarchy by… asking nicely. And all the Barbies are happy, but that is only because they are brainwashed. The idea that women who support the patriarchy are brainwashed or have internalized misogyny is a taking point in feminism, but the way it is shown occurring in Barbieland makes no sense in the context of the film. It seemed to be added specifically to bring up “brainwashing” while ignoring the actual events shown in the movie.
And the Barbies win through emotional manipulation. Very empowering.
Did NOT expect you to do Barbie, but wow, what a pleasant surprise! Well done, as always.
just realised Ken thinking the woman isnt a doctor makes 0 sense. In his world ALL the doctors are women.
@@macojo2477 I thought that at one point. But it does make some semblance of sense I suppose on a second watch (my mom forced us). He believes that men are the ones that work every job in “our world”, which explains why he doesn’t believe she is a doctor. This is the only time I will defend this movie, cause it’s not very good. Except Ken stuff, he was the dumb fun the movie thought it was being the whole time
@@MarcusTalks1 hmmm might actually be right.
Great breakdown! Little Platoon did a detailed breakdown too but yours definitely resonates more with me. Thanks to the more critical lens used here. Hope this review gets tons of views.
With regards to domestic violence, if you look more into it, it's much closer to 50/50. Men being abused in relationships is severly under-reported, due to the societal stigma and aproaches to this problematic. Add lack of any safe-housing for abused men (the one that opened was protested by feminists and the dude behind it was driven to suicide) and you have pretty screwed up situation. And far lefties will tell you it's "patriarchy hurting men".
Actually, the rare studies that took into account equally men and women found on average slightly more male victims than female ones. With the results still being biased by the reluctance to talk of men. That is also the case for studies about rape and SA in a meager measure. Besides, pretty much every meta-analysis about DV I've ever stumbled upon found the violences to be reciprocal in more than half cases, whether the couple was heterosexual, gay or lesbian.
I could go on but I think this will be enough depressing revelations for today.
@@americafy9195 While domestic abuse can be terrible, it is also unfortunate how often that fact is ignored; some woman can hit you, scream obscenities, start destroying property, but if you lightly smack her back into reality, you're basically a serial killer. Physical violence isn't a good response to things generally, but it's also ridiculous to ignore context. We used to have a rule in the US that is technically still on the books about "fighting words"; you couldn't verbally instigate a fight and then claim you were assaulted because the other person lost their temper and swung first. We need to bring that back. Sometimes people fight, and that shouldn't automatically be a crime, anymore than spanking your partner in a sexual way shouldn't be one either (yes, people have been arrested for that).
Also, women are actually more lethal in their attacks because they use weapons like kitchen knives. The idea being they are physically weaker than men so they grab a weapon and now instead of punching (which even when men do it, it’s almost never lethal) they are stabbing.
This was really a great review of this movie. So many other reviews seem to get so many things wrong, so I appreciate you acknowledging the different perspectives. Honestly though, intentional or not, the movie did a really good job at showing how people can all watch the same movie and walk away with completely different understandings of what it was about.
Another banger by RFT!!!!! This man doesn't miss!!! I cant explain my excitement when i see a new video out. Thank you for being able to articulate what so many of us think, and feel. You dropped this 👑
Not even planning to watch this movie.. but RFT review? YES 🎉✨
Yup, I'm one of those, too 👍☺️
Never would have heard of rings of power otherwise and I enjoyed the journey way more than if I actually watched it.
same.
Always a joy to watch the scientific method applied to what we love and care about (or not).
Nice work, Random ❤
So I left Barbie with my family hating the film and my entire family loving it. I wasn’t able to articulate why it was bad and why I felt the way I did. I tried to see why it was bad but most explanations were heavily political and were not well made. So seeing this show up and explaining exactly why I felt the way I did is excellent. Immediate subscribe and I will most certainly be looking forward to seeing your future work!
Are you feeling KENough, yet?
can you feel the Kenergy?
Another fantastic review!!! Thank you Random!!!
