For some women in China, “Barbie” is more than just a movie — it’s also a litmus test for their partner’s views on feminism and patriarchy.
The movie has prompted intense social media discussion online, media outlets Sixth Tone and the China Project reported this week, prompting women to discuss their own dating experiences.
One user on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu — a photo-sharing site similar to Instagram that’s mostly used by Gen Z women — even shared a guide on Monday for how women can test their boyfriends based on their reaction to the film.
According to the guide, if a man shows hatred for “Barbie” and slams female directors after they leave the theatre, then this man is “stingy” and a “toxic chauvinist,” according to Insider’s translation of the post. Conversely, if a man understands even half of the movie’s themes, “then he is likely a normal guy with normal values and stable emotions,” the user wrote.
I find your criticism of the parts of the movie you don’t like to be super weak and unspecific. The crux of the entire movie is the juxtaposition between what’s it’s like in Barbie ruled barbie world vs ken ruled barbie world. It’s literally the lens though which the movie criticizes patriarchy.
Ken bringing patriarchy back to barbie world I don’t think was a twist, it was the clear narrative arc from the moment ken fell in love with patriarchy.
Matell being villains is a clear misreading of the plot from your point of view. Matell is the butt of the joke the entirety of the film. They don’t drive the plot, and were never in control of anything that happens. Why would you expect them to become the villains? That’s your own internal biases leaking (and maybe putting too much of Mugatu onto will Farrell)
Lastly, in much the same way that the opening of barbie is an homage to 2001 a space Odyssey, (that scene they are parodying specifically in the original movie is about the death of old paradigms and the beginning of new ones), the beach battle is an homage to patriarchally driven war media, specifically D-Day scenes such as from saving private Ryan. It’s the death of patriarchy subverted through a traditionally patriarchal approach.
It’s been 2 weeks and the latter half of the movie wasn’t good enough to remember every detail tbh, I just remember which parts I enjoyed and which made me sleepy. I watched Oppenheimer right after and have a much better recollection of that. I’m also neither a movie critic, nor even a native English speaker, so I don’t really know all the jargon I should be using instead of saying things like “boring”.
Cool, I didn’t criticize that at all though, I said it got boring when they started SOLVING the issue.
Did we watch the same movie? The Mattel board was incompetent for sure (of course they would be, they’re men who only got their powerful jobs because of the patriarchy), but they were antagonists in the first half of the movie, would’ve caught her if she hadn’t been helped by America Ferrera’s character, and it was foreshadowed that they would at least… DO something in the second half of the movie. They literally started marching to barbie world to grab her as she could move between worlds and they obviously had a problem with it. Then they get there and it was resolved with essentially no conflict, they just had a change of heart. I could’ve seen them cutting a deal of some sort with the Kens to stop Barbie or something like that. You know, men conspiring to keep women down (which of course is exactly what the Kens were doing, I’m just surprised that the Mattel board didn’t try to do it in barbie world).
I guess twist isn’t the right term. I didn’t put much more than 5 minutes of thought into writing the original comment, and as mentioned, I’m neither a movie critic, nor a native speaker. You still get what I meant though.
Sure, and I don’t disagree with the idea of it, it’s just that by the time we get to it, we’re used to everything the movie throws at us and it feels too weak to save the end of the movie, which other than this scene is just slow, emotional and boring compared to the setup. Going by the first half of the movie, I just wasn’t expecting that much sap and speechmaking towards the end. Traditionally movies start slow and then speed up, but Barbie started fast and then kinda slowed down and that just doesn’t sit well with me.