Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of feminist media in light of all the hype around the Barbie movie and the backlash over the fact that neither director Greta Gerwig nor Margot Robbie (Barbie) received Oscar nominations. And while America Ferrera did receive a nomination for best supporting actress, a lot of critical attention has gone to the fact that Ryan Gosling (Ken) received a nomination for best supporting actor. I see the point. I understand the feminist critique here: female power is given an “atta girl,” but her creative contribution and leadership is overlooked. All that said: I didn’t really love the movie and the performance of the “I’m Just Ken,” song was my favorite part. Ferrera’s “iconic” monologue fell flat for me. Haven’t I read those words before, all over social media? The Barbie movie leaves me wondering, not for the first time, just what is feminist media?
When Game of Thrones was at its height of popularity, I saw so many online posts about the amazing female power (read feminism) of the show. But, having read the books, I took great issue with this characterization of the HBO blockbuster. Book five of The Song of Ice and Fire features, from what I recall, a double-digit number of sexual assaults against women. Every strong female in the story uses power as violence and dominance, and then of course, they are punished for it (as I wrote about in another blog). HBO’s Girls received similar feminist (and/or “post-feminist”) cred, featuring women who were supposedly friends but clearly seemed to disdain or ignore one another. Carter Hayward’s concept of “alienated power,” runs rampant in these two shows, and we enjoy it, because, as she explains, we have a hard time seeing power as anything else in a patriarchal system.
I will give Barbie that: the women do not use alienated power—power that separates, that makes us less than who we are as a interconnected whole—in the film. In fact, the women work together to overcome the newly established patriarchy in Barbieland and they have relationships with one another that have nothing to do with kens. But Ken, who kicks Barbie out of her house and convinces all the other barbies that they should serve the kens, is featured as a kind of hurt puppy dog. He is sympathetic. Poor Ken is lonely and dumb. Poor Ken didn’t mean to set up the patriarchy, he just likes horses and wants an active role in Barbieland. And Ken is so easily forgiven, as the CEOs of Mattel, all male, head back to the real world, their eyes opened to the importance of *Barbie.
This just didn’t sit right with me. Nor did the fact that everything is tied together with a nice capitalistic (pink) bow. I think perhaps, that Barbie is a kind of feminist media—a neoliberal feminist media—and juxtaposing those two words, “neoliberal” and “feminist,” makes me cringe.
Maybe classifying Barbie in that way is too harsh. I am deeply inspired by Catherine Keller’s idea of counter-apocalypse. We cannot deny our relationship to a thing we want to change, but instead must redirect its energy, so that we do not (re)create apocalypse. Is Barbie a kind of counter-apocalyptic feminism? I am quick to embrace liminal violence in my own theories. Why not liminal joy or fun? Or, is Barbie just product placement? We can consume “feminist Barbie,” as late-stage capitalism slowly rebrands feminism so that it is more palatable for the public. I am honestly not sure.
Maybe though, the question is simpler one. Would I let my daughter, eight, watch Barbie? Probably.
Though I like The Legend of Kora better, and Sailor Moon, and the new She Ra. And Aru Shah, and so many other books, and stories, and songs. Their angles of counter-apocalyptic refraction are sharper.
Sara Frykenberg, Ph.D.: Graduate of the women studies in religion program at Claremont Graduate University, Sara’s research considers the way in which process feminist theo/alogies reveal a kind transitory violence present in the liminal space between abusive paradigms and new non-abusive creations: a counter-necessary violence. In addition to her feminist, theo/alogical and pedagogical pursuits, Sara is also an avid fan of science fiction and fantasy literature, and a level one Kundalini yoga teacher.
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Your critique sounds like a beginning – I think it’s critical at this juncture when women have lost the most basic rights that we look more deeply into what is really happening in this cartoon movie that supposedly speaks to feminism
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Sara, Thanks for this critique of the block-buster movie, Barbie. One of the things I liked about the movie was that the word “patriarchy” was said out loud. So many men, as well as some women, eschew that word. (The movie goes further than just think of the word as “rule by the fathers.” I do think Ken gets a free pass because he comes out on the other side of the fracas (the patriarchy taking over in Barbieland) looking like a nice guy. He isn’t. Awww-www, shucks, Ma’m, “I’m just Ken.” Doesn’t he say that once he found out the patriarchy wasn’t about horses, he lost interest?! He’s not innocuous. Perhaps more focus should be on Allen with his “understated” ways although he did show that he could physically fight off the patriarchal men. When the Barbie queendom “fell,” Allen was there celebrating with the recovered barbies. I DO think the movie is layered and nuanced–as all good “texts.”
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I spewed my drink outa my nose when Ken whined that when patriarchy wasn’t about horses, he lost interest. My favorite joke in a semi-enjoyable campy joke-filled movie – and I like to think, a nod to Gimbutas, or at least to Jane Auel. But the resurrected, perpetually-monetized Barbie phenomenon and the pedestrian discussion it invoked, and the o so obvious Oscar snubs that keep it artificially relevant in our media-fueled social discourse illuminates a larger issue. Our collective American Zeitgeist is retarded – in the true sense of that word.