38:50 - 39:07 Mattel actually turned Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House into an actual toy in 2024 (as a Comic-Con exclusive), which either makes the entire point of the movie either completely pointless or a prophecy of things to come. Make of that what you will.
In the Philip K Dick novel 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch', life on Mars is so incredibly boring that the colonist take to acquiring "Perky Pat" dolls, and all the accessories so that they can take a certain drug that allows them to live through the dolls. Like they turn into the dolls and then live in the accessorized world they built while not on drugs. Other stuff happens, but this is all reminding me of that particular part of the plot, except it's reversed, and Philip K Dick is a vastly superior writer.
I’m sorry dolls on mars
Pleas elaborate more on this weird story line
I really appreciate the opening section here. I wish more movie reviewers would follow this line of thinking
I don't think the motherhood messaging conflicts.
The first scene showing them smashing their baby dolls is a message against instilling the idea in children that motherhood is not just your only option, it is THE goal. You're meant to grow up and make babies, period.
The realistic and positive portrayal of the mother and daughter later in the movie is to show that being a mother and a parent is still a valid and important choice.
I sort of agree, but then, I also think it's confusing. The motherhood angle really feels tacked on in general. The opening was a very deliberate homage, done very, very well, but the remaining scenes are just kinda there. They don't seem to relate too terribly well to bitchy daughter and whiny mom, and despite what some people say, Barbie expresses no interest in becoming a mother, so the few motherhood dialogues just seem...random. So I can somewhat understand someone really absorbing that opening scene while not really taking note of the later scenes that sort of re contextualize what the director was trying to say.
With the preggo barbie being considered an outcast I don't think the movie is supporting motherhood as a whole. By how she looks and when barbie was created, Preggo Barbie is probably a stereotypical house wife which obviously feminists don't want. They promote good motherhood but only when the woman is successfull and not tied down by her husband at all.
feminists: gym bros bad
also feminists: I'm only attracted to men with six pack abs
also also feminists; if a woman wants to work out 3 hours a day so she can make money showing off her ass in bikinis on Instagram, that's empowering and wonderful! And if she doesn't want kids exclusively because it might affect her body, that's a totally fine and healthy choice!
😂 Where's my Fabio 🎉🎉🎉
Sorry 80's Chad joke, before Chad was pre... anyway
Isn't it the jaw bones and height? At least, that's what the Great Incel Theory proclaims.
- Adûnâi
Strawman's glore up in ere
Did you make the ken Kronk look? Its amazing. Would love if you had different outfits for everything you reviewed, but I'm sure that could be time consuming.
I have really found myself fluctuating about the Barbie movie. At first I was completely apathetic towards it because...well...it's a *Barbie* movie. Those always seemed cheesy to me even when I was a little girl playing with Barbies. Then the reviews from people I trust started rolling in and I very much wanted to *not* watch it. Hearing a staunch libertarian lady and her daughter (who had actually liked the old movies and show) vent their disgust at its propaganda was...not entirely unexpected, but I certainly didn't expect their reaction to be quite so vehement.
Then, I watched a rather interesting debate between Ben Shapiro and Brett Cooper over whether it was really that bad or not. Some of Brett Cooper's arguments made sense, and I started hearing Az and others talk about Ken's side. I like musicals, so I actually started to consider that maybe people are becoming too sensitive to messaging that isn't intended and maybe I should give it a chance. Maybe I would find put it's a political spoof.
Then I saw B Cooper "watch" and react to LOTR. Yeah, she expresses herself well enough, but if your takeaway from the military buddy expression of Sam and Frodo, Legolas and Gimli, and Aragorn's farewell to Boromir is "Wow! They're so close! They've got such a sweet hidden gay romance going on!" then I no longer trust your judgement on any social interaction or portrayal thereof. So now I'm back to, " *Not* gonna watch Barbie, but I'll enjoy the YT roasts."
