Aug 14, 2023·edited Aug 14, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
If nothing else, the Barbie movie has achieved a perfect cinematic cultural Rorschach (IMO, completely by accident when it couldn't decide what its own message was supposed to be). It's really impressive what people of different backgrounds and mindsets read into this thing. I think this has some real clinical use in the future.
Can't remember the last time anyone recommended a new movie to me at all. Let alone something Barbie adjacent. The discourse around the movie has been surreal to watch. No idea if that is what they were going for, but they managed to actually touch on a major problem in society.
Based on your review it sounds like Barbie Land is basically Bee Society in the sense that the females are the "workers" and the drones job is to hang out (on the beach as it were) and fertilize the queen (Barbie).
They then venture outside the hive, and so on...
Maybe it's a stretch, but allegedly Karl Marx got the idea for Communism by watching bees do their thing. Hollywood is a well-known hive of Marxism. Maybe they're starting to come to Jesus (as it were)?
Or maybe they just talk about Socialism, but fully understand Capitalism...
"America Ferrera’s dumb, endless monologue about all the ways it sucks to be a girl is literally just a list of human universals and I rolled my eyes so hard I think I sprained something..."
As described, it seems the movie might, at best, have an "unorthodox" sort of perspective like one might find in The Atlantic, which disagrees with the main thrust of progressive thought without violating its norms - and not subversive or red-pilled or right-winged. In particular, it is not true that only the MRAs/ the right are concerned with male isolation and struggles. The left is, too, but they also assert that men are also victims of the patriarchy, and need more empathy, chances to be vulnerable, etc. rather than having to be stoic and aggressive and competitive all the time. (Obviously this is an over-simplistic summary.) I'm not discounting the view at all; but that narrative, while more compassionate, still positions itself against certain tenets of what we think of as traditional masculinity and "the patriarchy".
As a Gringo married to a Latina, if Sasha was his kid, he would already speak Spanish better than that. I mean she is a teenager...plenty of time to get the basics. And my wife's comment was that it reminded her of Narnia, all the going back and forth between portals.... Yeah, other than that, you appear to gotten more out of it than us. We only watched it last night to compare to your Handwaving Freakoutery notes.
If nothing else, the Barbie movie has achieved a perfect cinematic cultural Rorschach (IMO, completely by accident when it couldn't decide what its own message was supposed to be). It's really impressive what people of different backgrounds and mindsets read into this thing. I think this has some real clinical use in the future.
Thank you. The movie’s box office success makes way more sense now.
What isn’t a Rorschach test in this hyper-polarized society?
Can't remember the last time anyone recommended a new movie to me at all. Let alone something Barbie adjacent. The discourse around the movie has been surreal to watch. No idea if that is what they were going for, but they managed to actually touch on a major problem in society.
Based on your review it sounds like Barbie Land is basically Bee Society in the sense that the females are the "workers" and the drones job is to hang out (on the beach as it were) and fertilize the queen (Barbie).
They then venture outside the hive, and so on...
Maybe it's a stretch, but allegedly Karl Marx got the idea for Communism by watching bees do their thing. Hollywood is a well-known hive of Marxism. Maybe they're starting to come to Jesus (as it were)?
Or maybe they just talk about Socialism, but fully understand Capitalism...
i should have started with dorian’s take.
"America Ferrera’s dumb, endless monologue about all the ways it sucks to be a girl is literally just a list of human universals and I rolled my eyes so hard I think I sprained something..."
So a feminist, then. Got it.
I think my conclusion is that my first instinct was correct, and this is not a movie worth spending a 20 on.
*shrug*
I appreciate your perspective on it, and yet I am not one whit more likely to watch it.
As described, it seems the movie might, at best, have an "unorthodox" sort of perspective like one might find in The Atlantic, which disagrees with the main thrust of progressive thought without violating its norms - and not subversive or red-pilled or right-winged. In particular, it is not true that only the MRAs/ the right are concerned with male isolation and struggles. The left is, too, but they also assert that men are also victims of the patriarchy, and need more empathy, chances to be vulnerable, etc. rather than having to be stoic and aggressive and competitive all the time. (Obviously this is an over-simplistic summary.) I'm not discounting the view at all; but that narrative, while more compassionate, still positions itself against certain tenets of what we think of as traditional masculinity and "the patriarchy".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lPHvnz_V2s
As a Gringo married to a Latina, if Sasha was his kid, he would already speak Spanish better than that. I mean she is a teenager...plenty of time to get the basics. And my wife's comment was that it reminded her of Narnia, all the going back and forth between portals.... Yeah, other than that, you appear to gotten more out of it than us. We only watched it last night to compare to your Handwaving Freakoutery notes.