Barbenheimer

[ecarden]

Barbie and Oppenheimer--saw them Thursday and Friday. Non spoiler thoughts:

Barbie: Fun, brilliantly shot...and I sort of feel like it's actually a Ken movie? Barbie's a major character, but I dunno, I felt his arc was actually a lot more powerful, if only because it's less common than hers and more directly tied to Barbieland which I actually felt was the more interesting of the two settings?

Oppenheimer: Not fun, but good and powerfully shot...there was one really brilliant use of nudity, and a bunch of shots which made me feel like the writer was trying to get Florence Pugh naked as often as possible (which, I mean, straight guy, I get, but it felt a bit off to me). It definitely doesn't smooth off all Oppenheimer's rough edges, but I think it does somewhat overdo the 'tortured' nature of his later years. I think one line which encapsulated my somewhat annoyed response to his character was actually said directly to him 'You don't get to do the sin and then get our sympathy for the consequences of it.'

Also--incredibly long, but enough of a 'mood piece' that barring a few moments, getting up to go to the bathroom won't leave you confused or anything.

Conclusion: Well worth seeing, but a double feature would be basically your entire day and I'm too old to eat popcorn and sit in a theater all day. I need actual food, so I'm glad I did it over two days.

[Saph]

The Barbie movie sounds disturbingly fascinating in that it has this society where one-half of the population does everything important and has all the power, and the other half are literally accessories, and this is viewed as a good thing. In fact, it's so extreme that when one of the Kens gets a glimpse of the outside world, he immediately goes back and starts off a revolution, and it's the protagonist's job to go back and put the slaves back in their place.

I was just reading the plot summaries of all this with my mouth open, thinking that they couldn't be serious. But apparently they are. Judging by the reviews, most of the target audience thinks this is all great, too. It's actually made me revise my opinions of modern American society a bit.

[ecarden]

The Barbie movie sounds disturbingly fascinating in that it has this society where one-half of the population does everything important and has all the power, and the other half are literally accessories, and this is viewed as a good thing. In fact, it's so extreme that when one of the Kens gets a glimpse of the outside world, he immediately goes back and starts off a revolution, and it's the protagonist's job to go back and put the slaves back in their place.

I was just reading the plot summaries of all this with my mouth open, thinking that they couldn't be serious. But apparently they are. Judging by the reviews, most of the target audience thinks this is all great, too. It's actually made me revise my opinions of modern American society a bit.

That is...not what happens. It has the vague outline of what happens, but is, well, I'd say an incredibly bad faith interpretation of the film which literally ends with an explicit statement from the omniscient narrator that the Kens will be treated at least as well in their universe as women are in ours and an apology by Barbie for how she treated Ken. Now, no, it doesn't support their changing the constitution of Barbieland to institute permanent Ken rule, but that would be...you know, bad.

It is simply not the case that it is presented as 'Barbieland perfect, we just need to keep it the same and defend it from the Kens.'

[Vahnavoi]

@Saph: your comment made me happy I went to see this movie knowing nothing about it. Because you just cheated yourself by (essentially) reading the punchline without seeing the joke. And it wasn't even the whole punchline!

[Ramza00]

The Barbie movie sounds disturbingly fascinating in that it has this society where one-half of the population does everything important and has all the power, and the other half are literally accessories, and this is viewed as a good thing. In fact, it's so extreme that when one of the Kens gets a glimpse of the outside world, he immediately goes back and starts off a revolution, and it's the protagonist's job to go back and put the slaves back in their place.

I was just reading the plot summaries of all this with my mouth open, thinking that they couldn't be serious. But apparently they are. Judging by the reviews, most of the target audience thinks this is all great, too. It's actually made me revise my opinions of modern American society a bit.

So are you saying there is labor in the household where one is not exchanging with money or for time and services. there is an unequal exchange of things of val·ue, or feelings of val·idation?

Should we not e·val·uate such household arrangements, or perhaps re-e·val·uate them? Should we not make time and be a·vail·ible to ask ourselves, how is Ken and does the golden retriever boyfriend need his own form of love and acceptance?

Should he should never feel in·val·id today or on any other day such as a Summer Val·entine day?

[Vahnavoi]

I also went to see Oppenheimer. Great movie, got me discussing and reading the actual history behi d and after it. Not something that can be intelligently discussed on these forums, though.

[Trafalgar]

I also went to see Oppenheimer. Great movie, got me discussing and reading the actual history behi d and after it. Not something that can be intelligently discussed on these forums, though.

Do we intelligently discuss anything on these forums?

[warty goblin]

I watched Barbie last night with the GF, we both liked it quite a bit, I think me slightly more than her. I thought it was a very smart, very well told critique of gender roles and expectations that hit kinda like a truck but was so funny and creative and just joyful that it didn't feel heavy or depressing or unpleasant. I have nothing against heavy, depressing or unpleasant, but in this case I think how pleasurable the movie was to watch helps it make its points much more effectively than something dour where you get to the ending and the music swells and and now you know you're supposed to feel bad might have accomplished. Like yeah, there's parts of the movie that aren't feel good, but it clearly likes people and life and just wants them to be better, instead of a tour of failure. Given that progressive messages all too often stop at here's a list of problems you should feel bad about, I say more of this please.

