The White Feminism of Barbie
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 พ.ย. 2023
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Barbie is structured much like The Matrix and its subsequent sequels… yet Barbie ultimately shies away from the same revolutionary statements of those films and underscores Barbie’s central failings at grappling with a basic feminist framework that falls short of comprehending the intersecting systems of power that gender finds itself as a critical cross gap between.
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Jessie. could you possibly make more videos about topics like this? more topics on feminism, Identity, commodification, and race and gender identity specifically? I'd love to learn more.
I don't like barbie that much anymore. but this is more important than liking a movie.
interesting take on the Gynecologist moment. I almost saw it as a transition moment. but I see your point, and I have to kind of agree.
What’s your thoughts on Netflix’s ’Anne with an E’? I’d love to see that
JESSIE how do you so consistently make videos that I love about media that I hate!!!😂
Barbie’s impact should in itself be a reminder of where the majority of people are in their understanding of feminism. It doesn’t dive very deep or push many boundaries, yet people of all kinds respond to it as if it’s a provocative piece of radical media. We’ve got a long way to go.
yes, exactly! i think you nailed it with this comment. it was a pretty movie for sure, but it doesn't have much to say that isn't already talked about in mainstream media, which is unfortunate. and to be honest, i don't know why i expected anything more? it's the same concept of gender socialisation being at the core of women's oppression, with that bit about "de-programming" the barbies to drive this point home. i thought the mom would be struggling financially when that story line was brought up and that we might have a look into how class and poverty (and race too!) factor into the issue of gender; of how de-programming is not nearly enough to address these material issues. and it wasn't, so :c. it's also difficult to like do anything but praise the movie as is because then people immediately assume you're a misogynist 😭
edit: i wanna say that the overall conclusion/resolution of the film even feels a little cheap, especially when taking into account the struggles that women face irl. obviously, movies don't have to be true to life and everything, but when a movie goes as hard as barbie to emphasize its message and even the fact that it has one in the first place, it sucks (to say the least) when it falls so off the mark.
This is also why it makes me sad to think about the Barbie movie 😭 because it shows to me that my friends who LOVED the barbie movie have such shallow views on feminism
I had to see the movie from context of how Matel as a company functions. It's still a company that insists on binary for the sake of marketing toys. They approved this movie and the only way to get their approval is to play by their rules to some extent.
So i mostly focused on the comedy like how Barbie and Ken keep ending up in jail or Ken thinking horses rule the world.
I don't think I'm gonna go back to it but the film was not something I regret going out of my way to watch.
literally, all the praise it got had me so confused when i actually sat down to watch it.
100%!! I think my biggest issue wasn't the movie itself, but the advertising and the reviews saying it was revolutionary. I almost wish they just hadn't bothered with the explicit feminism.
Barbie is a remarkable movie for a very sad reason: it is a block buster that stars and is about women. Point and period. These almost never appear. The fact most movie goers saw a movie that talked about how hard it is to be a woman, or even just being a woman at all, was empowering to women I spoke to simply because it was being done on such a large screen. Barbie had to dumb down the matrix because it’s the only way a movie like this can be made, and that’s a little sad for women in film. Hope it gets better, more women making movies like you did helps!
This 🙌 barbie is walking so the next woman-centered movie can run. That it is a blockbuster shows that movies by and for women can be successful and need to be made. It’s not perfect, no, but it resonated with me and I enjoyed it. Now we need more movies that are able to resonate with more and more of the sisterhood.
Maybe I am just a cynic, but I don’t feel like a win for corporate investors who suck the subversive substance out of a piece of art can ever be a win for queer people-or any marginalized group.
After gay marriage became codified by the Supreme Court, acceptance of queer people did not increase as a result. Acceptance of heteronormative gay men (and sometimes women) increased, but everyone else outside that bubble was and is still seen as a deviant. Our allies remain, and it was a win for many gay men-and that’s important-but I don’t think we won anyone else to our side.
I see Barbie (and gay marriage) not as a stepping stone to greater progress, but as Elite Capture (I rec. the book by that title, it’s fantastic) of the progressive movement by the most powerful subset of the marginalized group the movement is supposed to help-and by investors, of course.
Indie art house feminist films about and by women have existed for decades and continue to exist. Barbie will not change the fact of their (un)popularity, and history does not suggest these radical films will be accepted by the mainstream because of the success of the corporate facsimile of the movement.
Tbh. I never really liked the matrix. Not because I didn't get it, I got it.
but I just like sparkly cute musical movies better.
Only if you forget indie movies exist.
Literal Actual feminist movies have been made for decades, just not by Hollywood.
We don’t need Hollywood’s permission to exist in movies or to make them.
I would love to see more femme centered films like Barbie. Hopefully with more nuance.
Barbie would’ve been perfect for me if the Mattel directors came in with all that meaningless talk about learning a lesson, all the Barbies and Kens exchange looks, join forces and proceed to beat the ever living crap out of the executives for the next fifteen minutes of runtime
Perfect comment
Omg yes
yep same!!
Yeah, except they needed to get Mattel's approval before creating the movie at all. They couldn't make those executives look too bad.
and maybe ken actually apologizes to barbie!
This movie made me feel more isolated than usual as a butch lesbian, i’m happy that we get to have more women centered movies but it also highligts how easy it is to be left out of feminism, which is also examplafied in Matels exploitation of working women which was completely glossed over in the movie because its pretty hard to make people laugh at that in a self aware joke
I saw someone call Weird Barbie butch right when it came out and I got SO mad.
There is this common assumption that “traditionally masculine traits” are more valued in general, and that “girliness” isn’t taken seriously or respected
Butches are awesome and we exist in tons of great movies. Just not Hollywood corporate bs.
@AV-ie3qe any film recommendations?
did you also feel like the side story of the little girl was like an idea of "conversion therapy"? like the daughter of the secretary im sure they all had names. who was gender non-conforming and emo. and then went on a trip and suddenly smiled and wore pink. i'm sorry if not but as a transmasc person watching that made me feel very sick i was like. ah yes this is exactly what my mom wanted to happen when i was 16.
Incredibly fascinating seeing all the people disppointed Hari Neff wasn't "Trans Barbie" - meanwhile here's me crying all the way home because they didn't make her "Trans Barbie" and it felt so affirming that she was just "one of the Barbies" and rubbed a deep old ache for acceptance and a chance at girlhood I missed.
I’m the same as you on this one. I don’t want my “transness” invoked as part of my social identity. I’m just a girl like everyone else. Trying to distinguish cis and trans obsessively the way some people do defeats the point and just makes me feel Othered.
Ok but my question is couldnt you still have a trans woman be one of the barbies while still being trans as thats part of an identity?
@@Simon-dj8vt plenty of other folk in the comments did want that. But all trans folk are different. Some need to be queer and different and to be "not cis" - some of us prefer to find what we have in common with others instead and being trans is an inconvenience, not a feature. So I found it more personally gratifying and impactful Hari's transness wasn't a part of the movie, even while others found that disappointing and a missed opportunity. Swings and roundabouts I guess.
thank you for sharing this
Ya know, I never knew she was trans.
One of the weirdest pushbacks to criticism i see is people saying “it’s just a girls film it’s not that serious” as if women are dumb and need to be talked down to
Literally what my (cis white female) friends said to me when we saw it together and I said I didn't like it very much because of how it's social commentary was so surface level 🥲
as a trans guy, this movie was a weird experience. i felt disconnected from every character except allan, and even then there was a disconnect
this decision of solely men as the patriarchy and women as the oppressed ignores so much of the nuances of race, gender, sexuality, disability and culture and how that impacts your treatment in society
am i a trans gay disabled man given the same amount of priviledge as a cishet abled white man?
I would argue that all transgender people are victimized by patriarchy in a similar way that cisgender women are.
Oh good grief.
@@coderamen666 oh definitely i agree, it's just hard to connect when all the sides i see are cis
@@matthewhill9513either say what you’re thinking or don’t. Being passive aggressive with your viewpoint doesn’t serve anyone
@thedarklrd6947 Fine, not everything is about you people, and not every movie is made with you in mind.
This feels like a minor point, but it was one of the things that kept nagging at me after I saw the movie. I thought it was weird how the daughter's look and style changed after the events in Barbie Land. I'm a bi dude so I can't relate to the experience entirely, but I do remember what it was like being a closeted teenage boy who preferred to wear dark clothes and lash out against the world. And I also remember what it was like to feel like I was being forced by the people or society around me to change the way I look, especially when I was afraid of being clocked as queer.
It made sense seeing the daughter wearing pink dresses when she first arrived in Barbie Land, but seeing that style stick with her for the rest of the film made it seem like the movie was saying that adopting a more mainstream feminine look was a mark of character growth. Idk, I never got the impression her rejection of pink and feminine clothes came from a sense of insecurity or discomfort with her gender. She seemed like one of the many female friends I had growing up who liked acting and dressing like that. So I didn't really see the daughter finding peace with her femininity; I saw someone watering down her style and identity to appease the authority figures around her. I was left thinking about how this female utopia works for women and girls who don't conform to this brand of femininity--even just in terms of aesthetics. Basically ... where do the metalhead barbies live lol
∆Rasik∆
The daughter as a character was criminally underdeveloped. Rather than depicting her as a girl who is not conventionally attractive or feminine, or depicting her actually experiencing some form of insecurity, they made her a conventionally attractive confident empowered young woman who just sort of pays cheap lip service to "you caused body image issues and you're a fascist." It was all so lazy and safe.
fr! and irl there are alt barbies so where the hell are they?