Honestly I feel like there are 3 missing opportunities to this & that was from one of the trailers I watched; the trailer in question showed us this very corporate, office style room and I think their could have been a possibility that the movie could explore how corporations exploit the appeal of things like feminism, "antiracism", women's rights, the LGBTQ+ "community" etc. to further their profit-based agenda (with virtue-signalling being made into an industry of its own accord) & how all these corporations, especially Disney & basically the entirety of Hollywood, in truth, really don't give a damn in the end.
Another one could be on conformity to the corporate collective to be just a another one of the billions of Barbie or Ken dolls churned out by the toy factories and how their individuality (besides certain differences like skin colour or clothing) is eroded away from and how they struggle to find it within themselves to just be WHO THEY TRULY ARE!
The 3rd missing opportunity (and the one that would probably hit home the most for modern audiences) is that Barbie and Ken are essentially in a simulation of being toys in their little Barbie world and how their finally "awake" in the ACTUAL world in the movie, akin to the Matrix with the whole "redpill/bluepill" phenomenon going around.
Instead of the 3 possible ideas I have put forward, we just have another "smash the patriarchy!" film & it's just sad :(
what is " anti-racism " ? lol?
@@TemmiePlays Things like BLM.
@@TemmiePlays Or Antifa 🤷🏽
As someone who leans toward the "evil liberal commie" side of the sociopolitical spectrum, this review was rather refreshing. Everything I've seen about this movie has either been Girl Power Awesome or Woke Garbage Manhate, so it was nice to see a more nuanced analysis. This movie seems to suffer from wanting to have it's cake and complain about it too, bringing up some actually interesting points but then glossing over them. This could have been a movie with actual social commentary, but undercut its own messages at every turn.
Anyway, good job!
The opening segment showed Barbie Land under the matriarchy was shallow, plastic and boring. Then during the climax the Barbies used deception and manipulation (i.e. toxic femininity) to take over. And then in the conclusion Barbie learned to see Ken as an individual and helped him realize his value. The core message in the movie was life is hard and people should support each other.
As a stay at home mom I thoroughly enjoyed your comments on the mom character. I quit working because I realized I was working to pay for someone else to raise my kids. How dumb.
Hollywood can't comprehend that "having it all" comes with consequences.
Always love your content man, I share it often because I think it cuts through the crap and gets to the point really well.
Can't wait to see you hit 100k!
"I never get to do anything"
male power fantasy is to have the ability to protect their friends and family and live up to their responsibilities. Female power fantasy is the power to do what they want at any time with no repercussions for their actions.
"Female power fantasy is the power to do what they want at any time with no repercussions for their actions."
Is that really a fantasy though? Seems pretty on point to me.
nah that's a toddler's power fantasy
Have you ever heard of women accountability ? Well, according to the legends, it does exist somewhere.
Gonna send you the laundry bill for the shirt I covered with coffee at 1:00:18 mate, that was hilarious.
You took that narration after the Supreme Court joke way more positive than I did. I assumed it was speaking from the PoV of the movie's real world implying that the Kens still wouldn't get any say like women don't in the "real world" .
I think I've had kenough waiting for the next Hobbit review.
Ken’s pitch to all of Barbieland to adopt patriarchy: “Men will do all the jobs for everyone and women can just be pretty and sweet, eventually have kids and be totally fulfilled raising them and surrounding all of us in loving families.” Brainwashing complete in one sentence.
And purple haired bloated Brando Barbie mutters "The horror...the horror!"
Love the look of Kenonk
Brilliant video, very well constructed. I also wasn't able to fully articulate why I didn't like this movie when I first watched it so this really helped!
Very excited to see what you have to say about Barbie. I loved Rings of Power when I first watched it but on rewatch I couldn't understand why I didn't like it as much. Your reviews made it VERY clear what is wrong with the series. 10/10 reviewer. Would recommend.
This review is not only my favorite review of this movie, but one of my favorites on TH-cam. You accurately and effectively explained my similar stance on this movie.
Sorry to be that guy but to be homeless is another catergory from living in poverty. So that most likely explains the difference in those staristics.
Yay!!! I had no idea this was even coming out…what a great surprise!