I was particularly pleased that the Kens were treated with a fair amount of compassion. This was nice both because it was simply nice to see, and because it made clear that this wasn't gender A sucks, but that reducing people (er, dolls?) to ornaments without power or agency is bad, and equally the revolutionary impulse to flip the table is also bad. Personally, I found it pretty effective, simply because I grew up in a pretty small and very girl-power focused community, in a lot of settings I was the only male in my age group. So the messages I got were very much girls are great, incredible, beautiful, they can do anything and should do anything and we're (probably) not gonna say it but they're just better, and also boys exist and are there. I'm not saying this was deeply traumatic or anything, but that scene where every night was girl's night? Yeah, definitely felt that.

I also really liked that the movie didn't get hung up on nonsense 'worldbuilding' details, and just let its central metaphorical conceit be that. If you really care about how things work in 'this universe' this movie will drive you up a wall, because it doesn't care at all. Things happen, either to make a point, or a joke, or both, and the important part is the point or the joke and not what this implies about the continuity. After years and years of comic book movies slowly disappearing up their own continuity-obsessed butts, boy was it nice to have a piece of speculative fiction just whole-heartedly use its speculative elements as a storytelling tool instead of lore and stuff. It also made it feel like playing with stuff as a kid, where that just doesn't matter very much, things happen because they're fun and what you want to have happen, not because it fits in logically with the previous stuff. Simply wonderful.

I've seen three movies in theaters this year that I can think of, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, The Little Mermaid Uncanny Valley Fish Version, and this. GotG 3 was, you know, GotG 1 or 2, but more of that. Hard to blame a sequel for being that, but not exactly fresh. The Little Mermaid was definitely a movie that existed, but I can't say I can make a great case for why it had to tell that story, or even what the story was, given how muddled it ended up. This, despite being based on a sixty year old doll for five year olds, felt really fresh and creative and forward looking, and somehow also was the most consistently adult of the three. It's not even like it's for kids, or digestible by kids but with some nudges and winks for adults, this is pretty much all about adult issues and I can't imagine it making a lick of sense to anybody under the age of 11.

Loved it. Movie of the goddamn year for me so far. I'm glad to see it's absolutely crushing it at the box office, because it's so very good to see something different and creative and daring. My only complaint is that the remix of Barbie Girl at the end is bad and awful. Given how close the movie's criticisms lie to the song, I can't help but think there wasn't a more creative use of it that didn't require turning it into the background for a not very interesting rap.


The Barbie movie sounds disturbingly fascinating in that it has this society where one-half of the population does everything important and has all the power, and the other half are literally accessories, and this is viewed as a good thing. In fact, it's so extreme that when one of the Kens gets a glimpse of the outside world, he immediately goes back and starts off a revolution, and it's the protagonist's job to go back and put the slaves back in their place.


That's like an 80% accurate summary of maybe the first 60% of the movie. But you can't really make a sensible critique of a story if you leave out the entire final act, particularly when said act pretty much is the opposite of the criticism. Like, if somebody watches Barbie and thinks the message is <gender X> needs to get back in their place, I think they have failed to understand the movie in any meaningful way. It's like stopping A New Hope at the destruction of Alderan and concluding it's a story about how awesome nuking planets is.

[Saph]

That's like an 80% accurate summary of maybe the first 60% of the movie. But you can't really make a sensible critique of a story if you leave out the entire final act, particularly when said act pretty much is the opposite of the criticism. Like, if somebody watches Barbie and thinks the message is <gender X> needs to get back in their place, I think they have failed to understand the movie in any meaningful way. It's like stopping A New Hope at the destruction of Alderan and concluding it's a story about how awesome nuking planets is.

Well, that's good to hear. All of the praise I heard for it made it sound as though the message was pretty much word-for-word what you wrote in your second paragraph ("girls are great and can do anything and should do anything and are just better, and also boys kind of exist I guess"), which thoroughly killed any desire I might have had to see it.

[warty goblin]

Well, that's good to hear. All of the praise I heard for it made it sound as though the message was pretty much word-for-word what you wrote in your second paragraph ("girls are great and can do anything and should do anything and are just better, and also boys kind of exist I guess"), which thoroughly killed any desire I might have had to see it.

Yeah, no. The movie pretty much out and out says the first part, and then also spends most of the conclusion soundly rejecting it. I don't think it's subtextual or subtle or implied, characters literally say that is wrong.

Which isn't to say it isn't also pretty clever about it.


The conclusion is that Kens will eventually be treated as well in Barbie world as women are in the real world. Because Ken is in a lot of ways the most sympathetic character - he starts out on the bottom and is also male so his pain probably counts for more with a lot of the audience - this doesn't sit entirely well. Like, you want more for Ken than the short end of the stick, but because Kens in Barbie land are basically 1950s housewives that's the movie's entire point. I don't think the message is at all that this is sufficient, merely that it's better, and maybe there will be more progress beyond that.

[Saph]

Yeah, no. The movie pretty much out and out says the first part, and then also spends most of the conclusion soundly rejecting it. I don't think it's subtextual or subtle or implied, characters literally say that is wrong.

Mmm . . . I dunno. One of the film's actresses gave an interview where she described Ken as "just a great accessory" and said that what she loved was that "the Kens are just supplemental characters to these Barbies, while Barbies can do everything Kens are there to kind of support and don’t necessarily have their own story". So I think the people who made the film don't agree with you!