At this late apocalyptic historic time, we find our Western cultural development stunted through generational trauma and manipulated by constant media delivery of childish narratives delivered by ever more sophisticated technology designed to keep us perpetually acting up like teenagers. We have lost the ability to behave collectively as responsible, critically thinking adults in this reality at this current time. Stanley cup fad? (Nope) The grand Superbowl bread and circus pageantry? (imma make wings in my new air fryer)
So does Barbie represent a real discussion of feminism and patriarchy? Does it open us up for inquiry and explorations of the complex concepts of intersectional feminism, colonialism, ecofeminism, womanism, and all the complicated ideas and histories that anyone reading this blog already knows, and sweated to know, and deconstructed childhoods to know, and sacrificed to know? Maybe if you are 13-years old. Anyone wearing pink?
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or maybe not at all – thanks.
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It is such a relief to read comments like this that my trust in feminist thinking is restored, at least for a few critical thinkers. I can’t thank you enough.
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“We have lost the ability to behave collectively as responsible, critically thinking adults in this reality at this current time.” I wonder if we’ve EVER had this ability “collectively.” There have always been a myriad of opinions, based on individual experience. ”So does Barbie represent a real discussion of feminism and patriarchy?” I think the movie, Barbie, can be a jumping off point to discuss feminism and patriarchy. That can be a “real” thing. We all are at different points along our journeys. We can begin with what’s in front of us.
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Thank you. I had the same response to the movie, and to America Ferrerra’s “iconic speech,” and to the cringing of “neoliberal” and “feminist” being paired together.
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Just as matel was losing shit loads of money from women rising- waking up to patriarchy, along comes Greta Gerwig, to up level matel and herself of course by throwing girls and women under the bus, anything for a buck right. I tried to watch this movie a couple of times, the first time I shut it off after five minutes because I found it so utterly stupid and demeaning to women, come to think I thought the same thing about fifty shades of grey, another disgusting movie which won mass appeal!!! i have not capitalized matel intentionally, they will get no elevation from me, I am sick of seeing women played/exploited for a buck. Shame on Greta Gerwig! This movie is no reflection of how she sees herself at all!, I am so sick of women taking women back for a buck mind, it is so maddening for me. I recently saw a movie with Glen Close, called the wife, same old same old, playing the oppressed wife meanwhile she has made millions of dollars over a life time, painting women in demeaning ways. I will not support any of this trash anymore.
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Blessed Be.
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Interesting questions and comments! Here is a take of one of the movie’s famous lines:“We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they have come.”
https://www.thebigshowco.com/write-big-blog/2023/8/2/why-should-mothers-stand-still-the-most-celebrated-quote-from-the-barbie-movie-is-actually-a-huge-problem
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…. Re Barbie who remains “artificially relevant in our media-fueled social discourse illuminates a larger issue” I’ll say.
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My favorite moment in Barbie comes right at the top of the show, in the 2001 Space Odyssey moment where Barbie descends like a monolith to the tune of Strauss’s Zarathustra, and all the little girls abandon the ironing boards and baby dolls. I am 76, and that is how I experienced the sight of Barbie in the toy store when she first appeared. She was supposed to be a teen model, but I did not see that. I saw an alien creature with alien eyes. It was self-love at first sight, because I identified with her as a fellow alien. I never aspired to be like her because we were always alike in our otherness.
So, the movie. Clearly, I did not see the same movie that the young women saw and this came dramatically home when I visited the ladies room post show and encountered the weeping young. I mean they were puddles. I immediately has to reassess. I discussed this with my young hairdresser, and she further clued me in. The big scene for the young is when Barbie breaks down in the real world at the discovery that she is treated like doll in our world. Then comes the famous monologue delivered by a mother that was also not for me for whom the ideas were familiar, it was for young women for whom the ideas were fresh.
A movie that cracks heart chakras right and left merits some attention. I have to say am glad that Greta Gerwig and Margo Robbie got the big bucks rather than the statues, because money is power in the industry and those two women make and produce works that showcase diverse and interesting women.
Back to my favorite moment — the appearance of Barbie as a monolith is meant to mark an advance in evolution, mirroring the 2001 Space Odyssey that promotes the idea that when a male ape-like ancestor picks up a bone and uses it a weapon to kill another of his kind, it marks an advance in civilization. What a shift to see the original Barbie there at the beginning her odyssey to unbecome a doll.
I also like what scientist Cat Bohannan had to say about the 2001 Space Odyssey scene of a weaponized femur in her book, EVE. She argues, citing many sources, that the theory of weaponized tool-use as the biggest step forward in evolution is superseded by the development of community among females who needed assistance in giving birth to and caring for their big-brained helpless babies. Enter the midwife! The doula. The Aunties and Grannies who nanny. I hear bass drums. I hear Strauss’s Zarathustra.
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