In regards to the opening scene and your speculation of it communicating “anti-motherhood” themes, I don’t think that was the purpose at all. Babydolls only let little kids play the role of a parent. But Barbie dolls essentially let kids play the role of “god” as they are in control of the daily activities of a fully grown woman. So that opening scene is about letting kids play with something that makes them and their imagination larger than life.
It’s like playing the Sims.
I had a great time watching it and an even greater time seeing the controversy a childrens toy based movie sparked, cant wait for your vid❤️
I would love an asoka breakdown from you.
That would require a lot of research to do it justice. Ahsoka is certainly bad on its own but if you go back to TCW to see how well Ahsoka was written and performed and then jump to Rebels which one could spend an entire video alone on all the things wrong with that show and how it's infected modern Star Wars but 'The Cosmonaut Variety Hour' (which I highly recommend checking out on TH-cam) already did two videos on Rebels that perfectly communicates why that show and the characters in it was so awful. Since Ahsoka leans so heavily into events that happened in Rebels, it was already doomed from the start.
This guy would judge the show on its own merits
This is a fantastic video. I saw you on EFAP briefly and thought to check out your channel. Your writing, research, and voiceover are all great (visuals are a bit lacking, but I understand how hard it is to produce interesting visuals for 1.5 hours of talking over a copyrighted movie). It's so nice to see solid critiques like this, especially for a movie like Barbie. I can count on one hand the number of reviews I've read that offered anything more nuanced than "feminism bad, barbie killed my family" or "best movie of all time, slay queens!" You've managed to identify the unhinged multilayered social commentary tripping over itself AND demonstrate why it's bad without straying into partisan talking points. You've managed to criticize it as a social commentary AND as a piece of entertainment. Truly impressive stuff. You've gained my respect.
Ah, just what I needed to celebrate finishing up my colorful cardigan: a review of a pink hellscape!
And Kronk is REALLY rocking that drip.
I can't get enough of how good this Kronk looks, I wanna see new Kronk drip in every video now lol
I'm 90% convinced this review was an excuse to show Margot Robbie's feet for 1.5 hours...
This was a Friday night well spent.... with a few beers added. ( I got them out of the fridge myself, I might add.)
Looking forward to this breakdown analysis my friend!
Why was it that "Barbie Girl" by Aqua a better representation of the Barbie world than this movie?
When they filed the roller blade scene Margot complained that tons of people (men and women)came up to Ken and told him how good he looked and wanted pictures and all that, but no one came up to her. Take from that what you will.
Well ya I would tell a bro he be looking fly and crushing it. But if there's one thing decades of feminism has taught me is you shouldn't tell a pretty girl she looks pretty
@doomsdaybooty1072 Yup, the whole "I'm going to the gym in my underwear, and when a guy glances at me, shakes his head in amusement, and goes back to his workout, I'm going to blast it on tick tock" routine.
This is by far the strangest movie ever. Weird plot, strange characters and no world building.
Would you be interested in doing a video for Oppenheimer? I watched it in the cinema recently and was hooked by it from start to finish.
A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
42:00 also said Smallpox epidemic killed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) and paved the way for one of the worst genocides on the western hemisphere, so Gloria's comparison was in extremely poor taste if you ask me.
As a woman, thank you for this video! Your points are so we’ll articulated and I always appreciate people pointing out the harm that feminism is doing to women and men. Also this movie portrays women in such a terrible way and yet calls it good- that is extremely degrading. Thank you for being bold and saying what needed to be said!
😂😂😂
This movie is not feminist. It is a neo-liberal caricature of what US east coast elites think feminism is. Real intersectional feminism is about deconstructing the ways in which current social systems and conceptions actually hurt almost everyone in society, even those who have social power. I, as a cis white male person benefit just as much from real feminism as any woman, in that it removes the pressures on me to be the primary breadwinner (although I can be if I want to) in my relationship, removes the need to be assertive and dominant in social settings (although, again, I can still be if I want to), and generally frees me to just live life as I want.