[warty goblin]

Mmm . . . I dunno. One of the film's actresses gave an interview where she described Ken as "just a great accessory" and said that what she loved was that "the Kens are just supplemental characters to these Barbies, while Barbies can do everything Kens are there to kind of support and don’t necessarily have their own story". So I think the people who made the film don't agree with you!

I think this is what one would call deceptive marketing. They were very careful to include pretty much nothing from after the first act in the movie, which was honestly a fantastic choice because the second and third acts are wonderfully twisty and creative and not at all what I thought was going to happen. I really cannot emphasize enough how radically inconsistent the entire back half of the movie is with this idea, it's pretty much the opposite of what actually happens in the movie.

[Tyndmyr]

So, did the thing, and gotta report, while it was an overall fun experience, I can't imagine rewatching either film. Oppenheimer is quite good, and being a fan of history, I appreciate the direct quotations and indirect references to historical events. Obviously, it's been glamorized up a touch for hollywood, but it's a pretty decent retelling of what is no doubt one of the craziest military scientific projects in all history.

Barbie was....odd. Very incoherent, for one. The girl power stuff was not unexpected, it is Barbie, after all, but it was done quite oddly. Making the Mattel company such a large part of the movie...and in such a narratively inconsistent fashion....feels weird. You literally have the CEO making insane decisions one second because "he's not in it for the money, but for the little girls" one second, and only marginally later, reacting with glee over a similar twist permitting them to make piles of money. Motivations can change, but that generally requires a character arc and reasons. You shouldn't swap character motivations a complete 180 without reason, and especially not do that repeatedly.


The Barbie movie sounds disturbingly fascinating in that it has this society where one-half of the population does everything important and has all the power, and the other half are literally accessories, and this is viewed as a good thing. In fact, it's so extreme that when one of the Kens gets a glimpse of the outside world, he immediately goes back and starts off a revolution, and it's the protagonist's job to go back and put the slaves back in their place.

Yeah, it's...weirdly on the nose and obvious with its criticisms of a male dominated society, but almost unaware of the reverse. The solutions are invariably trite. For instance, a major solution is that women discover the power of complaining, which fixes all of their problems. That is not exactly empowerment.


That is...not what happens. It has the vague outline of what happens, but is, well, I'd say an incredibly bad faith interpretation of the film which literally ends with an explicit statement from the omniscient narrator that the Kens will be treated at least as well in their universe as women are in ours and an apology by Barbie for how she treated Ken. Now, no, it doesn't support their changing the constitution of Barbieland to institute permanent Ken rule, but that would be...you know, bad.

Not exactly.

When the Kens ask to have at least one representative on the all-female supreme court, they are denied. They are given a single token lower judge, and the vague promise that someday they may be treated as well in their universe as women are in ours. Obviously, this is at least sort of dark humor, but it cannot be taken as a serious fix or anything.

The apology, likewise, came nowhere close to anything like equality. She only said that "not every night had to be girls night." It was very much a "Sorry I made you feel bad" apology, not an actual change of behavior. As apologies go, that is remarkably hollow. There is only the slightest implication of wrongdoing. This, unfortunately, is a wholly serious moment, so it cannot be written off as mere humor, either.

Unfortunately, at this point Barbie's entire motivation changes randomly, and she decides to go be a real girl instead of fixing Barbieland as she'd wanted until now, for...reasons. So, this pretty much goes entirely unaddressed after this point.

Neither permanent Barbie rule nor permanent Ken rule is anything like a realistic solution...and yet the movie unambiguously ends on the former and says it is good, only the Barbies will hopefully remember to be slightly less cruel rulers. That's dark as hell. Yes, the movie clearly indicates that the status quo at the start of the movie isn't quite correct, but the solution it envisions is not actually much different than that status quo.


Mmm . . . I dunno. One of the film's actresses gave an interview where she described Ken as "just a great accessory" and said that what she loved was that "the Kens are just supplemental characters to these Barbies, while Barbies can do everything Kens are there to kind of support and don’t necessarily have their own story". So I think the people who made the film don't agree with you!

Well, yes. Though in fairness, that is a reasonable interpretation of Barbie as a product. The Kens have always been a secondary character. I don't mind the conceit existing within the framework of the story, it's just a bit odd when the movie decides that this is some sort of metaphysical lesson about the real world.

[KorvinStarmast]

Do we intelligently discuss anything on these forums? In a word: rarely. :smallcool:

[Psyren]

Barbie has officially cleared 1 billion at the box office (https://variety.com/2023/film/news/barbie-billion-dollar-box-office-1235683570/), being the only solo-female-directed movie in history to do so. (The other female-directed movies in the billionaire club are Captain Marvel and the two Frozen movies, but all three were co-directed.)

Regarding the message and conclusion in the third act, I thought they were exactly as on-the-nose as they needed to be.

My one major criticism of the film is the Mattel Board guys not really having anything to do in the film once Barbie escaped their office; their arrival in Barbieland felt like a ticking clock, but all the plot threads there got resolved without them.

[AvatarVecna]

I think this is what one would call deceptive marketing. They were very careful to include pretty much nothing from after the first act in the movie, which was honestly a fantastic choice because the second and third acts are wonderfully twisty and creative and not at all what I thought was going to happen. I really cannot emphasize enough how radically inconsistent the entire back half of the movie is with this idea, it's pretty much the opposite of what actually happens in the movie.

Seconding this.