The daughter character was criminally underdeveloped but it's only because the movie just put too much on its plate. I'm sure there's crucial scenes of her character on the cutting room floor
I really enjoyed Barbie. But was a bit underwhelmed by the feminist narrative. In the end it framed gender equality as a zero sum game. Any power women gain is taken away from men, who then have less power.
This is explicitly stated in Barbieland when they regain control of their Senate. President Barbie tells the Kens, "We'll let you have seats in government when women in the real world have equal seats to men."
Yes, women in the real world experience inequality. But how is disenfranchising Kens in Barbieland fair or even helpful? The Barbies had _just_ dealt with what amounted to a coup d'etat by the Kens over their lack of power and feelings of irrelevance to the Barbieland culture. How is reverting to the previous status quo helpful or not setting everything up for another destructive revolution?
And what is it telling men about feminism? It does explore the negative aspects of patriarchy for men but this is undercut by the message that patriarchy is the only way for men to retain their existing power and not just end up as "women" in society.
I guess the real world better hustle up equal power for women, then. Though come to think of it, no politicians have ever made an explicit promise about that, unlike in Barbieland.
Well, I dont think that's really what happened in the movie, to my recollection, It's the narrator who says in the wrap-up of the film that the Kens will eventually have all the same power in the Barbieland government that women have in the real world. That of course being a joke based on how much power you personally think women have in the real world.
If we are supposed to read the Kens as an equivalent to real-world women, does it mean "infighting is needed"? It's an iffy moral to go out on- though not surprising as can be seen with what WB platforms.
I walked out of the theater thinking "are the kens still homeless?"
Glad someone else saw that. It's not even a good parallel to women's oppression in reality, because unlike women in real life, the Kens are COMPLETELY irrelevant to the functioning of Barbieland. If they vanished tomorrow, there'd be no loss for the Barbies unless some of them really do consider a given Ken or two as a friend. And let's be blunt, they'd get over that fairly quick.
For me Barbie is full of great moments and is stylish af but the moment you start to delve into it the whole thing kinda fall’s apart.
Agreed heavily. Great in moments, but on analysis, it doesn't work as well.
I’m pretty sure that’s because it’s a social commentary movie?
@@MoMo-ke1iq i meant fall apart when you delve into the politics and commentary the film is making. The social commentary isn’t really well thought out either tbh.
@Silencedfixer i didn’t say it was complicated. Just not thought out. Especially when you think about it and through modern feminism.
Thank you! I'm a cis woman but I felt a lot of the things you mentioned. The "deprogramming" of the Barbies with one-liner feminist remarks was the low point of the movie for me. What a boring way to end the conflict... And I honestly feel like it cheapened the feminist message by portraying it as cool slogans that women use to bond with eachother. It feels like the movie was saying "look how cute the Barbies are with their little government and feminist society #girlsnighteverynight - too bad none of that has any impact on the real world whatsoever". Like Barbieland is a containment facility for feminists, and since they're so used to living in captivity, they would crumble if released into the real world... Except for Margot Robbie's Barbie, because she's special. The exceptional one, not the rule.
I was waiting for a violent overthrow of the Kens 😔
What bothered me in that montage was the play on the "wow you're secretly beautiful" glasses removal trope. As someone who used to wear glasses, it doesn't even start off with a Barbie who normally wears glasses- none of them do.
A thought: Let Gloria wear glasses, and let her keep her glasses.
Not to mention that Gloria's monologue wouldn't resonate with the barbies, because that's never been their reality
@@magimerlyn9596 yeah. the barbies were oppressors. the kens were just reflecting the world they grew up with and not dismantling the oppressive structure of the world they were in. a better, stronger, more feminist discussion would have been asking the kens why they wish to replace the barbies' power structures with the same exact system but in reverse. but u kno. that would remind white feminists that their feminism is often just replacing white men with white women and calling it a job well done.
alternatively, horse barbie shows up with a pegasus, and shows everyone that horses aren't the patriarchy, and there's a bunch of glitter, and the kens and the barbies realize they've both been jerks to each other, and they reconcile.
@@louc.6735 honestly, if they wanted to make Ken a villain, i'd argue that for it to work they would have to treat his radicalization with a more serious view, and have him be radicalized by stuff like Andrew Tate podcasts.
It was definitely a weird watch as a trans man. The last line hit me like a truck, & the weird binarism of the gender politics was exhausting. Discussing it amongst people I know, too, has been weird, because any criticism of how the feminism wasn’t actually that critical of the structures at play gets met with “well there were barbies belonging to marginalized groups!! Checkmate!” The secret group of rejected barbies & kens (eg, the censored Cockring Ken) only really made it more prominent: we could be talking about deviating from gender norms, but at the end of the day, we won’t, because this is Stereotypical Barbie’s show.
I walked in knowing that I was and wasn’t the target audience, that trans mascs & trans men were likely not going to be demographics brought up, but idk. I wasn’t expecting the cisnormativity of the gender politics to be that overwhelming, especially when I heard such good things about it. It was a bit of a let down after the hype, & one that ended up just making me feel isolated.
As a fellow trans man watching the film, I feel you very much. Some stuff resonated with me but I also felt weirdly excluded from whatever the film tried to say.
@@belagrolaub8746 I’ll give it this, I did feel very seen by Allan wanting to run away from the macho bullshit, but yeah. It fucking sucked to just see a vindication of the binary in something that was claimed to be a feminist masterpiece
Third man here. Thank you guys. I had such a bad time with this film.
as a transmasc agender person, i felt like a spectating third party while watching the film. i didn't really resonate with the barbies or the kens. throughout the entire movie, i never felt included in the conversations being made by the characters regarding genderbased oppression. that's why i saw myself drawing more too allan, since they're the only character that somewhat resembles 'the spectating third party' that i felt like being in while in the cinema. it even resulted into me hcing allan as nonbinary, but hcs can only do so much yk lmfao
Yeah, this is why, as a trans-masc enby, I just couldn't go see this movie, no matter how much my nieces wanted me to go with them. I just knew that a movie from a major studio couldn't possibly manage gender politics in a healthy and diverse enough way that I wasn't going to leave that theatre hurting. I see that unfortunately I made the right call.
No shade on Greta Gerwig, but Greta most likely couldn’t have written the screenplay that you’re describing. Barbie ultimately, is expressing her views. Barbie as a work of art is a Greta Gerwig film saying what she was wanting to say, not a work of art made by committee. This is why more filmmakers need the ability to tell their stories, because it’s very difficult to tell a story that you haven’t lived.
Agreed. Greta Gerwig is white and presumably cis and straight and I think the movie reflects that. I was personally represented as a white, cis, straight woman, but I couldn’t help but feel off during the movie, like it was too shallow. If anything, Jessie’s video helped me put the finger of “oh. That off feeling is because only the perspective of someone of my demographic was represented.”
Don't forget that Stereotypical Barbie was almost exclusively helped and taken care of by minorities. There is the unfortunate implications that straight cis white women must always be protected and cared for in their endeavors (if not served), and minorities should just be thankful that they tolerate us.
as a trans man i also have complicated thoughts on the barbie movie. i grew up with my stay at home mom and my younger sister, so i immediately related to the kens being men in a world that is aesthetically and philosophically oriented to the interests of women. ken’s experience of discovering (stereotypical) masculine interests and immediately embracing that freedom to do his own thing speaks to me as well. in general the discourse between the kens and barbies reminds me a lot of the way trans men and non-intersectional feminists interact. i was pretty disappointed to see ken immediately try to become a patriarch, and then see the movie resolve this by putting kens back into their subservient place. i think it’s especially cutting that alan, who makes me think of trans men who feel pressured to perform a more soft type of masculinity to not upset the women around them who don’t want to fully consider them men, also ends up playing second fiddle to the barbies despite supporting them the whole time
I...
I can't in good conscience act like I know what your experience or perspective feels like,
I can only state that I empathize,
wish I could help,
wish the Kens genuinely got a good ending,
and I Love Alan,
I hope you have a good day sir.
I relate to this heavily
my bf and best friend, who are cis men, can relate to this and you put it in great words. they have that majority female upbringing and a pressure to be soft performing masculine men so as to be inoffensive enough for women. i have my own ideas of feminism and we are always having political conversations, but i’ve always made it a point that they can be simple boys around me if i can be a simple girl. if everyone makes fun of each other and themselves, we can see how ridiculous we all are and can spend more time loving and caring for each other 🫶🏽
Fellow trans man, specifically non-binary trans man who does lean more feminine.
I haven't seen the movie in a few months so I could be misremembering just going off this video alone. But interestingly, I see in Alan the sort of gratefulness to have anyone - including a trans guy - backing your cause, while simultaneously covertly denying his status as a man (or a discomfort in acknowledging that he is one) in a way I feel that I've experienced.