RFT actually brought up the fact that women will generally not want to date men that are financially worse off than them. THAT is patriarchy in action. We all perpetuate it, and it hurts everyone, from men to women, intersex people, nbs, etc.
Corporations like to co-opt progressive aesthetics to boost sales, but they don't actually get it nor care to get it. Real leftists and feminists will push back against this co-opting just as much as any reactionary. The people who do cheer this on are mostly mentally ill and terminally online twitter users, while the vast majority of people is mostly apolitical and doesn't care much, just being happy to be clobbered over the head with the "you are one of the good ones" messaging, which is why this is so profitable.
@@wfb.subtraktor311
"Real leftists" and progressives are mentally ill terminally online twitter users.
There are men, there are women, and everything else is either a mental illness or a medical condition.
"Patriarchy" is whatever the looney left want to criticize at some particular moment. We frankly have the least masculine generation in history, and people are still whining about "patriarchy".
If women want a man who can take care of them then that is not "patriarchy", that's likely millions of years of evolution in action, where women want a man who has enough resources to take care of them and their offspring. Saying that "feminism" removes your responsibility is simply stupid.
Feminism is ultimately "women right, men wrong" or the essential message of the Barbie Movie.
@@wfb.subtraktor311 So... it is exactly what US East Coast Elites think feminism is. Thanks for confirming that :)
@@darkbum1510 If you have an IQ of 80, are capable of zero nuance, and your daily diet of media is The Quartering and Critical Drinker then it may seem that way to you.
31:52 the writers are literal conspiracy theorists :v
This is the problem with modern entertainment, everything is only surface deep. Nothing is actually explored, and no nuanced is ever presented. Even with the success of this movie, in a year, no one will remember it.
I suppose we'll need to wait for the next tripe they send our way. I can't wait.
I was honestly confused for a moment when you said being a stay at home mom was a viable/logical option in the USA (Especially in Cali), but then I remembered you aren't American. Not to be rude or anything like that, of course. It's just that that's just not really an option for most women now and days unless they want to live with roommates or their parents. Especially in Cali. Even with a husband with a decent wage.
(I'm must add that this is from the prospective of a Pacific Northwesterner. Could be different for other parts of the USA.)
Lived in California about 17 years and trust me, barely anywhere else in America is like that hellscape. Get out as soon as you can. Much ❤️
@BilboBaggMan I actually live in oregon but I visit and have a lot of friends in Cali. That being said, it's also freaking terrible here too. The cost of living far out reaches what a normal person can pay to the point where most of my female friends have elected not to have children at all. I mean, you can see from the birth rate readings how forked Oregon is right now. It just keeps going down.
Wait, no... I lied. Cali is still worse. We might have decriminalized drugs, but y'alls cost of living is absolutely out of control. Oof. I'd much rather deal with the druggie on the max.
@@ColKizumi trust me friend there was no lack of druggies in California! And "California sober" is a thing for a reason XD I have family in Portland, so I've heard lots of horror stories. Me and my girl have already decided we can't afford ourselves let alone another human being, sad to hear everyone is in that boat.
I'm glad you added that, but still, yeah, your opinion on what it's like in the vast majority of the country is about as relevant as that of our British TH-camr here. Stay-at-home moms are still common, there are many millions of them.
I think that the daughter calling Stereotypical Barbie a fascist is more a dig at the use of fascist as a label to give someone to discredit them instead of you know, someone who supports facism.
Why? Absolutely nothing supports that. Furthermore, the director said she deliberately gave that screed to that character, because she wanted a "smart" character to give that "correct" deconstruction of Barbie. People really need to stop defending everything stupid in this movie as satire on no other basis than "It's so stupid, it must be satire." No, it's just stupid.
@@BWMagus After that scene Stereotypical Barbie is crying next to a tree and says "She thinks I'm a fascist? I don't control the railways or the flow of commerce!" while sobbing, so clearly the movie does know that fascist is silly to say there. I agree that the movie has it's many faults but here it just made a joke.
