Barbie!

 OMG I saw the Barbie movie last night and I'm in love. Hilarious, which I love in a movie, and both up-front and indirect and very thought-provoking. This won't be a spoiler-free post by the way, so read at your discretion. 

I think I'll start at the end (I warned you!), since my memory is not great and that's most fresh in my mind. When she's trying to decide if she wants to be human and her creator says (something like) "You don't need my permission!" As a deconstructing Mormon, I LOVED that. A flawed but hopeful creator, setting the creation free in the world to do as they like. We can just be, as we are, without constantly searching for permission. So perfect. And how Barbie was told to just FEEL first. Not ask a question, not think about anything necessarily, but to FEEL. 

It reminds me of a feeling exercise I did recently, describing how we're trained to ignore certain feelings and feel a certain way, so it instructed me to try and disconnect from those outer influences and just try feeling. Seeing what my body was telling me. Both in my nerve endings, and with my emotions, and maybe a little with my thoughts. (I think it might have had something to do with autism and masking, but I can't be sure since: bad memory.) 

Check in, Barbie, make sure your whole self is on board! Just feel! 

And on the "just" note - how the tagline changes after you've seen the movie. She's everything, he's just Ken. Sounds pretty funny, especially with that bit in the trailer where the CEO says "Ken is something we're never worried about - ever." But having seen what Barbie means by "just Ken," it's becomes something beautiful and unexpected. He's not Barbie and Ken, he's just Ken. He is Kenough. Hahaha. I laughed SO MUCH during this movie. 

And the patriarchy! It surprised me, how upfront it was about "patriarchy bad." And it did it well, too, by the stark contrast of how uncomfortable Barbie felt right away, vs the confidence Ken started to have. Oh! And speaking of Ken, when he took her house and had a "boys night" and said "it feels terrible, DOESN'T IT?" as a clear reference to how hurt he was when he couldn't spend time with her, I definitely felt a stab of sympathy. Yeah, he was hurting! But then Weird Barbie pointed out that just because Barbie feels sympathy for him, doesn't excuse the fact that he betrayed her and tried to overturn their world, and also of course SHE DOESN'T LIKE HIM LIKE THAT and she doesn't have to. Boom! Mind blown. 

(I still like to pretend Barbie ends up as the CEO of Mattel, btw, with her real-world girl working beside her. Will Farrell's character is surprisingly warm, but clearly caring for women isn't enough of a reason to not include them.) 

One of my internet friends said it was the Feminist Manifesto she didn't know she needed, and she was so right! (Thanks, Shannon!) Like, even the matriarchy wasn't the answer to patriarchy. And the movie made that pretty clear! Where do the Kens live? Eh, we don't really know (or care). Can Kens be on the supreme court?? NO WAY, they need to start slowly in lesser courts. 

It's interesting, my husband saw Oppenheimer on opening day, and when he heard his sisters were watching Oppenheimer first and Barbie second, he was like "I hope they aren't disappointed. Oppenheimer is a MASTERPIECE." Well, it feels odd to label a comedy as a masterpiece, and it's definitely no Oppenheimer (not that I've actually seen it yet, hah), but it really does feel like a masterpiece. I can't think of a part that makes me feel like "this was a weak spot in the plot/design/message." I guess I'm not really in the business of critiquing movies, for example I feel the same way about Moana. Practically perfect, no notes. So maybe it's not a masterpiece but it is brilliant. 

I'll probably write more posts as I remember things I liked about it! I'm considering trying to find a time to take my mom while I visit her this weekend, actually. I don't think I'll manage it, but it's been a long time since I've even considered going to see a movie in the theaters, let alone TWICE. Thanks Barbie.