Alice Cambell

I'm a feminist and I didn't like this movie. I feel like it greatly misunderstands its own message and portrays it in such a way that it literally undermines itself. Women can do anything; women are smart and are just as smart and capable as men. Patriarchy is a terrible social system where one gender is held at a higher value than another. To prove this, the Barbie movie makes all the Kens dumb and reverses the society to make it a matriarchy. The assumption is that patriarchy is bad, not because of inequality, but because of it favoring men instead of women. By making all the Kens be dumb also makes it feel like the writers didn't know how to write a smart or capable woman. "To prove that Barbie is smart, Ken must be dumber than Barbie; to prove women are smart, men must be dumber than women." This simplifies and misunderstands the message of feminism to such an extreme degree that it's harmful to the movement. The only reason I'm giving the film 2 stars instead of 1 is because the one star reviews are absolutely flooded with people getting offended over the movie feeling "anti-men". Instead of getting the message and sparking commentary about the mistreatment of women in society and the inequalities we face, people are writing the movie off along with the actual feminist issues the film tries to touch on. They also mention Barbie's negative influence on body image and never resolve it. In fact, the girl who points it out is written as a just a mean middle schooler, which negates any point she tries to make about Barbie's long history of encouraging toxic body image. The bit about cellulite also didn't sit well with me; it's played as a joke but the entire plot literally only happens because Barbie doesn't want to have cellulite. This is not resolved at all and left a really bad taste in my mouth. The Barbie movie also explains women's issues straight to the audience in such a blunt and unsubtle way that it feels like the writers thought their audience was stupid. It's more impactful to show these kinds of things rather than blatantly tell them to your audience; the fact that they opted to do so makes it feel like the film is talking down to them. It also really feels hollow because they made points about how it's just terrible how more women aren't in charge while Mattel is a fully male-led company with the majority of their female workers working in sweatshops in China and living in inhumane conditions. The movie pretends to be empowering, with it's feminist speech and plus-size background characters but, in reality, the Barbie movie isn't feminist at all. At its core, the Barbie movie was just an ad wrapped in a girl power bow.