There are individual frames in the movie where Ken is portrayed as happily accepting of his lot in life but they are all sandwiched in between moments where he acknowledges his low status and is put off by it, but doesn't really have another option. A lot of those snapshots of "ken being" happy make it into the trailers, but they are in-universe a front Ken is putting up to hide his pain. The point of the movie and the marketing is an earnest unflinching attempt to show men what it would be like in women's shoes, and it does so by having the film (and the marketing) treat the Ken's as empty-headed accessories not worth thinking about.

Ken's introductory scene is him standing frozen in place with a smile plastered on his face while he has a "mental voice" monologue about how empty his life is unless Barbie acknowledges his existence. And what isn't stated out loud until the end, but is practically screamed within the subtext, is that Barbie just doesn't love Ken. He's nice to her, they're good friends, but she just doesn't think of him like that. She never says it, but she acts it, and he doesn't hear it, but he feels it. And it's killing him on the inside.

In a more standard movie...let's use LotR as an example, actually. In LotR, when Frodo sets off to Mt Doom on his own because he doesn't want to risk anyone else falling prey to the temptation of the Ring, Samwise Gamgee insists on tagging along because he's a good person and he knows that Frodo will need help on the journey - both in surviving the elements, and in dealing with his inner turmoil. Sam puts himself at risk knowingly, because he knows if he doesn't Frodo will face the journey alone. It's very selfless. In one of the Barbie trailers, Ken has snuck into Barbie's car as she drove away, and reveals himself saying he's gonna help her on her journey - what if she needs help, after all? In the movie, that's his stated motivation, but the truth is that if Barbie leaves, he's going to be alone without the one person in his life that gives it any meaning, and the idea of having to self-reflect on what he wants in life and who he is without Barbie, terrifies him.

Ken experiences the real world - gets just a taste of patriarchy and respect and attention for once in his life - and it invigorates him. His smile stops being forced. He returns to Barbieland and shares his ideas and turns the world on its head. When barbie returns, she's horrified. All the powerful, intelligent women in her world have been turned into empty-headed, ever-smiling bimbos who just exist to hand their Ken beers and listen to him play the guitar. At one point Ken turns to Barbie and says "now you know it it feels". It's later revealed, of course, that he still loves her. He could never stop loving her. But he was hurting and angry and wanted her to understand the slightest fraction of how she had treated him for so long. It's also revealed that the patriarchy didn't even make him happy, that it wasn't what he thought it was. But he kept going with it because being unhappy with all the power was still better than being unhappy with no power.

The film isn't being subtle or pulling punches: the Kens treated the Barbies in the style of real-world systemic patriarchy...and coincidentally, almost exactly how the Barbies treated the Kens at the start of the movie. The filmmakers built a toxic society by mirroring our own, and then shattered the mirror to highlight the real world injustice of it all. Ken's pain becomes Barbie's pain, and their situations are so similar that sympathy for his suffering bleeds over into sympathy for hers.

[Ramza00]

Barbie has officially cleared 1 billion at the box office (https://variety.com/2023/film/news/barbie-billion-dollar-box-office-1235683570/), being the only solo-female-directed movie in history to do so. (The other female-directed movies in the billionaire club are Captain Marvel and the two Frozen movies, but all three were co-directed.)

Regarding the message and conclusion in the third act, I thought they were exactly as on-the-nose as they needed to be.

My one major criticism of the film is the Mattel Board guys not really having anything to do in the film once Barbie escaped their office; their arrival in Barbieland felt like a ticking clock, but all the plot threads there got resolved without them.

— 'Now I Am Become Ken’osis, the Destroyer of Movie Records.'

[Talakeal]

So is Barbie as depressing as all the reviews are making it sound?

Because the plot synopsis I have seen so far make it sound like AI levels of depressing.

And apparently they are unironically doing the Breakfast Club style makeover in 2023?


I never figured that Oppenheimer would be the feel good movie of the summer...

[Psyren]

Depressing? No, the message of Barbie is decidedly optimistic. And most of the movie (including the ending) is pretty upbeat.

Yeah it deals with some respectably deep real-world themes - hence the high critic scores - but no heavier than, say, Lego Movie. I'd say the people who find it too heavy are the ones with the privilege to not need to think too much about the stuff it's messaging.

[ecarden]

I agree with Psyren.

Now, if you wanted to, you could probably put in quite a bit of time and build a reasonable case that Barbieland is somewhat more of a dystopia than the movie seems to realize (or, for that matter, you could make an argument that due to the alternate reality nature of the universe and the direct influence of Mattell on it, that it's a potentially very rich sci-fi/fantasy type film setting which I'd love to see explored more thoroughly), but it's genuinely quite a fun movie and quite a funny movie, in a way quite distinct from the MCU/Whedon house style that's become so dominant.

[137beth]

I haven't seen either movie, but I am seriously struggling not to read the title of this thread as "Bartmanhomer."

[Vahnavoi]

So is Barbie as depressing as all the reviews are making it sound?


See, this why you watch movie first, read reviews later. :smalltongue:

More seriously: you are comparing humorous satire with a dramatization of real history and the moral and personal burdens it placed on people. If Barbie makes you sadder than Oppenheimer, consider consulting with a therapist.

[Tyndmyr]

So is Barbie as depressing as all the reviews are making it sound?

Because the plot synopsis I have seen so far make it sound like AI levels of depressing.

