politics

The weird thing is, if they actually WATCHED the movie, it makes a strong point for mens rights.

Ken is an accessory to Barbie, he has no real life outside her, doesn't even have his own house. As the film states, for Barbie, every day is the best day ever. For Ken? It's only a good day when Barbie looks at him, and she often doesn't because "every night is girls night."

When Ken finds out the real world is not like that, he fills the void with "Patriarchy". It's an absolutely toxic reaction, but it's hard to fault Ken for trying to find meaning for his existence and instead, slipping and falling down a red pill rabbit hole.

So you can see why disaffected men might feel attacked, Ken is a mirror to their own existence. Sidelined by women, powerless, and told their reaction is, ultimately, unhealthy and self-destructive, but they can't see how else to react.

The main problem is Ken, and the real world men like Ken, aren't presented with a socially acceptable alternative.

The end of the film ALMOST recognizes that Barbie's Dream World and Ken's "Kenergy" are equally toxic, but I expected a better conclusion where they realize it's an inversion of the "real" world where women have been seen as accessories for decades, and the only real solution is true equality on both sides.

They don't take it that far, it's still Barbie's world, the Kens just live in it, with token integrated positions for equality, for example, Kens get 1 position on the Barbie Supreme Court. Even in our admittedly imperfect world, the Supreme Court has 4 women on it (Kagan, Sotomayor, Barett, Brown-Jackson). You'd think they'd boost the Barbie supremes to 4 Kens, or at a minimum, 3+Allan.

Eh, I just watched it. From my perspective I see one major problem: it tries to criticize the same problem from two opposite angles which wind up just kinda undercutting each other, while either angle alone could have been pretty powerful, the de facto conclusion of the two together is basically misandry.

Spoilers:

!On the one hand, it presents a gender swapped matriarchy in Barbieland, where Barbies run the world and Kens are basically accessories. If the movie had stayed in Barbieland and focused on Ken's self-actualization in a female-centric society, that could've been a poignant illustration of the opposite struggle in the real world, striking MRAs simultaneously with understanding and cognitive dissonance.

On the other, Ken brings patriarchy into Barbieland and the Barbies 1) are immediately brainwashed? (I don't think the small pox analogy is sufficient to justify the fact that these doctors and supreme court justices just, decided to be brainwashed?) 2) decide these I guess inherently inferior Ken's need to be overcome by manipulation? I'm sure this could've been turned into something, not as poignant or impressive as the gender-swap concept, but something for sure.

But the two taken together give a really mixed message. Gender subjugation is bad, but it's okay to do it to men because they're dumb and bad? Except the men here are metaphors for women in the real world, so is it right to subjugate women in the real world because they'd only just fuck everything up? Is the Kendom an allegory for patriarchy, or a gender-swapped allegory for feminism? Does that mean feminism is bad? We don't ever get to see Ken actualize, we just see Barbie cut him off and he kinda vapidly goes away? And they conclude acknowledging that the Barbies are subjugating the Kens, so it's not even like they're saying women are more enlightened and egalitarian, just that men suck and should be subservient. Society doesn't really improve, they just squashed the Keninist movement.

It seemed like they were trying to say "patriarchy bad", but tried to do it by satiration through matriarchy, and also just playing it straight at the same time, which just came out as "men bad". If they chose a lane, it could've stuck. But I just left kinda confused about what they were trying to say, other than a general vibe of "men bad".!<