And I think it's doubly interesting that both your and my interpretations of Alan and our differing experiences as trans men can co-exist within him, and even make a lot of sense together. A man who feels pressured to be softer so as to be inoffensive, and then not being accepted as a man as a result of this. There is so much the movie could have done with Alan, looking back on it.
Thanks for making mention of the poor taste in indigenous joke for that small pox gag. As a part native myself, that joke took me fully out of any joy I could experience for what this film is sadly, and made me ever the more hyper aware of all the short points you’ve mentioned here when I went to see it in theatres. It’s been a somewhat lonely existence as a non-fan of this film, so I really appreciate you putting yourself out there to point out its shortcomings with your platform.
The connection you point out to Gerwig's religious upbringing feels correct. I went to the same all girls Catholic high school that she attended (though well after she graduated) and the general attitude many of the students have/had is readily apparent in the film. It's a specific outlook on life that many of my well-off white peers (and teachers) had, which clashed with the lived experiences of the non-white students and students who had grown up with financial hardships. And especially the queer students.
Coming 'late to the party', I was hopeful this would finally be the video essay to mention the anti-Indigenous racism in the film. Thank you for addressing this directly, it has been so frustrating how many 'leftist' criticisms of the film have been leaving it out!
There was racism?
I didn't hate the barbie movie, but I did feel the same sense of wrongness you described in this video. I'm glad someone finally voiced the way I've been feeling about it.
It kind of reminded me of how everyone talked about biden during and post election America
It felt so weird hearing my philosophy professor praise the movie just because a bunch of right wing assholes disavowed it, it's like the idea of progressivism matters more than it's substance or result
😅😅
Same
I think part of Barbie's limitation is its status as a coming of age film. Most of us are still fairly naive at the transition to adulthood even as we have to acknowledge the challenges and complexities of the world. Some do question the system during this transitional phase, but it is easy to get distracted with a half million things.
I also think that that's where I feel like a lot of the critique (leftist at least) falls apart. The intersectionality issues are still present- but I think the movie is more about "girlhood" than "feminism" or "women", and I feel like the fixation on adult perspectives instead of talking about how one grows up in a Patriarchy leaves some avenues of critique unexplored
@twistysunshine this is a great point.
@@twistysunshineI agree like a lot of leftist critique of the movie has felt kinda odd to me, but I never knew how to put it into words. Like not everything that someone of a marginalized group makes has to present a societal issue in the most nuanced way possible.
I absolutely adored "Barbie" and had a blast watching it in theaters! Now that this movie has demonstrated that a film about, starring, by, and for women can make a shitload of money with a milquetoast feminist message, maybe we can get more radical movies greenlit. Maybe. Maaaaayyybee… 😅
Dunno about anybody else but as a trans woman i got kinda dysphoric from not liking the Barbie movie, especially because it got propped up by people as a feminist masterpiece that women loved and men hated.
Nah fuck that, this Aranock and Jessie lay it out clearly. This movie is pink capitalist trash in a very fun package
as a trans man, i felt kind of affirmed by the exact same reason💀
wh???
so what's the reason(s)?
do you 2 mean the same one(s)?
(I'm genuinely asking because I have no idea what exactly led you both to these feelings, but maybe I just haven't gotten to that part of the video yet)
@@TheInfintyithGoofball for myself the fact that a lot of the narrative online was based around how men hated this movie because feminism and women loved it because it spoke to their souls. I didn't like the Barbie movie because it was trashy corporate slop, which made me worried that I was going to be seen as mannish or not legitimate in my identity because I didn't like it. The matrix is an infinitely better and infinitely more queer movie that people should just watch instead. I think every character in the matrix could be read as queer and the Barbie movie only has a couple who could be read that way and it's not great rep at that either.
@@TheInfintyithGoofball barbie was being talked about as something that resonated deeply with women and could not be understood, much less liked, by men. When i watched barbie disliked it for the shallow message and non-egalitarian approach to solving patriarchal issues, i just thought "huh, guess i'm another of those men who didn't get the film. Cool."
When I saw the film in the theater, I thought it did well in demonstrating how gender itself is performative. Barbieland created the world they thought they were supposed to, putting everyone in the roles they thought they were supposed to. After going to the human world, Barbie and Ken especially learn about the other extreme from an incomplete understanding. Such an incomplete understanding radically changed the gender roles in the doll world acccordingly. The dolls are played with mostly by children so have a child's understanding with lack of complex emotional nuance. Margot's Barbie is the only one who starts understanding the emotional nuance because she is being played with by an adult; thus Margot's Barbie grows beyond the doll world to the real world.
As someone not familiar with the actress I in fact did not realize transgender Barbie was transgender until watching this video. That's how little her transness was addressed in the movie.
That was such a missed opportunity on their part. Exploring her trans ness would’ve added more depth to the characters.
same here. I would even say she's at that point not even a trans barbie, because not one line of dialogue even hints at it.
It gives a very negative message. Like saying that the only acceptable trans existence is the trans person that is completely stealth. They should have made her wear an outfit with very obvious trans pride flag colors, that would have been an extremely easy way without any dialogue to make it clear that she is trans and that it's okay to be out as a trans person even if you most definitely pass.
@@merlumiliyou don't even need a line of dialogue just give the character a trans flag or a very obvious trans flag outfit. Have a scene where it is prominently displayed in the shot and then continue with the movie.
I get the argument that it would have been more interesting to acknowledge her transness. However, I doubt Greta Gerwig has the understanding to do that in a nuanced way. So for the sake of Hari Nef's bank account I'm glad she was cast as a character that isn't explicitly trans. I think we need a mix of trans actors playing roles that address transness and trans people playing characters that aren't explicitly trans or are cis. Trans actors need to make a living and there aren't many writers or directors with the knowledge to address transness in a smart and empathetic way getting the funding to make big Hollywood studio movies.
One of the first things that I said as I walked out of the theater with my siblings is how cynical and unimaginative it seems that the two worlds mirror each other, and that ultimately nothing really changes. People seem to confuse re-inforcing the status quo in art as some sort of "realistic" take on the world. But to me it just betrays a lack of imagination. What is considered realistic or idealistic is nothing but constraints inflicted on us by limited language, limited images, limited visions of the world. I refuse to buy into the idea that nothing but ad nauseam replication is possible.
I also wanted to give you a special shoutout for pointing out something I've been trying to articulate but have failed to find words for since this movie aired. As a woman, I've always been expected to relate to white women on screen. But I'm an immigrant from Iraq whose life has been defined so much more by displacement and the violence inflicted on me by whiteness than anything resembling the gendered struggles of other white women. Even the gendered violence I've endured had a drastically different tone than anything Hollywood is capable of handling with any sort of nuance. My reluctance to call these movies centering white women as movies about Womanhood and the experience of Womanhood, as something to be revered for a universality, has often been misconstrued as a form of internalized misogyny. When in actuality all examples of womanhood around me (even disregarding my own) has looked so drastically different throughout my upbringing. And to this day, the examples of womanhood that I've experienced within myself and the people around me continue to look very different than what is depicted on screens even though I live in the U.S. now. The alienation I've constantly felt for not relating to stories about American girls and women going through the pitfalls of girlhood and womanhood often felt as violent as my experiences of sexism in the world. It forced me into this shame spiral of truly thinking that something is fundementally wrong with me for not seeing myself in these movies. And it often made my own experience of war and violent displacement as something fundementally seperate from my experience of girlhood and womanhood. It created this fragmentation where my struggle as a girl and as a woman somehow had to be extracted from my struggle as an Iraqi child going through a war; something that also alienated me for a very long time from the richness and the intricate nuances of my lived experience. And I would also like to add that there is nothing inherently unique or other about experiencing war. Just look at what's happening right now in the world and you'll see that this is not a thing of the past but the lived reality of many people. It would be utterly disingenous to tell a Palestinian woman that somehow her struggle as a woman has to be seperated from her subjugation under a violent occupation. It's why now I'm always careful about not framing these movies as movies about womanhood or universal stories of girlhood/womanhood, but rather a specific story about a specific kind of womanhood that we have all been forced into thinking as being default.
Anyway, all this to say that I love this. It has to be one of the best takes on Barbie that I've seen. I'm sending it to everyone I know. Much love!
Yes, it's capitalist realism. Objections to the system are permitted to be portrayed in capitalist media so long as the media also implies we can't make another system. This ideology is what they're selling to Gen Z, as they've realized most of Gen Z will never be enthusiastic about capitalism. They are settling for making Gen Z think that however bad capitalism is it still can't or shouldn't be dismantled because other systems (i.e. communism) are allegedly impossible.
There isn't a single all emcompassing womenhood experience and there never will be. Also, other countries make movies, why only care about american ones?
I showed my mom the clip of you talking about how your mom connected with Weird Barbie due to be a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with breast cancer recently and had surgery for it (it was just a cancerous lump). She's starting chemotherapy on Monday, December 4th, and has been freaking out about losing her hair. The clip of you talking about your mom's experience connected with her and made us both really happy. Thank you.