And apparently they are unironically doing the Breakfast Club style makeover in 2023?


I never figured that Oppenheimer would be the feel good movie of the summer...

I can see why it'd come across that way in text, but the tone of the movie is relatively light, where conversely, Oppenheimer's tone is much darker.

Yes, some topics dealt with are most definitely quite heavy, but they are mostly played up for comedy, and while some darker messages can be taken away from it in a fridge logic sort of way, it's not a terribly gloomy field. Some parts are quite fun, some are just a bit goofy, one or two are tedious...but are thankfully the exception. All in all, I'd put it as an alright film, neither great nor awful. Watch it, enjoy the ride, don't expect some sort of life changing experience.

[gbaji]

Seconding this.

Ken experiences the real world - gets just a taste of patriarchy and respect and attention for once in his life - and it invigorates him. His smile stops being forced. He returns to Barbieland and shares his ideas and turns the world on its head. When barbie returns, she's horrified. All the powerful, intelligent women in her world have been turned into empty-headed, ever-smiling bimbos who just exist to hand their Ken beers and listen to him play the guitar. At one point Ken turns to Barbie and says "now you know it it feels". It's later revealed, of course, that he still loves her. He could never stop loving her. But he was hurting and angry and wanted her to understand the slightest fraction of how she had treated him for so long. It's also revealed that the patriarchy didn't even make him happy, that it wasn't what he thought it was. But he kept going with it because being unhappy with all the power was still better than being unhappy with no power.

The film isn't being subtle or pulling punches: the Kens treated the Barbies in the style of real-world systemic patriarchy...and coincidentally, almost exactly how the Barbies treated the Kens at the start of the movie. The filmmakers built a toxic society by mirroring our own, and then shattered the mirror to highlight the real world injustice of it all. Ken's pain becomes Barbie's pain, and their situations are so similar that sympathy for his suffering bleeds over into sympathy for hers.

I think the more relevant message here is that responding to inequality/oppression/whatever by working to flip things the other way around to "show them how it feels" is just as bad as the status quo you started with. It's a somewhat more mature message because it's not just "this is wrong", but also "doing it the other way around is also wrong". It's kind of a "maybe think twice about what you wish/fight for", coupled with "social change/movements aren't as simple as you may think" combo of themes IMO. And yeah, done in an over the top way as well (and with some handwaving at the end, but what do you expect?).

[Ramza00]

I think the more relevant message here is that responding to inequality/oppression/whatever by working to flip things the other way around to "show them how it feels" is just as bad as the status quo you started with. It's a somewhat more mature message because it's not just "this is wrong", but also "doing it the other way around is also wrong". It's kind of a "maybe think twice about what you wish/fight for", coupled with "social change/movements aren't as simple as you may think" combo of themes IMO. And yeah, done in an over the top way as well (and with some handwaving at the end, but what do you expect?).

I have not seen the movie, just read spoilers and waiting for streaming



In real life kids, let’s say age 2 to 9 but more 3 to 8 … have an intense experience phase where they play with Dinosaurs, Atlantis, Trains, etc. There is several psychological reasons why this occurs. One reason why is when a child realizes the world exists in a much larger form than their original bounded experience. You mean these things I do not interact with like Dinosaurs Existed? Or what is this Trains and Train Tracks? Or there can be magical lost worlds? Etc.

Play helps the kids make sense of the world, it is one of the reasons kids play with dolls or say I want to be a firefighter when I grow up.

Well Ken is not 2 to 9, but some of him is mentally there, and also he just had a life changing experience, an Isekai like experience falling into Narnia. Well when you come back to Barbieland (or the Cave bringing foreign ideas back to Athens from Italy, Sicily, and Egypt) well what happens? It is both play and something not play more social at the same time.

Of course people find this upsetting and want to argue about it, someone did something natural and that is why it is so scary. 🥶

[gbaji]

I have not seen the movie, just read spoilers and waiting for streaming



In real life kids, let’s say age 2 to 9 but more 3 to 8 … have an intense experience phase where they play with Dinosaurs, Atlantis, Trains, etc. There is several psychological reasons why this occurs. One reason why is when a child realizes the world exists in a much larger form than their original bounded experience. You mean these things I do not interact with like Dinosaurs Existed? Or what is this Trains and Train Tracks? Or there can be magical lost worlds? Etc.

Well Ken is not 2 to 9, but some of him is mentally there, and also he just had a life changing experience, an Isekai like experience falling into Narnia. Well when you come back to Barbieland (or the Cave bringing foreign ideas back to Athens from Italy, Sicily, and Egypt) well what happens? It is both play and something not play more social at the same time.

Of course people find this upsetting and want to argue about it, someone did something natural and that is why it is so scary. 🥶



Well, sure. We can certainly examine the whole "stranger in a strange land" aspect to it as well. The idea that by seeing something else outside the world they live in, the characters suffer a loss of innnocence, and then have to deal with those rarmifications. That's certainly there as well.

But to the degree that we can take any of what's in the film as allegory to any sort of social condition (which several posters have done), my point stands. The message on that front is extremely clearly that "just flipping things the other way around doesn't make things better" (and certainly isn't more "right" or "just"). Which, IMO, is usually a good rule of thumb to follow regardless of what specific issue may be at hand (kinda issue agnostic message really). It's basically the same 'two wrongs don't make a right" bit that we all (hopefullly) learned at some point in time. Just presented in an over the top, somewhat absurd/surreal, and pretty consistently funny way.

