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Conservative Barbie Culture War Fails Miserably; Film Soars to Box Office Records [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-26
While Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is smashing box office records – over $188 million domestically and more than $380 million worldwide in its first five days -- conservatives continue slamming the movie with a culture war vitriol not seen since … well yesterday, last week, last month? To paraphrase former President Barack Obama: “We are not red states or blue states we are the United Barbie States of America,” as evidenced by a Fox News graphic showing people in red states flocking to see the film.
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro called the film a “flaming garbage heap of a film.” Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter) entered a Barbie chat and wrote: “If you take a shot every time Barbie says the word ‘Patriarchy,’ you will pass out before the movie ends.”
Shapiro and Musk are not alone in claiming Barbie is woke virus running amok!
According to The Hollywood Reporter’s James Hibberd (
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/elon-musk-barbie-conservative-controversy-1235544447/), “Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro went viral over the weekend after breathlessly ripping the film for 43 minutes on YouTube in a clip that’s been viewed 1.6 million times. ‘The basic sort of premise of the film, politically speaking, is that men and women are on two sides and they hate each other. And literally, the only way you can have a happy world is if the women ignore the men and the men ignore the women,’ he fumed. He predicted, ‘[Barbieis] absolutely going to fall off a cliff [at the box office] … repeat business is going to be nonexistent.’” In his bid to be more relevant than Barbie, Shapiro reportedly “also set fire to Barbie dolls on a BBQ in protest.”
Ted Cruz checked in with a hot take, accusing the movie of “’kiss[ing] up to the Chinese communist party because they want to make money selling the movie in China’ for its inclusion of the ‘nine-dash line’ on a map that favors China’s territorial claims of the South China Sea (yet he admits he didn’t see the film),” The Hollywood Reporter noted.
Podcaster Matt Walsh, who made the anti-trans documentary What Is a Woman?, dubbed Barbie “The most aggressively anti-man, feminist propaganda fest ever put to film.”
Florida Republican Matt Gaetz’s wife Ginger called for a boycott, angry over what she termed Ken’s “disappointedly low T” and “beta energy.” Right-wing media figure Jack Posobiec tweeted a clip of Gosling's song for the film, "I'm Just Ken," calling it "possibly the most anti-male film ever made."
“‘Barbie’ film ‘forgets core audience’ in favor of trans agenda and gender themes, Christian movie site warns,” was the headline of one Fox News story. The story talked about how Movieguide, a Christian movie review site, had issued a pre-release message: "Warning: Don't take your daughter to Barbie." According to Fox News’ Kristine Parks, The Movieguide “review criticized the film about the iconic doll of abandoning its core audience of families and little girls to instead focus on LGBTQ stories” (
https://www.foxnews.com/media/barbie-film-forgets-core-audience-favor-trans-agenda-gender-themes-christian-movie-site-warns).
The Movieguide staff review-penned piece began: "The new BARBIE movie forgets its core audience of families and children while catering to nostalgic adults and pushing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories. Furthermore, the movie was poorly made with multiple premises, losing even the most die-hard fans."
"They had a built-in market and audience for this franchise that they completely ignored, " the story continued. "Millions of families would have turned out to the theaters and purchased tickets, but instead, Mattel chose to cater to a small percentage of the population who has proven over and over to abandon the box office."
Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy — with a chyron that read “Barbie gets woke makeover” — complained that “the left has given Barbie a complete feminist makeover,” dubbing the film as “just another indoctrination vehicle.”
Hari Nef, a trans actress featured in the film told Out Magazine (
https://www.out.com/out-exclusives/barbie-hari-nef) that ““It’s literally the most preposterous, once-in-a-lifetime, exciting, orgasmic opportunity to go all in on this one little thing that I love so much, which is clothes and looks and fashion and the fantasy,” she says. “I told them straight up, ‘I want the highest heel every time. I want the waist tiniest every time. I want the biggest hair every time. I want to put big things in my hair.’”
In a piece for the Independent headlined “Fox News left confused by map that shows Republicans loving Barbie – despite conservative pundit backlash,” Kelly Rissman reports: “Despite an outspoken contingent of conservatives bashing the Barbie movie over a controversial map, Fox News put up a graphic showing where the flick is trending — revealing the movie is quite popular in red states” (
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fox-news-republicans-barbie-backlash-b2381103.html).
Conservatives were apparently intoxicated by a modicum of success with its boycott of Bud Light for having the nerve to feature trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney in an advertisement. However, despite all the rumbling and ranting, the Barbie movie boycott has clearly fallen flat as the film continues to break box office records.
"Certainly, there's a lot of passion," director Greta Gerwig told The New York Times. "My hope for the movie is that it's an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of the things that aren't necessarily serving us as either women or men." Gerwig added: "I hope that in all of that passion, if they see it or engage with it, it can give them some of the relief that it gave other people," Gerwig added.
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