So im commenting while still watching the video- I havent watched the film but from what i seem from weird barbie id argue she is also coded as disabled-her story is that she was a totally hair barbie whom was played with too rough that she cant stand up straight due to her legs being loose-the other barbies seem to use her to make themselves feel better about themselves because they dont look like her, which as someone whos autistic is familier to how able bodied & neorutypical people treat disabled people
*ergh* I am autistic and I know what you mean. :(
I loved the Barbie movie for what it is. I knew it wouldn’t really commit to the feminism. When I let that idea sink in, I had fun. :) But I know exactly what you mean about leaving the movie uncomfortable. The cis gay men I was with didn’t really understand my disappointments, as a trans man.
Some things really spoke to me, like how Ken went too far masc and then walked back to being someone more true to himself. The dialogue between Ken and Barbie at the end also hit hard simply because I’ve had to grapple with similar dynamics between me and my family. I’m almost certain I’ll never hear Barbie’s conclusions and apology at the end from anyone I’m related to, but to hear it in a movie soothed my soul, even just a little.
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
Oh yeah! I am a femme nonbinary, but I have heard that the overcompensation of masculinity/femininity is a genuine problem transfolk have, and it sadly makes sense. (I have overcompensated with androgyny, and that was NOT fun.)
When that movie THE HELP came out, I remember a critic giving it the dismissive alternate title "How White People Solved Racism". Barbie is a much better movie than the help in a lot of ways but one of the first thoughts I had after watching it was "How The Cishets Solved Patriarchy". Sorry if u make this literal exact point in the video btw I haven't watched yet and am just excited to see a video essay that seems to be on a similar track based on the title and thumbnail 😂
"I'm a man without power. Does that make me a woman?"
Most spot-on one-liner of the film imho.
Jessie really said: “CISSIFY THAT WALK!”
as a trans woman who suffers from extreme bottom dysphoria but hasn't been able to fix that due to various reason, that last line felt like someone pulled the rug from under me. i was fairly enjoying myself for most of the movie since i went into it with absolutely zero expectations but after it ended i felt extremely unwell and had to try not break down into tears because i felt like my womanhood has suddenly been denied despite being able to identify myself to a degree with some of the women in the movie for the most part. a complete whiplash of an ending.
I totally agree, they played the idea of Barbie not having genitals as a joke in a previous scene with the construction workers as well, in that scene it was presented that the lack of genitals wasn't a problem, but then the ending just completely demolished that. The fact that the movie seems to somewhat contradict itself in a way on this makes it seem like to the writers it was just a joke about dolls not having genitals and they didn't consider the implications of the joke for trans or intersex people. The movie definitely did not have a single trans persons eyes on the script at all, like at least consult a trans person. Like why wasn't trans barbie at least presented wearing the trans Pride colors, it's not like those colors are literally perfect for the Barbie movie, it would be pretty subtle, but at least an actual acknowledgement of the character if not at least only visible to those looking for such representation.
I'm sorry you had to feel like that.😢
As a trans masc that literally went to the movie theatre after my gyno appointment... that sucked so hard
I left the movie upset too
I really enjoyed Barbie. The last scene talked to me as a trans-woman. That she realizes she was always a woman then becomes one. Even The gynecologist part. Maybe because I was about to see one for the first time shortly after (a bureaucratic thing in case I want state-funded surgery, but still I made most of it). It might not have been about transness but I managed to make it so.
Yes! I am genderqueer and loved this movie! From the Black Barbie woman president to the Trans woman and gay man, I truly enjoyed this fun movie. 💖
I love you!
I interpreted the gyno visit s as mainly a joke about the no genitals doll thing, but with the undertone being more like her having to face the tangible reality of living in a meat sack human body. Like bodies are unpredictable and weird they make juice and leak and can get infections and need checkups and care in a way that plastic dolls don’t and Barbie would need to face the messy aspects of living in a human body for the first time.
I can respect that, although it rubs me the wrong way as a trans man. Like a lot of trans men and transmasc people, I avoid OB/Gyn care because a lot of OB/Gyns are cis women who explicitly get into the field because they're interested in "women's health," and the inclusion of people who don't see themselves as women is frequently an afterthought or non-thought. (I'm also a med student, so this is something I hear a lot as a student in clinic and in the classroom.)
OB/Gyn offices tend to feel like gendered spaces in the same way nail salons and hairdressers are - they don't have to be, they shouldn't be, but they *are* frequently designed around the assumption that only women use them.
@KyleRayner12 I fully respect your position too. I'm nearly a registered nurse and also see and end up having to correct and redirect and educate fellow coworkers on trans stuff. It's better with the younger staff, but still no where near where it needs to be. And with gynaecology specialties especially within nursing there seem to be either matter of fact chill midwives that aren't weird about stuff and the uterus is magic miracle of birth types and no in between in my experience. Its unfortunate that change and progress is so slow, but hopefully with more trans people and allies in the field things will get better.
As someone who's nonbinary but still adjacent to feminity and afab, I loved the movie for a lot of things, but I also came out of it feeling a bit... weird. I didn'treally connect with the movie tbh. And no, it wasn't the obvious capitalism trying to sell more barbies (that was unavoidable being a mattel property). I wished we has more characters like Allan and Weird Barbie, and that they were more integral to the plot and it was more discussed how their identities and their existence affects this binary Barbie land and how that differences play into it. I think it would have made the discussions of gender more interesting and important. Instead, It was just a fun movie for me. But it didn't say anything new either. It's ok if the movie only wants to be white basic surface level feminism, but it could have been so much more.
Also a lot of the characters were underutilized. Most barbies fade into the background, including Gloria and her daughter. The stupid CEO and minions have more screentime than them, and he serves no purpose but to make Mattel cute and funny. This movie could have done so much more but it didn't.(Oh and I hated how the scientist Barbie only wish was to wear pants like wtf do movie people think that's what women in stem want?? It isn't, btw.)
But I am happy for everyone who resonated with it and was into the hype. Personally I did love the fashion tho, really cute both in the marketing campaigns and the movie itself.
I'm genderfluid myself, and I also found myself wondering what place I would have in a world like this. It's almost like I'd have to bring in toys from other franchises. So now it's Barbie, with transforming robots, and some aliens for good measure. It would end up looking like someone dumped out the contents of multiple toyboxes all over the floor.
@FrozenWolf150 Yeah, you put it into better words 😅 The movie felt, incomplete, and I guess I did feel a little alienated from it.
I guess it could also be because I was always more of a little animal toys than barbies too. At least until like 10 I think, when I began to watch the barbie animated movies, which I love because they have a very fairy tale and fantasy feel to them, genres I really like. But I also liked other dolls better I suppose. And I always preferred the horse companions or something to Barbie herself 🫣
I loved this film, but it left me wanting more. Perhaps a sequel that addresses the other characters and their view on gender is in place?
I think some of the biggest problems with the film is that it was trying to tell 3 stories in one movie. There’s the Barbie wants to be a real human story, the Ken’s existential crisis story and the cartoon Mattel capitalisms story. The potential was really there, costuming is a 10 sets are a 10 getting the feel of dolls in the Barbie land scenes right is a 10, solid jokes about the different Barbie’s and Barbie’s existential crisis ad were great, but they tried to cram too much plot into one film. It would have been better to pick one story and tell it well and thoroughly and flesh out the characters properly.
yeah exactly. Mattel’s influence was extremely palpable. They couldn’t go too radical, too anti capitalist, too deep… they wanted a feature film length barbie advertisement and you can tell. was so disappointing as someone who was so excited to see it! but alas..
Being used to Hbomberguy, Contrapoints, and other similar channels who pop out these masterpieces like once every 3-18 months where it feels like we're practically on an intermittent reinforcement relationship, it's almost uncanny to get feature length episodes from you so frequently
I’ve only started the video, but I can understand criticisms about Barbie. The movie is very surface-level on its feminism, but it’s also weirdly gratifying to have a summer blockbuster movie outright state some of the things it was saying? But yeah, it cannot be truly revolutionary because it is ultimately a movie based on a licensed product, and all the politics thereof.
Having said that, can’t wait to watch more of your video, I’m curious what you have to say! 😀
THE OUTFIT GIVING EIGHTIES JAZZERCISE MOM>>>>>
80s gym jazzercise karen☺️✨
It’s very Jane Fonda-esque
I am so fucking glad to see somebody bring up that mess that was the ending scene. It felt really bad to me on multiple levels, to the point where me and my gal-group had to institute the headcanon that for us, Barbie still has a mystery situation going on, but that she is receiving medical care for the first time. But unfortunately, no amount of fun headcanons that she is going to the doctors to prepare to get her neo-vagina is gonna erase the fact that that was clearly not intended.
Why could she not just had a lovely meal, tying back to the fact that her food had always been fake? A meal with her new family, representing an avenue of true community that she never really had in barbieland, where new people just spawn without any family? ( well we all know why, you pointed out a lot of reasons in this video, im just frustrated by it all)
i love the idea of her eating real food! You could do so much with that. and what more represents being alive and all the complications and joy therein then eating?
I feel like they went for the gag at the end but the subsequent messaging just felt so off.