The film's got layers, I guess. Who knew?

[Talakeal]

See, this why you watch movie first, read reviews later. :smalltongue:

More seriously: you are comparing humorous satire with a dramatization of real history and the moral and personal burdens it placed on people. If Barbie makes you sadder than Oppenheimer, consider consulting with a therapist.

While obviously I was joking when I called it a "feel good movie", I do expect that to be my reaction.

Nuclear was is way too distant from my real life. Its not something I have any personal connection to, just history and statistics about fatalities across the world that occurred decades before I was born.

On the other hand, from what I can tell, Barbie is a break-up movie about Barbie coming to the realization that not only does she not love Ken, but she can never love anyone, and Ken realizing that his entire self worth is centered about his relationship, and without it he has no identity and tries to find something to replace it, but that only makes the situation worse as he finds that everything else is either a meaningless platitude or actively harmful. Those are themes that I have had personal experience with.

So yeah, while I know intellectually nuclear war is on a whole other level of tragedy, emotionally I am still going to connect more strongly with the latter.

[Vahnavoi]

See, that's the kind of evaluation I don't think would actually survive watching the respective movies.

[Psyren]

she can never love anyone,

Yeah, you're definitely crossing major wires here.

S. Barbie wants to figure out who she is, and get a career/identity of her own. That's not a rejection of love; it's the acknowledgement that she needs to love herself first before she can love anyone else, especially romantically.

Love doesn't have an expiration date, it'll keep while she does that.


and Ken realizing that his entire self worth is centered about his relationship, and without it he has no identity and tries to find something to replace it, but that only makes the situation worse as he finds that everything else is either a meaningless platitude or actively harmful.

Ken hasn't tried "everything else" yet. He tried a grand total of exactly one thing. The message is to keep trying, not to do one thing and give up forever.

Note that the other Kens are not despondent either, they're eagerly setting out to learn and become new things and forge new identities that don't revolve around Barbie. That's great!


Those are themes that I have had personal experience with.

I'll just echo Vahnavoi's recommendation here.

[Talakeal]

That’s good to hear, maybe I will give the movie a watch after all.

So many of the reviews I saw boiled down to it being a revolutionary asexual / aromantic film that tears down the entire concept of love, that it sounded like it would be a real tough watch for me.

[Psyren]

I don't know how anyone could come away from this movie thinking it "tears down the concept of love." Barbie in fact is about two very compelling examples of love: love for your own self-worth, and the unconditional love between a mother and daughter (demonstrated both overtly via America and her daughter, and only slightly more subtly between Barbie and her creator, who points out that Barbie is both literally and figuratively her own daughter.

And yes, Barbie IS revolutionary from an ace/aro perspective, because it challenges the unquestioned Hollywood default in 99% of blockbusters, which has been to end with the hero getting the girl/guy, or at the very least imply that they're starting/exploring something romantic with a kiss. Movies default to this even when it makes absolutely zero sense with the narrative we've seen up to that point (cf Rise of Skywalker.)

...Ah dammit, I just made this a Star Wars thread didn't I.

[DavidSh]

And yes, Barbie IS revolutionary from an ace/aro perspective, because it challenges the unquestioned Hollywood default in 99% of blockbusters, which has been to end with the hero getting the girl/guy, or at the very least imply that they're starting/exploring something romantic with a kiss. Movies default to this even when it makes absolutely zero sense with the narrative we've seen up to that point (cf Rise of Skywalker.)

Ah, like how Casablanca ends with "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.", when that kind of romance hadn't really been hinted at.

[Talakeal]

I don't know how anyone could come away from this movie thinking it "tears down the concept of love." Barbie in fact is about two very compelling examples of love: love for your own self-worth, and the unconditional love between a mother and daughter (demonstrated both overtly via America and her daughter, and only slightly more subtly between Barbie and her creator, who points out that Barbie is both literally and figuratively her own daughter.

And yes, Barbie IS revolutionary from an ace/aro perspective, because it challenges the unquestioned Hollywood default in 99% of blockbusters, which has been to end with the hero getting the girl/guy, or at the very least imply that they're starting/exploring something romantic with a kiss. Movies default to this even when it makes absolutely zero sense with the narrative we've seen up to that point (cf Rise of Skywalker.)

...Ah dammit, I just made this a Star Wars thread didn't I.

I probably should have specified "romantic love".

But yeah, I totally agree, I hate when movies shoe-horn in romance. I didn't find it quite as bad in Rise of Skywalker as there had been a sort of sexual-tension subtext between Rei and Kylo in Episode VIII, but I did find it to be totally out of place in Rogue One. Of course, there are also movies like Zootopia where the audience insists in reading romance into the script where I don't see anything of the sort.

But yeah, I am perfectly fine with movies not having romance in them, or even ending tragically, its just that the summaries of Barbie all made it sound like it was all about taking the romance out of romance.

[Prime32]

But yeah, I totally agree, I hate when movies shoe-horn in romance. I didn't find it quite as bad in Rise of Skywalker as there had been a sort of sexual-tension subtext between Rei and Kylo in Episode VIII, but I did find it to be totally out of place in Rogue One. Of course, there are also movies like Zootopia where the audience insists in reading romance into the script where I don't see anything of the sort.
I actually remember people arguing that The Force Awakens was a rare case of a movie that would have benefited from a little more romance - specifically that giving Finn a dorky crush on Rey would give his character more investment in what was going on (and would even blunt criticisms of Rey's hypercompetence). Though I'm not sure it counts if it's deliberately intended to be a one-sided thing that doesn't go anywhere.

