Why Do People Hate the Barbie Movie? Inside the Backlash

Publish date: 2024-05-25

Even even though 'Barbie' is now an authorized hit, some people don't like the movie. Others want to know where the backlash is coming from. Details forward.

Following a weekend wherein Barbie scored the biggest opening of any movie in 2023, it's fair to mention that there are plenty of people who love the movie. Barbie earned a rock-solid ranking of "A" from CinemaScore in addition to a beautiful favorable set of opinions from critics. However, there's a contingent that's less than thrilled by means of the movie's super good fortune.

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These people, some who have seen the movie and a few who haven't, are arguing that the movie is objectionable. Why do some people hate the Barbie movie? Here's what we all know.

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Why do people hate the 'Barbie' movie?

The main focal point of critique against Barbie is that the movie is "woke" and is particularly anti-male. Those who've criticized the movie have completed so by claiming that its invocation of the patriarchy and remedy of Ryan Gosling's Ken particularly are causes the movie should be boycotted.

Right-wing personality Ben Shapiro even recorded a 40-minute video designed to tear the movie aside.

Whether that video in truth achieves its stated intention is for audience to decide, but what is clear is that there is a contingent of mostly right-wing men who find the movie's take on masculinity and feminism to be objectionable.

This is right among people who have observed the movie, and also among some who have not. The movie undoubtedly takes on questions of patriarchy head-on, but its plot is a little more nuanced than some have said.

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Are the allegations in opposition to the 'Barbie' movie true?

Spoiler alert: The remainder of this text contains spoilers for Barbie.

Barbie unquestionably invokes patriarchy continuously. The movie's central thrust is Barbie and Ken's adventure to the actual world, the place Barbie meets the lady who's taking part in with her, and Ken discovers patriarchy and comes to a decision to take it back to Barbieland to allow the Kens to take over.

The 3rd act comes to the Barbies tricking the Kens into battling one every other, which allows the Barbies to regain regulate of Barbieland. The movie's conclusion, though, isn't that males are evil or that ladies need to dominate over them. Instead, it means that the real objective should be equality, despite the fact that that purpose is tricky to reach in each Barbieland and the real world.

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My manufacturers dragged me to peer ‘Barbie’ and it used to be one in every of the most woke motion pictures I have ever observed. My complete evaluation of this flaming rubbish heap of a film shall be out on my YouTube channel the following day at 10am ET. pic.twitter.com/Lptha0p3qx

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 21, 2023

Patriarchy no doubt has some damaging effects on Barbieland, but the movie also spends numerous time acknowledging that the earlier paradigm in Barbieland, where the Kens had no power, also wasn't fair.

The final answer is to inch toward equality, with the Barbies nonetheless taking over extra power, a minimum of for the time being.

One of the overarching points of the movie, though, is that patriarchy is harmful no longer just to the women who must be subservient to men, but additionally to the males who play the dominant position in that gadget. The Kens can never actually be themselves beneath this system. They can handiest play a prescribed position.

Barbie no doubt spends a variety of time on problems with gender, but it surely may not be as anti-man as some would have you think.

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