I think its partly satire without clear intentions and partly that their intentions are so intrinsically soaked in gender essentialism and cis-normativity. :/ The whole movie honestly just felt so... straight to me. Even the campiness felt like something was missing.
honestly I agree and I just didn't find her going to the gynecologist funny. I think there could've been something else like I thought she was going to a job office at first or getting an ID or just something else to show her in the real world.
Yes! At first I thought they were bringing her to a job interview or to a school where she could get her education on the real world situation. A gynaecologist??? Wtf does that mean?
They had to leave some stuff to the sequel 😅
agreed! something like a meal with her new family would've been so nice!
honestly i think the trans barbie was a giant missed opportunity because when i heard people talking about it i assumed there would be some sort of joke or something of the characters wondering about the in-universe logistics of the barbie being mtf when male and female are replaced with ken and barbie. or like a joke where some kid swaps their ken and barbie's clothes, which causes their barbieworld versions to switch places, kind of like that comment under a reddit post about a sims world filled with lesbians except for one dude because the creator was a little gay and didn't realize it at the time.
I want a sequel where these things are discussed. There is such a big opportunity to go deeper!
There was def potential to have a Barbie and Ken with swapped heads because I def did that shit as a kid and that could really open up some interesting and fun humor.
I enjoyed that hari nefs character wasn't explicitly trans, I think so many trans actors end up in roles defined by their transness and it gets exhausting after a time
Please god no I’m so glad a trans woman finally got to just be a woman why ruin it.
To me having Ken's being "opressed like women IRL are", but they being completely incompetent when giving power and their doll house crisis being a joke... It was insulting
Say what you will, I love the implication that in a World where there are no men or women, just Kens and Barbies, there is an ambiguous Alan.
This is literally how my dad finally understood the concept of me being non-binary. I literally said "I'm not a Ken, I'm an Allan" and he understood it. Kinda nuts.
❤
I really enjoyed the Barbie movie, however I didn't identify with it. I am enby but born female so a lot of the "female" experience I recognized, even if I couldn't identify with Barbie. I could see everything that was expected of me since birth, but not myself within that. I also disliked the clips that played in the rebirth, they felt symbolic in a way that the movie hadn't deserved. I missed the Barbie that sat on the bench and recognized that life mattered, that recognized individuality and celebrated being alive. Barbie went on a journey of self-discovery and found no one at the end. I still enjoy the movie even if the messaging fell flat, because it's fun in a way I haven't experienced since Mamma Mia
I think this is why I've been avoiding watching it. because as much as the movie wants to centre itself on feminism and advocating for women, it's still very much predicated on traditional performative constructs of gender, as most Hollywood films do. as someone who is very much a cis gendered woman (even a heteronormatively attractive straight white thin blue eyed cis gendered woman), but never cared too much for performative femininity, it doesn't really speak to me, and I still can't help but feel like my right to so much exist is dependent on my ability to perform femininity. case in point, I've been fired from a bar for refusing to wear makeup, by a female boss no less, but we're still out here insisting that appearance standards are a "choice", yet this "choice" is never questioned in movies actively addressing feminism.
anyhoo, since I'm already rambling, as an example of how I feel about these movies, I really liked Captain Marvel lol when she came to Earth she didn't have time for shopping montages, or getting pulled around by the hand by handsome Chris Pine because she was suddenly an airhead cooing over babies and ice cream and asking "wHaT's MaRrIaGE"? she was just on a mission and didn't give a fuck. even though female led movies are becoming more common, IDK if there's much room for non traditionally feminine women who AREN'T sex object pick me femme fatale types :( there was a very brief phase in the mid 2000s where there were a couple "girls in non dance or cheerleading sports" movies (Blue Crush, Chalet Girl, Bend It Like Beckham), then they disappeared :(
I had pretty much the exact same experience. I watched it with some Fem friends but being enby myself couldn’t quite relate to Barbie. Even though they did and enjoyed it a lot as a result
I’m a closeted transmasc genderqueer person and I saw the movie with my family. It was such a strange experience for me. I cried, but not because I felt seen, but because I felt so far away from womanhood and nearly all binary gender experiences talked about in the movie. I’m glad to see other transmascs in the comments sharing their weird experiences with the movie as well.
Your not a woman, of course you may have felt different
tremendous video 👏 honestly, as a white cis woman, the movie did not speak to me at all. it felt directed towards a very specific kind of woman and to me it felt like it was very conditional in its 'diversity' - you must be conventionally pretty and feminine. there was not a single character that was not extremely femme, and i specifically noticed that sasha, who initially was angry and wore comfortable, more gender neutral clothes, eventually ended up happy, all her very valid social justice points forgotten - but hey, she was all dolled up! it... really rubbed me the wrong way. gloria, as well, claimed to be 'dark and weird' but did it from an extremely conventional, feminine, 'good woman' presentation. barbie cis-sified the matrix, and also hetero-fied it. it also felt terfy to me, and ended up pushing this idea that it's ok to be a mother, when... being a mother is precisely what most women are pushed to pursue.
it definitely felt like baby's first feminism, and hopefully it will open the doors to people who never have delved into feminism. but i feel since the buzz it has generated is so enormous, it deserves to be judged with the same enormity.
also, the absolute hypocrisy of breaking the 4th wall to tell us margot robbie is too pretty to play pretend she's not, in a scene that is precisely about never being able to live up to impossible standards and how that fucks with women's self esteem. how did that even make the cut.
Baby's first feminism is exactly what I thought! I was wondering 'okay, great, you listed some very basic problems, but where are the real meat and potatoes?'
The whole comment on being a mother confused me, the whole 'don't always talk about your kids' is advice for mothers so they remember that they're more than just a mother. But she says it like it's a bad thing, which knocked my child-free self right out of it. If she had said something like 'You're supposed to love your kids and being a mother, even if you love your kids but hate being a mother', I'd understand more, because that's actually something society tries to demonize women about, but talking about your kids? There's an entire TH-cam genre about that.
But also the 'you're supposed to be thin' part was a little weird because yes, but don't forget, you're supposed to be thin with a big butt and huge breasts, without those people are going to call you a boy.
I actually really hated that speech. I like what it wanted to do, but it walked a very safe line and couldn't deliver (in my opinion)
I just saw Barbie last weekend, so this video was very relevant! The movie’s overt messages were conspicuously void of all discussions of intersectionality. It was like, “the discussion of femme feminism in America is such a big topic, we’re not going to even try to address any intersectionality even though we know you have to if you’re going to have an honest discussion.”
So glad to see this video. I’ve been running in circles feeling so alone about Barbie since watching it with my sister. We both left the theater feeling so much ick, kind of betrayed and off put that that was what it had to say, and the following extremely polarized discourse didn’t help. Seeing this issue explored and unpacked so deeply, with so much I agree with and get to hear words put to, was cathartic and amazing, and the empathy you always bring to your work was so refreshing as well. I think the idea that just bc bad faith conservative ppl hate somth doesn’t mean pushing back against them means you have to love the thing, or that the thing itself is perfect, is so important, and you articulated why so well along with so much else. Ty Jessie augGh!!
I really enjoyed the film, but after hearing a friend who I trust's thoughts on it I definitely understand this perspective better now. I do still love it, and not just because ben shapiro hated it, but I also don't wanna pretend it's perfect. Also helps that I watched it for the first time with a friend (who im very gay for and shes very pretty but thats irrelevant) in a barbenheimer marathon so it was probably more about the social aspect than the movie itself that I enjoyed it so much
@@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868 Absolutely, and it’s going to connect and have its own special connections for different people. For context as well I’m nonbinary and have my own issues with the projection of womanhood as a universal experience, but me and my sister grew up watching the animated Barbie movies, and were super hyped to see it. We dressed up in pink with bracelets and jewelry and the whole shebang, and bussed out just to see it. The social aspect and the build up was I think part of what led to the fallout for me as well, kind of that expected high of joy being met with something that was, personally, very uncomfortable and harmful feeling to my experience and dynamic with myself as a person. My sister is cis but also felt oddly excluded and out of place, and we talked about it on the way back. It was very emotionally charged for me, and I also just think is just a narritive in the end that I can’t personally engage with comfortably. But! That doesn’t mean it isn’t special or can’t be close to other people, and for those it does bring joy like you, I think that’s awesome. Everyone has their own connection to gender and womanhood and media, and while the following discourse was sucky, I think that was a really important and fascinating aspect Barbie as a phenomenon showed. Just as Jessie discussed there still were so many important and wonderful moments in the film, and for anyone who’s has a lovely experience with it, I’m genuinely so happy ab that 💕
Release the "Alan Cut"
47 minutes of Alan content was cut and we demand a release of the Alan Cut!
Wait, really? I didn't know about this and if it's true I also want to see it. 😅
The movie did not resonate with me and I did not immediately understand why. Now I know: it reduced all women to a singular group with universal experience and, hence, universal issues.
