But they ultimately render that debate history.Įnter Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) and Allan (Michael Cera), outcasts and rejects of Barbie Land, who want “nobody in the shadows”. Writer-director Greta Gerwig and her collaborator (and husband) Noah Baumbach feed the dichotomy of being “for” or “against” Barbie. Irony at every turn: Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie at the European premiere of Barbie in London.
Better to mix pink and blue to make purple instead of them competing. But as the inhabitants of Barbie Land discover in the film, matriarchy can be just as damaging as patriarchy. Emasculated men, she wrote, were left behind in the wake of women’s progress. In the early 1990s, she saw feminism as being defined in a sign hoisted by a little girl at the 1970 Women’s Strike for Equality march: I AM NOT A BARBIE DOLL.īy the end of that decade she described the betrayal of the American man, and a crisis of masculinity. There are echoes here of the American feminist Susan Faludi’s writings. Kens are the objectified, excluded second sex. As Barbie has flourished, Ken has been left behind. Ken, not Barbie, is the victim of sexism. This is where the movie is at its most profound. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is a 'feminist bimbo' classic – and no, that's not an oxymoron (He calms down later, accepting that Barbie does not want to be his girlfriend.)Īn appendage no more, it is Ken, not Barbie, who whines about blonde fragility and every night being a girls’ night, and who now sings of seeking to push women around and take them for granted. He rejects being “just Ken” and instead acts, dances, prowls and flexes to steal the show. Gosling proceeds to own the screen and make this the Ken Movie. With Ken largely invisible in the film’s merchandising and girls-night-out launches, we’ve been set up for the surprising plot twist. The movie turns dark, with tag-along Ken discovering patriarchy in the Real World and taking it back to Barbie Land.
0 kommentar(er)
