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The Barbie movie and its sci-fi heart beating (almost) in sync with mine [1]
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Date: 2023-08-05
A recent annoying opinion piece by David Cox 1 in the (usually-reliable) Guardian shows yet another commentator who doesn’t get it. He writes:
“...Ken is there to demonstrate that masculinity is foolish, yucky and reprehensible.”
Nope. The movie does obviously take jabs at some masculine stereotypes (after all, the Barbie character herself is “Stereotypical Barbie” so stereotypes are quite a theme here), but Greta Gerwig certainly wouldn’t have gone with the casting pick of Ryan Gosling if she meant to say that masculinity is yucky. Hah. I’m going to take a moment for myself to remember some of his scenes… Maybe a few moments… You still with me? OK, moving on! As for “foolish” and “reprehensible” – well, only if you have a very narrow view of what masculinity is. If someone feels that a doll shown driving a stupid monster truck means that the director is saying that masculinity itself is bad… well, whatever.
There are also people (including at least one commenter here on Daily Kos) who are decrying the supposed misandry in the movie. Such writers perhaps haven’t read enough science fiction?
The Barbie movie is, dare I say it, sci-fi at heart, following a common sci-fi theme: how an invention2 brings up ethical questions and helps us examine our own social structures. Also common is gender role reversal/mixing among two or multiple (or fluid) genders, illustrating that the boxes society puts us in (so to speak) range from being questionable to absurd to harmful. Joyfully3, this movie puts much emphasis on the absurd.
I do think that it could have made its points clearer by showing more examples of dolls/people that buck4 gender stereotypes, but at least they aren’t completely absent. Who in the movie would you want to hang out with the most, or vote for to represent you? Weird Barbie, the teenager Sasha, and parent Gloria of course. Granted, it would also have been a happier ending if they had added Gloria and Barbie to the Mattel executive team5 before galloping off6 into the sunset.
Will I start wearing pink now? Not likely. But I dug out my old Indigo Girls cassette tape, and plan to watch the Barbie movie again. This time I won’t need to follow the dialog or plot as much, so I can better soak in the delightfully over-the-top visuals, dancing, and fighting. And the sparkles.
1I feel a bit bad potentially sending people to that piece, but at least it’s not sending people to Fox “News” or Xwitter.
2Yes, just a doll that becomes real, not a robot or something, so there’s definitely an added dose of fantasy going on as well.
3The Black Panther movie was a great example of depicting and eliciting joy; I’m guessing it influenced Greta Gerwig’s approach to the Barbie movie.
4, 6Can’t help but include some horse-related references.
5Which in real life isn’t quite as lopsided as in the movie because, again, the movie is intentionally depicting extremes.
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