A note on the construction worker scene:
I agree with your critiques of the construction workers' reactions to Barbie (1:33:57), but I thought this scene was really clever, at least as a story telling tool. It does two important things. First, it separates Barbie's "real world" from our own. The audience expects the construction workers to cat-call Barbie because it's a cliché based in reality, but that makes the rest of the scene more striking. Obviously, we wouldn't expect a real group of objectifying construction workers to immediately accept a woman's declaration of her lack of genitals, but they do, bringing me to this scene's second important role. Barbie's declaration that she doesn't have a vagina removes sex, both the act and the biological state, from her womanhood. Her audience in the movie immediately accepts this, signaling that the audience outside of the movie should do the same. Though the scene is awkward and unrealistic, I actually really appreciate it. As an asexual woman, it's disheartening to see womanhood and femininity tied to sex and sexuality. For me, watching Barbie roll around in a skin-tight neon and confidently express disinterest in sex, was kind of cathartic.
"Her audience in the movie immediately accepts this, signaling that the audience outside of the movie should do the same."
This sentence is the core of why humanized representation is so important. One one hand, it is important for audiences to see the struggles and discrimination that minorities face. However, if ALL minority representation was centered on experienced of discrimination, that isn't good because it starts to risk conflating identity as a minority with discrimination and victimhood. Scenes like this one are really good to have in the entertainment landscape because they disarm audience members who may have prejudices. That's why I think it's also awesome that the trans actress just played a regular barbie. Bigots might look up the cast later and realize that she was trans all along, and that could be the key to opening up their minds since they realized "oh wow I just saw her as a woman this whole time and it was fine."
I watched Barbie recently and came away with the same feelings of "meh" and discomfort. I am literally their ideal target audience: a cis white woman who played with Barbies, was compared to one, and has been called Barbie as a childish means of 'putting me in my place' when I didn't perform white femininity right in some way. Gloria's speech didn't give me any Big Feels about my womanhood; it was so broad and generalized. In thinking about it from a story craft perspective, I felt that moment needed to be a restorative argument about between Gloria and her daughter where they each express their own experiences of finding identity as a woman (mom trying to reclaim herself, daughter trying to define herself), and Barbie learns from witnessing that connection.
But the moment that came closest to moving me was Barbie's sorrow over not being smart enough and her sense of emptiness. That is something I feel profoundly and painfully...but it still fell a little flat because that pain doesn't come only from being a woman. It comes whiteness and everything that stems from that.
As someone who grew up in a fundamentalist/evangelical Christian home, I am sad to say that Barbie felt radical. It felt radical because I still have family members that are misogynistic and claim patriarchy doesn't even exist. I appreciate the critique that Barbie wasn't showing matriarchy, but a reverse patriarchy because, in my circles, people almost have to be shown how unfair women are treated by literally just having men swap places with them. That's radical.
But it shouldn't be. Thank you SO MUCH for talking about the importance of intersectional feminism in modern conversations. I am able to listen now, but literally still have family members that believe just plain old feminism is extreme leftist agenda and that patriarchy was created by God as a good design for humans to follow...
it feels like tiers. I think I want to show Barbie to people who don't understand the harm of patriarchy, but I also want to critique it with others that recognize its very white feminist base.
I'm glad someone else is talking about this. As a fat woman (even one who's white), with many many male friends (metalhead 🤘) I couldn't understand why everyone was celebrating this movie so much. I saw far more problematic messages than positive ones, and the whole 'patriarchy inverted' was a big part of that. So thank you, Jessie, for making a video that is discussing all the point I noted that no one seemed to talk about. I've honestly been afraid to talk about the movie with people, because the movie I saw is very different from the one everyone else seems to have seen.
I also had no idea this movie had a trans actress in it. On the one hand, it's kind of nice they didn't make a big deal of it, like, she's just another Barbie and that's all that matters, they presented her as no different from any of the other female actresses. But from a perspective of wanting to showcase womanhood, it's an egregious oversight.
I took Barbieland at the beginning of the film at face value. It was a weird little pocket universe, possibly created and fueled by the imagination of children who play with their Barbies, but it was disappointing that they didn't add more nuance throughout the course of the film. Also, I could spend several hours ranting about all of the reasons Will Ferrell shouldn't have been in this movie and how much he pulled me out of the experience (and how dear glob if he had to be there, then he should at least have turned out to be an escaped Ken).
Ferrell or no Ferrell, Mattel in the movie makes zero sense. They are originally implied gods, then they are butt-of-the-joke patriarchs, then they are explicit gods and for some reason the Good Guys? In a movie that is allegedly anti-patriarchy, the myth of a divine patriarch is reinforced. It sort of ruins Barbieland that it's implied it is all part of Mattel's Plan. Barbie wants to be a feminist movie with a happy ending, but it just doesn't land because the male controllers are affirmed as the rightful gods rather than taken down, and no amount of trippy one-on-ones with Margot Robbie and the female creator of the barbie can change that.
Jessie!!!!! This is exactly how I felt watching the film. I just didn't know how to put it into words. I'm a bi genderqueer woman and it was kind of a surreal experience to go see Barbie and hear everyone talking about what an awesome experience they had, and I was like "did we watch the same film????" lol. I was just very whelmed and didn't feel like the film actually had much to say, despite how everybody kept calling it so radically feminist. I remember just sitting in the theater during some "pivotal" moments with a 🤨expression on my face, and all my cishet white friends were *sobbing*, and I caught the eye of my other genderqueer friend and they were like 🤨🤨 as well. And we both came out of it feeling so alienated from our experience growing up Fem. I feel like the famous monologue (you know the one) was the point at which I felt the most alienated, because so many of the things she talked about (beauty standards, motherhood) were things which I never, even as a child, wanted to conform to or understood -- but in the film it's treated as if EVERY woman has that experience and it's essential to our womanhood when it's just...really not. Again that thing of finding your identity in being a victim. You articulated that so well.
I think I also just got so mad at the treatment of the kens. They were fighting against systemic oppression (even if they didn't do it perfectly), and yet the film treats THEM like they're in the wrong, and the Barbies like they're wise and know what's best, and almost like they "should" be in charge? Which feels very...almost TERF rhetoric-y to me. The way that TERFs talk about men as inherently evil and dangerous (or just stupid). IDK it was just very weird overall and it felt like none of the characters were "real" - even the human ones - which does the whole film a disservice.
Thank you so much for your analysis and for everything you do. I'm telling all my friends about this lol.
my new favorite conspiracy theory (which I just invented inside of my very good mindbrain) is that the Barbie Movie is secretly the sequel to The Matrix: Resurrections - and that it doesn't stand on it's own but sits as part of a larger arc in which they'll reveal that the architect just got kinda sick of pale green post processing and 'The People' 'Rising Up' against him, so he rebooted the whole thing as a hyper-femme yet still very patriarchal world in which everyone is too preoccupied with their PreProgrammed Cisgender Nonsense to ever even think about anything truly revolutionary such as breaking out of the matrix or 'bending the spoon' (and walls, and stuff) with their mindbrains.
The Matrix: ReBarbied AKA a mechanism of control employed by the architect to prevent neo and trinity from ever realizing that they knew each other. lmfao
I loved what Princess said about how film criticism is not about being objectively correct, but about opening up a conversation and seeing things from another perspective other than our own. I loved Barbie, even while recognizing some of the issues you’ve brought up here, and I found your discussion such an important one around some of the issues I hadn’t noticed on my first viewing of the movie. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, I always love your insights and humor! ❤
As an Asian trans guy, the character of Simon Liu had me feel very conflicted. It was a subversion of many stereotypes placed upon Asian men, effeminate and weak, by virtue of making him a himbo. It’s a refreshing take. At the same time it feels like it’s dumbing down our place in society by giving us the same power, and the same light we’re viewed in, as a white man. Especially as a trans person the pressure to be masculine came from both my race and gender identity. I’ve felt isolated from Asian communities and queer communities alike. As much as I like this film it’s very simplistic in the way it doesn’t tackle intersectionality. Excellent video as always! Always look forward to your uploads.
The entire Barbie movie felt like the girl boss quotes that I would share on Facebook in 2015.
I like the pink matrix-eqsue coding transition screen a lot. The fact the symbols are a bunch of katakana, the script generally reserved for loan words, is neat. The parallel between the theme of the video, being the barbie taking from the matrix, and the Japanese script reserved for words taken from other languages, then used for the matrix style transition/background, is a really cool one. Whoever edited that one in should be proud
I was going through one of the worst periods of my life when I went to watch this movie, a film I had been waiting for for months. I had made plans with my friends to go watch it all together, wear colorful clothes, the whole shebang.
I have never felt so *betrayed* by a movie as I did with Barbie. To see it lauded as an existential meta piece that changed the lives of the actors, that my friends had been raving about for months... and then actually watch it and get a movie with one of the most childish takes on feminism I had ever seen outside of kids' cartoons was a horrible experience.
I'm transmasc. I didn't really expect the movie to speak to me, but I wanted to watch it as a historic cinematic event, and have a good time with my friends as well. Instead I came out of the theater feeling insulted, hurt, disappointed, and completely disconnected from my friends around me, talking about how much they had liked it.
