Today was the first day that both our kids are in day-care all day. Effectively the end of our parental leave. Me and my SO decided to treat ourselves to a movie and saw Barbie. We figured if the conservative sphere was getting pissy about it, it must be good.
Anyone else see it?
I wasnāt expecting much. I have to say, I donāt think I could have ever expected this movie to be what it was. Itās campy, funny, colorful, and steps on your throat with itās message and hardly letās it off. I say that as positivity as someone can.
Itās amusing to me that some people think the movie is anti-man. It did make me feel mournful for my daughters inevitable loss of innocence. A corporate, big budget toy advertisement of all things. I think thatās the most surprising part. In some ways Barbie is the most unlikely and perfect vehicle for what the movie has to say.
I donāt know. Itās conflicting because, at the end of the day itās a huge corporate puff peace, but alsoā¦ What else could deliver itās message to so many people?
Iāve seen it twice, I thought it was really fucking funny, me and my friends were cracking up basically the whole show. I do think they shouldāve been harder on capitalism, of course, I thought it leaned way too hard into girlboss territory.
Still waiting for a quality torrent. Not paying shit to Hollywood.
https://myflixerz.to/watch-movie/barbie-693.9766228 Its ok I guess, quality is in the eye of the beholder I suppose but here it is. Edit:make sure to X out the popups
Havenāt seen it, donāt plan to, donāt care to tbh.
But having talked to some people about it, this is my takeaway: āMessagingā is simply a new tool of marketing, especially āsubversiveā messaging. Youāre not buying a car - youāre committing a revolutionary act of activism against climate change and fossil capitalism. Youāre not buying an ethically farmed, grass-fed, local steak, youāre fighting animal cruelty and big farming lobbies with your consumption. Youāre not simply dressing up skandidly in pink to watch a multi-hundred million dollar Hollywood production of Barbie produced and approved of by its parent company, giving new legitimacy to that old rubber toy franchise and boosting sales numbers. Youāre totally subverting gender roles and criticizing capitalism by doing so.
Imo youāre not. Youāre just buying a new car, munching another steak and going to the movies again promoting one of the most famous IPs of all time. Itās the same thing weāve done our entire lives. Changing the messaging around the act without changing the act, doesnāt change the act. Youāre just doing the thing.
There canāt be anything really subversive coming out of the hegemonic culture industry. By the very nature of its production, via the commodification it undergoes, it has already become toothless and assimilated. Neoliberal anti-capitalism is just the newest sales-pitch. Itās along the lines of ādiverseā CIA targeting officer recruitment ads. Just like capitalism canāt produce true anti-war movies, it canāt produce anti-capitalist or real anti-gender-role movies. It would be self-defeating if it did.
That being said, if you enjoy it more power to you. Nobody needs a grand narrative of subversion and messaging to go see and enjoy a movie at the theater. If you get something deeper out of it, even better.
I could not have said it better myself. We need to be much more critical especially of media that purports to have some kind of āradicalā or āsubversiveā message because i guarantee you, if itās made it to the mainstream it most certainly does not. Products made by big corporations may carry superficially anti-corporate messages but in reality they just serve to reinforce consumerism by getting people to believe that by consuming they are doing something radical.
OP literally asked āWho saw itā and you respond āHavenāt seen it, donāt plan to, donāt care tbhā and then give an opinionā¦
Unreal.
Because OP literally only asked whoās seen it all the answers here are plain yes/no ay?
This āyou have to experience something to comment on itā is liberal individualism anyway. I donāt have to be a farmer to comment on the impact of climate change on farming or climate change more broadly.
Youād have a point if I had commented on the movieās writing, aesthetic, picture, acting performances, score, etc. But I didnāt. I made a general point about the nature of cultural products under capitalism and the laws that govern this movie as much as any other.
If you havenāt seen it and donāt care about it, then how are you able to discuss anything within the movie and give your opinion on its content?
Imagine a film critic giving his opinion and in the end saying āI actually didnāt watch the movieā.
You are just formulating an opinion based off of what youāve heard other people say, and it comes across as pretty foolhardy and arrogant.
The farmer example is also not applicable at all, because thatās still something you can research and find data on independently. You canāt independently gather data or an opinion on a movie. Unless you read the plot summary I guess, but that competently destroys the point of it being a movie.
No investigation, no right to speak.
And no, reading the plot summary or watching a YouTube analysis isnāt investigation.
You can make this same statement, which I donāt disagree with, about every film. Itās technically correct, which is the more boring kind of correct. Since most Normans are not at that point on the ideological world view scale, the movie exists in a whole different context for them. I think giving the Norman cultural context, this movie is subversive by that standard. It exists in a state of equilibrium between corporate revisionism and subversive cultural critique. Any tip of the scale in one direction or the other leads to either a vapid mass market blockbuster or a wildly unwatchable but biting satire that no one bothers to see.
We could discuss those ideas, but I think you would need to see the film in order to critique it for itās content. Otherwise, we can return to the time honored traditions and write long winded shibboleths back and forth to each other, like two squawking crows at dawn, broadcasting our belief systems to the greater murder, without really saying anything of substance.
Yeah I saw it.
Itās good. And worth watching. But there are so many people on social media saying this is going to be revolutionary for the feminist cause.
Youāre right about the corporate puff piece part. And the rehabilitation of Ruth Handlerās image like she was anything other than a cynical capitalist whose creation played a huge part in calcifying the concept of gender roles in generations of children that came after her.
Mattel signed off on the movie. It exists with their permission and approval. They are not going to start or enable a cultural revolution against their own interests, and if they reinvent themselves so that it is in their own interests, theyāll be doing it for profit, not for the liberation of women.
But fuck if anyone will listen to the skepticās take. This thread is the first discussion Iāve come across where saying negative things about the movie (not even saying itās bad, just criticizing) doesnāt result in a dogpiling of misogyny accusations.
The face of feminism in 2023 is a fictional character and itās copyright belongs to Mattel.
Iām going to see it this Friday at a local, independent cinema. I donāt know how revolutionary it will be, but I have heard several men saying they had a reality check because of the movie. So itās doing something positive, I guess?
I did the same. I saw it at a local independent cinema. The audio quality could be better, but they have big comfy leather recliners so the tradeoff is worth it for this type of movie imo.
In order to be a success, this movie just had to be funny. It succeeds. They do try and shove a message in your face at the end. I found this to be awkward and it didnāt really fit in with the theme of the rest of the movie, but it wasnāt so egregious that it ruined it.
