HE: “I haven’t seen Barbie, of course, but I can sense where it’s coming from and what it is. It’s very much a feminist film, obviously. That said I should just keep my mouth shut until the moment of truth. All I know for sure is that the Barbie toy line is first and foremost a metaphor about a kind of idealized (or suppressed) way of living and thinking for pretty little girly girls of a bygone era.”
Friendo: “I’m sure it will be clever and funny in a lot of ways, but whatever the message may be the film’s whole reason for being is to sell toys that have been rebranded as identity-focused. Woke capitalism is when large corporations like Nestle or Taco Bell or whatever use wokeness as a virtue signal — a way to make GenZ see them as ‘good’ and socially responsible without actually doing anything.”
“Barbie is almost certainly not an important movie, so talking about it as important is absurd. When they say ‘representation matters’ it only matters if it is part of the story. Gerwig sounds to me like someone selling jewelry on the Shopping Network…trying to make it mean more than it does to justify her involvement in it. Ultimately this movie exists to sell toys.
HE: “Check.”
Friendo: “They argue or negotiate about whether it is a ‘feminist film’ or not. [Starting at the 11:45 mark.] Gerwig is fairly emphatic about that, but it seems like there’s a fear there of alienating audiences. It’s also interesting when she says Ken has no status in the new world — I wonder what she means by that. Surely she doesn’t mean white men have no status.”
HE: “It’s all tied into visions of an increasingly matriarchal culture, which we’re all moving toward or swimming in as we speak. White men today obviously have diminished status in progressive circles.”
Friendo: “The first half [of the discussion] is just puff and bullshit but when they try to talk about the social justice aspect it’s fascinating. They also go through the conversation about the 13 year-old and no one mentions the social contagion that they’re all fleeing their gender.”