Honestly, I came out of this movie with the impression that Greta Gerwig was a terf. I'm sorry if this is not true, but the movie has terf rhetoric painted all over. It made me feel uncomfortable, dysphoric and icky. At the end of the day, the only good things I could take from the movie where great acting and amazing designs in all respects. The story is weak, the tone is inconsistent, the themes are alienating, and the message is mild at best, insulting at worst.
I'm aware that I'd probably not have so many negative emotions tied to this film if I hadn't been going through such a shitty time in my personal life. But I can't say that I would have liked it even if I had been completely fine mental health-wise.
That's the thing, the movie was hyped up so much as being revolutionary and life-changing in ways that it simply wasn't. I'll admit I probably didn't give it a fair shot (I was pushed into analysis mode at the beginning and wasn't able to snap out of it until I'm Just Ken, I partially blame the incorrect statement at the beginning that all dolls prior to Barbie were baby dolls) but it was at best a 10-year-old's understanding of feminism and at worst endorsing a western patriarchal ideal of "the world should be run by a single gender, the other one is just an accessory"
Barbie was important to me as a transmasc person reengaging with certain aspects of forced-upon girlhood, and I'd be happy to expand on that.
I appreciate videos and critiques like this so much. It's important that we engage critically with media - especially the media we like. Not in a toxic Star Wars fan way, but like this. Where we ask "ok, but why, though?"
Are you still in the mood to talk about it?
@@nittygritty7034 yeah totally. So, I really need to update my pfp. I started T and present more masc now. But when I said my forced-upon girlhood, what I meant is the literal pink box my parents stuck me in when they painted the walls of my room hot pink.
At the holidays, my brothers and boy cousins got gifts individualized to their interests. My girl cousin and I got the exact same thing. She was always stoked about Bon Bons nail polish and new Barbies, but I dreaded the performance of having to play Barbie with my cousin in a way that pleased our mothers and grandma. I liked playing Barbie, but I liked mixing in my brother's Ninja Turtles to the adventures. I didn't enjoy pretend shopping trips with our Barbies to make my aunt happy. I didn't like that I was expected to paint my nails with my cousin instead hitting the dessert table again. Anyway. You get the idea.
So as a baby white lib feminist, I rejected Barbie hard for all the reasons a 15yo reading Bitch Magazine would.
I'm in my 30's. Ive kinda figured out my gender and now, as someone fully embracing that Im a transmasc nonbinary person, I'm re-engaging with parts of my childhood. Ive been eyeing some vintage Polly Pockets on eBay lol.
The Barbie movie was a way for me to reengage with the part of Barbie I liked, reminded me of myself, made me cry.
For me, the ending line, while I can understand the gut punch Jessie described, for me, it was a warm fuzzy. Going to the gyno is scary. The first time. The 20th time. It's scary. It was really cool to see that scene with my (then) 12yo who got to see Barbie normalize this scary, uncomfortable experience.
When I was a kid, Barbie felt like a promise of what I would look like - the perfect woman.
When I got a little older, Barbie felt like a sneering mockery. She was everything that I could never be. I hated Barbie the same way I hated Britney Spears.
As Ive gotten older and reengaged, Ive found Barbie and Britney Spears weren't insidious forces against me, but embodiments in some ways of my sisters - women. Barbie represents a lot to a lot of people. And for me, Barbie is a link to a part of my childhood that I did and can continue to interact with in my own genderqueer way.
@@beearthur6820 as someone in their 30s navigating stuff around gender and racism and maaaaaybe landing on identifying as genderqueer - thank you for this comment, a lot really really resonated.
While i enjoyed the film, I remember being utterly horrified that the status quo of all the Kens being homeless was just left as is, and this was considered the movie's triumph.
Really want to see that video now of how Marvel handles revolution.
Fun fact, the correct term for “Mailman” is “Letter Carrier”. My family works for the Post Office, a handful of them are Letter Carriers. Mailman is a colloquialism.
As a white feminist myself, this video was a real eye-opener for me. Up until now I'd been hearing nothing but praise for this movie. I'm not sure if one single movie could address all issues you brought up, and that's why we need more media addressing these things.
Thaaaaank you! Thank you thank you! It’s such a relief to know I’m not being “absolutely wrong” or “the reason why ppl can’t have nice things” about feeling the weirdness you felt. Thoroughly covered, nothing to add. You are amazing Jessie ! ❤
I'm glad someone else is talking about of the lack of conversation and change the movie pretends to want to talk about but can't be bothered to. From my perspective it tries to be a inversion of expectations of the Hero's journey, except failing at several points to have typical Barbie do meaningful good to either Barbie land or the real world.
I feel that if they hadn't add the "stupid men conquered barbyland and we solved with catchfrases" they would be able to explore the existencial crisis of Barbie in a more satisfying way.
Watched this on Nebula. You did the amazing job yet again of cutting off all the bullshit arguments against what you're trying to say. You get to your very valid criticisms while paying all due respect to all the great things that the movie does! Everyone would benefit from actually considering these things!
I loved the Barbie movie, but I felt like it fell flat on some of its messages, I still enjoyed it though and appreciated it attempting to do something even though it might not have fully succeeded.
Having watched barbie as a person who has not transitioned and still goes through the struggles of womanhood, this movie certainly had good, hard hitting moments of acknowledgement of some aspects I have gone through. However, it certainly made me feel like I was wrong in who I am as a nonbinary person who wants to be perceived as masculine. I truly agree that this movie was monumental and a major example of how things are changing, however I don't think it's because of the messages it sends, rather that something that has been traditionally feminine has exploded into the cultural awareness even more than it had for the past 15 years. Wonderful video as always
My sister and I also thought the bench was the most powerful scene in the movie. It helped that the line "I know it" is something our grandma and great aunt said- though not with that exact inflection, it was a very real and personally touching image of a happy old lady. So sweet.
I agree with basically all your criticisms. It’s worth pointing out that there are a lot of aro and/or ace people actually did relate to Stereotypical Barbie at least insofar as to how her journey towards self actualization didn’t really involve romance or sex in any way. Of course, that is likely mostly due to how starved for representation these groups, especially aromantics, are.
this movie was a very strange experience for me as a trans guy, because I went in thinking it would make me feel sad for the loss of community that transitioning gave me, similarly to what I felt watching other media that discusses the experience of womanhood today, but I did not feel any of that. Actually, I think it made me realize how much of an "other" I've always felt. I could recognize the themes and the issues discussed in the movie, but I didn't feel connected to many of its more emotional scenes. It gave me a very similar feeling to dysphoria I felt before transitioning, that disconnect between all these ideas and expectations of femininity that I've never felt comfortable with.
I really appreciate videos like this, because it is tackling things that I've generally never had the opportunity to even think about. Living with autism and adhd, my mind has always had to default to that the systems in place are what they are and I am the one who needs to fit into them to not be the odd one out. Now that I've been put outside of the systems alltogether (Burning out from trying to just function as a person without disabilities and now not being forced to work outside of my limits), I feel like I am finally given time to start studying the world for real. As a child I was always enamoured by Barbie, both through the magical princess dolls that I got to play with and learn concepts through roleplay, to the early direct to DVD "Classic era" barbie movies that I would watch on repeat because my brain just loved how beautiful and magical they were. "Barbie" means a lot to me and was a formative experience, mainly just because it spoke to me through visuals and sounds that just brings me joy. Looking at any of the Barbie movies critically and they just fall apart, they have nothing of importance to say and the main characters have no real depth etc., but what barbie brought me and still brings me when I look back to the older DVD movies especially is just that pure joy I feel when watching them. I want to create compelling stories that use the visuals and sounds that Barbie introduced to me, and I'm just happy for this help with deconstructing the world around me through essays like this. I feel like I know so little and so much at once, always just going from being very aware of everything around me and sometimes just being an entity of emotions that can see nothing outside the confines of my body and mind. I wish to become more and be allowed to live outside of the artificial systems of the world, and for everyone to have that opportunity, and it pains me to see how far away we are from that.
You brought up my entire problem with this movie. Whenever I talk about it with my black afab friends they immediately agree, but when I mention it to my white friends or black friends who are amab they push back. WoC see it because we’re being told “you should relate to this” and we don’t because our life experiences show us that we aren’t wanted in these roles. So often I’ve been told it’s not important because the movie isn’t about that and they don’t realize you can’t talk about women as a group apart from race
i thought the lines spoken by the trans barbie were intentional. the movie is mostly about cis gender hierarchy but they tangentially mention a few other issues. i thought the issue of transgender was intentionally alluded to as "this is something we, the writers and director, know exists as an issue but we can't speak about it in depth".
okay, firstly, i appreciate this video so much. being a woman of colour, the barbie movie did not have this incredible impact that it clearly did with the cis white women. i found myself rolling my eyes at several moments in the cinema because the whole thing has this air of White Feminism, especially (as you pointed out) that margot robbie barbie is meant to be this All Woman representation. i genuinely expected to see more critique on its white feminism after watching, and though i'm sure there is more out there in the sea of blind praise, this is the first i've seen. this video was filled with much of what i felt and thought about the film and a lot of issues i hadn't even realised, like the end scene with the gynecologist. i remember feeling... not great about that line; i saw the joke it was going for but it felt off, but i hadn't considered the vagina = womanhood stance it had. i thank you for opening my eyes to this. again, being a WoC, the issues of whiteness in the white feminism were much more apparent to me than the - of course just as important - cisnormativity. admittedly, i didn't go into the film with high expectations as i never felt barbie as a whole was "for me". i played with bratz dolls, they had different races, different colours, and they were all on equal levels within their "universe" and marketing. no matter how many side-character PoC barbies may exist, THE barbie, the main character, is a white, blonde, blue-eyed woman. this white woman is the center. in the film and every other aspect of the barbie franchise. and to see the praise (with no comment on how white feminist it is) has honestly been a little disheartening. not to say i want the film to get hate, but i guess recognition for its flaws, that it isn't this perfect example of feminism and womanhood. anyway, i'm going to cut this long and rambling comment here to say i appreciate this video and all that you say in it and thank you for making it.