Recently Guardians of the Galaxy 3 also had

Peter Quill trying to restart his relationship with the alternate-timeline Gamora ("This isn't you, we're your family!"), and her being constantly infuriated because she's never even met the group before.

By the end of the movie Gamora has bonded with the Guardians a little and decided they're not that bad... but she's still not interested in joining them, because she's already found family elsewhere. And Quill has learned to accept that this Gamora and his dead girlfriend are not the same person, and that he should move on.
It's left on the table that they could possibly build a relationship from scratch if they end up working together a lot in future, the same way the original couple did. But that's not likely to ever happen, and they know it wouldn't be particularly healthy anyway.

[Talakeal]

I actually remember people arguing that The Force Awakens was a rare case of a movie that would have benefited from a little more romance - specifically that giving Finn a dorky crush on Rey would give his character more investment in what was going on (and would even blunt criticisms of Rey's hypercompetence). Though I'm not sure it counts if it's deliberately intended to be a one-sided thing that doesn't go anywhere.

Recently Guardians of the Galaxy 3 also had

Peter Quill trying to restart his relationship with the alternate-timeline Gamora ("This isn't you, we're your family!"), and her being constantly infuriated because she's never even met the group before.

By the end of the movie Gamora has bonded with the Guardians a little and decided they're not that bad... but she's still not interested in joining them, because she's already found family elsewhere. And Quill has learned to accept that this Gamora and his dead girlfriend are not the same person, and that he should move on.
It's left on the table that they could possibly build a relationship from scratch if they end up working together a lot in future, the same way the original couple did. But that's not likely to ever happen, and they know it wouldn't be particularly healthy anyway.


Wait... Finn did have a dorky one sided crush on Rey.

Yeah, GotG 3 was such a tear-jerker of a movie already that the tragedy of Quill and Gamora almost passes under the radar. But it's such an original take on the situation that I wouldn't have minded a little more focus and pathos. Of course, I never really liked Gamora, so I am not terribly invested in her happy ending and think Quill could do better.

[warty goblin]

I kinda thought the Gamora thing in GoTG3 kinda highlighted the whole problem with the multiverse thing from an audience's POV. Like, I don't actually care about alternate timeline/universe/whatever Gamora, because she's a distinct character I've never met before. It sort of undermines all the multiverse stuff they keep doing, I'm not invested in characters I've never met, particularly if they're just the off-label version of somebody I have. It's not an unsolvable problem, they could actually develop those characters, but if you spend a lot of effort characterizing person A I'm going to be more interested in person A than person A but 10% different.

Basically multiverses, unless the story is very much engineered to handle them, are where stakes and audience investment go to die. And the MCU is not carefully tailoring stories to the multiverse, they seem to be doing pretty much exactly the same thing as before but with more nonsense.

[Ramza00]

Multiverses only work when there is loss and lack (aka Dystopia when you fall into another universe, and there is a possibility of another loss and lack, the dystopia sets the stakes showing the possibility of ruin with this other place)

Pretty much the Terminator, but some of the examples I am thinking of are a few years prior to the Terminator but roughly the same era.

You can not use Multiverses as a character recycle place. It has to feel creepy / uncannylike dolls, a Barbie, or there is a ticking clock.

[Psyren]

I probably should have specified "romantic love".

I know that specific lens is what you meant. But a big part of Barbie's message is that you don't need romantic love to be a whole person. If it happens to come along later, great, but there's plenty you can do to love and be loved outside of that one narrow expression.

Both Barbie and Ken needed to learn that - Barbie, in order to realize that simply not feeling that way about Ken is perfectly okay and what she was missing in her life was purpose rather than companionship; and Ken, in order to realize that he needs his own life instead of revolving his entire personality and outlook around Barbie's.

And that's a big part of why this movie is so iconic - for plenty of people in the world, romance never happening doesn't mean they aren't happy. Hell, SBarbie may even be one of those people. Because at the end of the day, that's what she ultimately became - a person, not merely a symbol.

[Tyndmyr]

I kinda thought the Gamora thing in GoTG3 kinda highlighted the whole problem with the multiverse thing from an audience's POV. Like, I don't actually care about alternate timeline/universe/whatever Gamora, because she's a distinct character I've never met before. It sort of undermines all the multiverse stuff they keep doing, I'm not invested in characters I've never met, particularly if they're just the off-label version of somebody I have.

Yup, I didn't care about that subthread at all. It *could* have been amazing, and the movie overall was quite good, but that particular thread just doesn't work because we have zero investment in this character. Alt Universe Gamora is behaving perfectly rationally from her point of view, but we don't really know her. We don't really see her finding family with the ravagers, so her decision to be with them doesn't really have any emotional impact. Certainly nothing in comparison with watching the original Gamora get sacrificed.

[Forum Explorer]

Yup, I didn't care about that subthread at all. It *could* have been amazing, and the movie overall was quite good, but that particular thread just doesn't work because we have zero investment in this character. Alt Universe Gamora is behaving perfectly rationally from her point of view, but we don't really know her. We don't really see her finding family with the ravagers, so her decision to be with them doesn't really have any emotional impact. Certainly nothing in comparison with watching the original Gamora get sacrificed.