The entire movie is dependent on how much faith you have in the writers. Is it a self aware movie clowning on gender politics or is it just a clown movie obsessed with gender politics?
When I was 11? I had an old Big Jim doll.
One of my friends also had an old Big Jim doll.
And a girl we knew had an old Barbie doll, and...
...and one day she, I think, came up with a game based on a movie ore tv show she knew of or had seen.
Anyway, the Big Jim's was Vice Cops trying to bust Barbie, the brothel madam.
That was a fun summer!
Excellent breakdown!
I'm so tired of Hollywood churning out pure shite and expecting us pesants to just gobble it up.
To be honest, I don't feel like I wasted my money when going to see Barbie. Yeah sure there was the Barbenheimer meme going strong (and Oppenheimer was certainly something) but even putting that aside, I'd argue it was worth my time.
Would I ever pay to see Barbie again? No, not in a million years, it's a one time wonder and a fresh experience for us normies who only get the most formatted sludge these days... But it's really not a good movie and certainly not on the level of its counterpart.
But still, I will praise the movie where I believe it should be praised. For all its flaws, it had a very unique artistic direction which tremendously helps in making the film more memorable.
That being said... Even putting aside all the clunky social commentary, this film fails really badly at worldbuilding. Sure, I accepted it from the very begining that things could get silly, I let pass the portal sequence and several other things, but the sillyness had absolutely no place in the "real world". I will tolerate Barbieland for doing dumb stuff, it's another dimension with separate rules, but seeing real people get this stupid all the time like they were in a cartoon despite clearly being in the non cartoonish part of the Barbie-verse, that's a big no. And then of course we had all the bullshit the movie tried by not explaining things that should have gotten explained, there are plenty of mechanics and plot points that are just swept under the rug despite being very important at first glance. Overall... yeah it wasn't exactly a stellar movie, it falls apart completely once you remove the glitter.
I left youtube playing last night and your videos started to play while I slept, your hobbit video made my dream funky. I dunno what to do with this info but here ya go.
It is a work of genius, being so controversial which makes everyone talk about it - which has always been the best way to promote a product (namely Barbie and related accessories, not the movie itself). It seems cookie-colored and fun enough for those who love Barbie to love the movie, and for adult humans to dress in pink while going to the movie, which is obviously self-promotion to the outside world as well. It is controversial enough for everyone with intact brains to criticize at least parts of it, which keeps the talk ongoing even within that group. The group in the middle, who never cared about Barbie (which I account myself into), can't escape the exposure. It's a strike of genius.
I'm really enjoying this channel, subbed.
Nice video, Names. Or Mr Names, not sure how generous I feel. On a side note, I consider myself close to fluent in English- I understand all of sir Humphrey's monologues and I know all the Monty Python records by heart. Yet whenever I listen to a synopsis of this movie I get a feeling there is some basic grammatical rule I have no concept of. I'm afraid to look up the synopsis in my native Russian, least it turns out I don't understand that language as well.
You've just articulated my thoughts on this film far more eloquently than I managed when I was discussing it with a female work colleague who LOVED it. Any chance of those notes so that I can drop them on her desk on Tuesday morning? Please?
The notes became the script, I am afraid!
jesus christ people can enjoy movies without you leaving notes on their desks about why they shouldn’t enjoy something. chill dude
Avid Barbie kid here. I grew up in the 80s and during my childhood I had many Barbies and Kens. And the thing is Ken was a doctor too. For every job Barbie had Ken also had because they couldn’t be away from each other for even a moment apparently. So it feels like Greta whatever didn’t really play with any more of the dolls than just Barbie or maybe Midge. Either that or she chose to ignore all the jobs Ken had as well.
Also, her having Skipper commit kidnapping 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️. Skipper is a TEENAGER!!!! Why on earth would she abduct a kid? It would just be one more child she’d have to babysit. Again it’s like she doesn’t know Barbie at all.