I'm so impressed by how complete the critique of Barbie feels, it puts through so much of what I thought about and way more that I didn't. Excellent as always, Jessie.
I was hyped for barbie as it was the first blockbuster in ages that i could see without being a literal flashy nightmare. I had friends raving, saying it made them cry and I just didn't have that response to it. I actually found myself comparing it to something like the good place especially with the ending. And couldn't help but think good place did this better.
This was one heck of a essay, that still has me reeling in thoughts and reflection. So much why I love it when you put these out in the world. They aren't just editorials about a topic, but ones that engage within it, and apply them to other forms in our lives. Thank you Jessie.
Great discussions in this. I personally feel so starved for films that are just bright and fun and that doesn't primarily direct itself to children, and it was great to connect with people over it. But as a non-binary person, the only representation I saw was some reflection of relationships with family. Neither Weird Barbie nor Alan resonated with me. Ultimately Barbie was a fun party, one that I enjoyed, but not because I was a welcomed guest but because my friends were there.
I think I’m mostly disappointed because this movie could’ve just been a fun romp but instead they went with this pseudo feminist revolution plot that just didn’t work at all. A Mattel project just inherently can’t pull off a Barbie revolution because they’d have to rebel against Mattel!! Why do this?? I just wanted to have fun at this movie!!
This is exactly my revelations as well. It seemed like they wanted Barbie to be two different things and it ended up colliding.
the feminist plot also took time away from the existentialism, serving a character arc for ken more than barbie herself, it felt like.
I enjoyed the movie, and I like that it did get a lot of people talking about women’s experiences (although like some, I wish the film had done more to address intersectionality).
One thing that grated on me during the marketing was how Margot Robbie talked about Barbie being asexual. Like, she doesn’t have reproductive parts, so it doesn’t make sense she would experience attraction to someone else. It’s like, are you saying acearo people don’t have genitalia, Margot? And if Barbie’s going to the gynecologist, does that mean she isn’t ace anymore?
As an ace, I headcanon that she stays asexual in the real world as well. A conventionally attractive ace character is something I need!
Oh my goodness Jessie! How on earth do you keep producing so much incredible top quality content like this? Your output blows my mind! When do you sleep? Thank you so much for the depth and breadth of brilliant analysis in this excellent essay, and for making it so enjoyable to watch 🙏🏽💖
And Aranock too!
The two of you are making such awesome work, deconstructing, clarifying, educating, uplifting... True dream team!
Same sentiments!❤
wake up babe, 2 hours of Jessie Gender talking about Barbie just dropped
As a trans man (newly on hormones and juuuuust starting to pass and grappling with all the stuff with THAT) is was SO BIZARRE to be in a cinema absolutely crammed with women, watching a film so clear and overt in its dedication to the ✨female experience✨and I just… couldn’t relate to any of it. Accept maybe the montage where Ken realised just how super duper awesome it was to be a man, but even then I didn’t take it seriously and it’s not at all how I personally perceive ‘manhood’. It was super isolating and like, I get it, the film is not for me, but it was so odd to see people crying and I just felt really awkward and wrong for not relating so deeply as everyone else. Even before I realised I was trans, nothing said in the movie was to my experience as a ‘girl’. So yeah. I can see the wonders it’s done for other people, but as an ‘ex-girl’ that couldn’t even relate to the ‘girlhood’ stuff pre-transition, it just left me feeling cold. That’s why my fav character was definitely Allan!! He didn’t fit in with the Kens and he worked with the Barbies, but the fact that his *empathy* (or at the very least, how he didn’t like living in Kendom) means he was excluded from the Kens is such a good way to convey the transman experience (to me, at least), where you’re not fully in either ‘team’, either because you don’t pass or even when you do, you can’t relate to the CIS experience and you’ve experienced enough misogyny yourself to not yet feel fully comfortable around men.
TFW the credits roll and you can palpably feel the dread rising from the knowledge that you're going to have to bury your critiques or have a lot of uncomfortable conversations that are going to look and feel a lot like mansplaining... Thanks for laying it out in long-form video. So far, my go-to criticism when asked is to charitably give Gerwig the benefit of the doubt and say "She did the most she could do with a toy commercial."
Gosh, this was great and I wish it had been out last summer when the movie was exploding everywhere. (This is not a critique of Jessie's timeline -- I'm thrilled to get to watch it now!) It would've been a really valuable tool for helping me frame my thoughts in a way I could express to my more mainstream feminist friends and acquaintances. I went into the movie expecting and hoping to be delighted, and spent the whole runtime experiencing a creeping sense of wrongness that only increased as it went on. As a queer and disabled woman, who also works in the hard sciences, doesn't have kids, and has more close friends with complicated pronouns than without, it feels like I've spent my entire life eyeing the extremely gendered binary of this movie and saying "yeah, no thanks."
The arguments I heard were frequently, "well, it's a kid's movie -- it's feminism 101, what did you expect?" And I think this video essay really does a good job of explaining why that's such a sour answer for me. I don't think this is how feminism 101 should be taught to kids! I don't think the lessons of feminism should have to start by centering white cis straight non-disabled womanhood, with the concept of intersectionality solely the purview of the graduate-level course. If this is Feminism 101, then it's the introductory course to a curriculum of feminism that is fundamentally not what I want our kids (of any gender) to be learning.
Anyway. Thanks for making this, even this much later -- I really appreciated it.
I find myself debating with people that sex and racial oppression are still a thing, depressingly way too often. So I think Barbie’s ending succeeds in sending a message that oppression is alive and well in our current real world.
But also, I think Barbie can only ever uphold the system because capitalism goes hand in hand with oppression. So, unless they can be critical of Matel, the message can never be more than superficial.
At 1 hour and 50 minute mark, this point in the conversation was also discussed with a friend of mine and we both acknowledged Del Toro’s Pinocchio has a similar point to make as does to gerwig’s Barbie, but was able to deviate from a status quo binary. One aspect is Pinocchio’s ip being part of the public domain.
Of course this film would not challenge the status quo fundamentally. One had just to look at who financed it and who profited of it.
Sick of it
As a long time Jessie Gender fan, it’s been fun watching her transformation from Lib to Anarchist over the last few years.
Same
i loved this vid. when i saw barbie, i honestly thought a lot of things you say were overlooked were done that way on purpose because this was a commentary on how shallow we are. the movie makes no attempt to show a happy ending, as i saw it. and the final joke about the vagina was terrifying as a woman of reproductive age and capacity in america in this legal moment. i think its lack of depth is basically the point because this is satire. kinda like the girl ghostbusters was brilliant but maintained a depth ceiling to make its point. this movie appeared to have depth so it could make its point that we exploit even that.
re: the matrix, i think the point wasnt to have the depth of the matrix. it was to mock that her choice is actually a truly deep psychological change like it is in the matrix. i see way more sarcasm than you do.
I wanted to point out a parallel between when Barbie compliments the woman at the bus stop and a line from the first Wonder Woman movie when she's so excited to see a baby; neither Barbie or Diana had been able to see those "extremes" of life, and it still fills them with joy they have to acknowledge it out loud. It was really heartwarming, and I really appreciated both of those instances.
On the other hand, I was definitely of two minds going into the movie. It felt like nostalgia bait at times, and a lot of the "capitalism bad and goofy" fell flat because it felt so disingenuous coming from a movie produced by Mattel...a company that thrives on capitalism. It's nice to know that others have these complicated thoughts about the movie other than the binary of good/bad
I felt underwhelmed by Barbie, but I will say I did find Barbie's rejection of amatonormativity to be really cathartic. I will preface this by saying I'm not Ace/Aro, but growing up there was a distinct discomfort with the constant framing of any contact with someone of the opposite gender as romantic. Before you can even talk, strangers will make comments about your future/possible partners. The pressure to find someone is constant. Seeing a character be able to self actualize and find completion with themselves rather than with another person felt so validating. She didn't change her mind and realize an actual relationship with Ken is what she needed, and her lack of desire for a relationship isn't treated as a sign of immaturity: it's just a part of who she is.
Honestly, this is something I hope people take these critiques to heart. Live long and prosper.
Barbie was a gender essentialist movie ,2010s feminist pov,popcorn worthy mass movie
No indication of gender abolition in this movie
I mean the entire movie is about objects. Barbie is an object first.
We need more stories like Nimona that say fuck the system and let’s break shit.