I like it because it avoids a big problem with multi-verse stuff where they kill off a character and then just replace them with multiverse B version of that character and things go right back to normal. No, none of that please. Instead the Gamora we knew died. And this 'new' Gamora is not the same thing, and her similarities only highlight the fact that she's not the same. And seeing her just reminds you that the original Gamora is dead.

So its basically the opposite. Instead of Gamora basically coming back to life, we have a constant reminder that Gamora died.

[Batcathat]

I like it because it avoids a big problem with multi-verse stuff where they kill off a character and then just replace them with multiverse B version of that character and things go right back to normal. No, none of that please. Instead the Gamora we knew died. And this 'new' Gamora is not the same thing, and her similarities only highlight the fact that she's not the same. And seeing her just reminds you that the original Gamora is dead.

Yeah, I liked that too. A lot of speculative fiction have dead characters "replaced" by versions of themselves, whether they are from an alternate universe or clones or whatever, who frequently are just treated more or less as the same character, so avoiding that is a gold star in my book (even if I would prefer if the MCU stayed away from even kind of resurrecting dead characters, since that's a major symptom of what I don't like about the comics).

[Talakeal]

AFAICT Gamora isn't really an "alternate" version, she her past self from 2015. It would be no different than if Infinity War Gamora had just forgotten the last 3 years.

[NontheistCleric]

Even by the very events that caused the divergence of the two, the new Gamora would have been made slightly distinct from her old self, and three years of different experiences would only have reinforced that. They're certainly not the same person, so at best they have to be alternate versions of one another.

[GloatingSwine]

AFAICT Gamora isn't really an "alternate" version, she her past self from 2015. It would be no different than if Infinity War Gamora had just forgotten the last 3 years.

More than 3.

This is Gamora from before she was sent to work with Ronan. She was still the person who was raised and trained by Thanos even if she didn’t believe in his mission.

[Psyren]

AFAICT Gamora isn't really an "alternate" version, she her past self from 2015. It would be no different than if Infinity War Gamora had just forgotten the last 3 years.

It's closer to 9 years I think. The events of Guardians 1 took place in 2014 in-universe, which is where Past Gamora is from, and Thanos' final defeat occurs in 2023 in-universe, 5 years after his older self's victory in Infinity War and subsequent execution at the beginning of Endgame prior to the timeskip.

[Talakeal]

It's closer to 9 years I think. The events of Guardians 1 took place in 2014 in-universe, which is where Past Gamora is from, and Thanos' final defeat occurs in 2023 in-universe, 5 years after his older self's victory in Infinity War and subsequent execution at the beginning of Endgame prior to the timeskip.

Right, but she only "forgot" 3-4 years of events, those between Peter stealing the stone at the start of GotG 1 in 2014 and her being killed by Thanos in act 1 of Infinity War. All the other time she was dead and Peter was Snapped. Now, obviously she has had experiences in the ~3 years between End Game and Guardians III, but these are not alternate in any way, they are just normal existence in the "prime" MCU timeline.

[Forum Explorer]

Right, but she only "forgot" 3-4 years of events, those between Peter stealing the stone at the start of GotG 1 in 2014 and her being killed by Thanos in act 1 of Infinity War. All the other time she was dead and Peter was Snapped. Now, obviously she has had experiences in the ~3 years between End Game and Guardians III, but these are not alternate in any way, they are just normal existence in the "prime" MCU timeline.

Eh, that's still enough of a difference to be an alternative Gamora. It's not like she has to be completely different. Just different enough to feel distinct.

[Ranxerox]

I made it to Barbie on opening weekend, but I only just made it to it to Oppenheimer yesterday. It turns out that it is a lot easier for me to find 2 free hours to go watch a movie than 3.

Oppenheimer is very good. IMO, it is Chris Nolan's best movie since Inception, which prior to this new movie I considered Chris Nolan's best movie. If you are a Chris Nolan fan or a history buff, I highly recommend seeing Oppenheimer.

I took the poisoning of the apple at the beginning of the film to indicate that Oppenheimer was a sociopath or sociopath adjacent. However, he did seek out psychiatric help, so maybe the apple incident merely reflected his mental state at the moment and not a permanent thing. Thoughts?

[Ramza00]

Eh, that's still enough of a difference to be an alternative Gamora. It's not like she has to be completely different. Just different enough to feel distinct.

Disagree, she had various forms of relationships I am going to label "therapy" , re-connecting and moving past a trauma with her sister for their rivalry was a form of trauma bonding and bullying. Plus a stable home life with material security.

That was not much time but to Gamora 1 and 2 it is tremendously different. And notice I did not bring up Starlord for he was incidental to the things I think were more important to Gamora.

(Now Gamora was Peter's growth and support system in an asymmetric way.)

[Forum Explorer]

Disagree, she had various forms of relationships I am going to label "therapy" , re-connecting and moving past a trauma with her sister for their rivalry was a form of trauma bonding and bullying. Plus a stable home life with material security.

That was not much time but to Gamora 1 and 2 it is tremendously different. And notice I did not bring up Starlord for he was incidental to the things I think were more important to Gamora.

(Now Gamora was Peter's growth and support system in an asymmetric way.)

You put the word disagree at the start of the post, but I don't see anything that you are saying that is actually disagreeing with me.