I really wish that at the end of the movie Ken had found solace in his fellow Kens::/ If he'd had closer connections with the other Kens, then I think a good portion of this movie wouldn't have happened ngl
Your deconstruction of bad movies (and TV shows) is a work of art. I have not seen this movie nor will I. I have no need or want to gaze into the mind of an angry spoiled average looking female teenager who, 20 years on, is still angry that the captain of the football team didn't call her back after she gave up her virginity to him in the back of the bleachers after practice. One can learn much about her psychological state from this. She is clearly very unhappy and being unhappy herself, wants everyone else to be miserable also. A world of happy Barbies under a patriarchy? BURN IT DOWN!!! It's a good think Barbie world doesn't have to worry about things like clean water, food production, electricity, etc. or all those feminist barbies would be living in caves until they became mountain lion food.
Anyway just like the Rings of Power series (which I also have not seen) the only thing good about it *is your review of same*. So I appreciate you enduring this so I don't have too. You are doing yeoman's work protecting the rest of us and entertaining us while doing it. 5 stars.
Amazing review. Your discussions never fail to disappoint. Thanks 🙏🏽
Those domestic violence stats are completely wrong, there have been more than enough studies to show its closer to 50/50 when looked at properly...i.e actually getting men to report, understanding its generally reciprocal violence (both parties hit each other) and of course the big one being the reporting and even the laws are set up following a feminist methodology from the 60s saying that basically no matter what the men are always in the wrong, and even the women who developed it have since come out and said they were completely wrong in their assumptions. Just had to put this out there. Lets see how long till someone whos done no reading on it tells me im wrong and when they do ill pull out the receipts and see if they can prove them wrong 😂😂
The good news -- and the reason Barbie did so well -- is that most audience members are not going to spend this much (or any) effort analyzing the cohesion of the film. Lord knows ... the writers didn't.
Its a movie that could have done a lot more
There's one point (joke) you made that I disagree with, "manipulate" is only gendered in a feminist's mind. It comes from the Latin word for "hand,' "manus." However, "patronize" comes from the word for "father," so a more accurate (though less on point about feminists) reversal would be "matronize."
The fact that this hyper successful blockbuster was written by women, kind of disproves it’s own premise. It would be less jarring if they weren’t implying strongly that our actual reality operates the same way as their fiction.
Can someone please give Random some more watchers?
Honestly your videos are so darn good. I think you deserve to be named amoung other names like The critical drinker, Mauler or The little Platoon~
If you think these people are people to be named among you need to get off the internet and touch grass.
If there’s one thing we now have a huge collection of, it’s movies and TV shows that unintentionally show us, in detail, the inner workings of upper middle class, unmarried/divorced, liberal, female minds. Between this, Velma and She-Hulk, someone could teach an entire course in psychology. And the list just keeps growing.
This. These people aren't intersectional feminists, they just have "bitter white woman"-syndrome.
Yeah its not like people would go metal about the fact dols are alive. That they look like real live people, and are human in many ways, without dying and aging. The fact there is a barbie world makes it already a Pandorax box scenario. The moment they went into the real world. But the movie doesn't want you to think about that. That isn't even the plot of the movie. So this movie is all over the place. But the congrats to the marketing I thought it would be a comedy funny kids movie.
23:14 An ad kicked in for me at this point, and I initially thought Random was doing a bit where he just stood with his arm up silently; it was hilarious
You did a really good job with this review and handed the political aspects very well, also like the new version of your avatar
Surprise RFT video? I really hope these “shorter” filler videos remain a thing.
They will pop up as and when I have something to cover that doesn't fall into the regular analysis format.
I consider myself very fortunate to not have seen this film. Clearly I still have a functioning brain and know how to use it.
I’m not mad about the politics I’m mad that poorly written garbage makes a billion dollars. Hollywood is in shambles.
Because whoever criticizes the movie to a general audience risks serious consequences, like being fired (weird, why would the patriarchy do that?). RFT's audience is one that appreciates logical consistency in movies, which tends to filter out political extremists of all kinds, thus it's safe to be honest about the movie here.
Or people who are rightists
Oh you poor soul! You put yourself through so much just for us? Have my like!