Today was the first day that both our kids are in day-care all day. Effectively the end of our parental leave. Me and my SO decided to treat ourselves to a movie and saw Barbie. We figured if the conservative sphere was getting pissy about it, it must be good.
Anyone else see it?
I wasn’t expecting much. I have to say, I don’t think I could have ever expected this movie to be what it was. It’s campy, funny, colorful, and steps on your throat with it’s message and hardly let’s it off. I say that as positivity as someone can.
It’s amusing to me that some people think the movie is anti-man. It did make me feel mournful for my daughters inevitable loss of innocence. A corporate, big budget toy advertisement of all things. I think that’s the most surprising part. In some ways Barbie is the most unlikely and perfect vehicle for what the movie has to say.
I don’t know. It’s conflicting because, at the end of the day it’s a huge corporate puff peace, but also… What else could deliver it’s message to so many people?
Haven’t seen it, don’t plan to, don’t care to tbh.
But having talked to some people about it, this is my takeaway: “Messaging” is simply a new tool of marketing, especially “subversive” messaging. You’re not buying a car - you’re committing a revolutionary act of activism against climate change and fossil capitalism. You’re not buying an ethically farmed, grass-fed, local steak, you’re fighting animal cruelty and big farming lobbies with your consumption. You’re not simply dressing up skandidly in pink to watch a multi-hundred million dollar Hollywood production of Barbie produced and approved of by its parent company, giving new legitimacy to that old rubber toy franchise and boosting sales numbers. You’re totally subverting gender roles and criticizing capitalism by doing so.
Imo you’re not. You’re just buying a new car, munching another steak and going to the movies again promoting one of the most famous IPs of all time. It’s the same thing we’ve done our entire lives. Changing the messaging around the act without changing the act, doesn’t change the act. You’re just doing the thing.
There can’t be anything really subversive coming out of the hegemonic culture industry. By the very nature of its production, via the commodification it undergoes, it has already become toothless and assimilated. Neoliberal anti-capitalism is just the newest sales-pitch. It’s along the lines of “diverse” CIA targeting officer recruitment ads. Just like capitalism can’t produce true anti-war movies, it can’t produce anti-capitalist or real anti-gender-role movies. It would be self-defeating if it did.
That being said, if you enjoy it more power to you. Nobody needs a grand narrative of subversion and messaging to go see and enjoy a movie at the theater. If you get something deeper out of it, even better.
I could not have said it better myself. We need to be much more critical especially of media that purports to have some kind of “radical” or “subversive” message because i guarantee you, if it’s made it to the mainstream it most certainly does not. Products made by big corporations may carry superficially anti-corporate messages but in reality they just serve to reinforce consumerism by getting people to believe that by consuming they are doing something radical.
I agree, those who wanna watch it and enjoy it should do so without feeling bad about themselves or feeling especially accomplished for doing so
completely agree with this take, it’s just more consumer activism/voting with your dollar bs.
You can make this same statement, which I don’t disagree with, about every film. It’s technically correct, which is the more boring kind of correct. Since most Normans are not at that point on the ideological world view scale, the movie exists in a whole different context for them. I think giving the Norman cultural context, this movie is subversive by that standard. It exists in a state of equilibrium between corporate revisionism and subversive cultural critique. Any tip of the scale in one direction or the other leads to either a vapid mass market blockbuster or a wildly unwatchable but biting satire that no one bothers to see.
We could discuss those ideas, but I think you would need to see the film in order to critique it for it’s content. Otherwise, we can return to the time honored traditions and write long winded shibboleths back and forth to each other, like two squawking crows at dawn, broadcasting our belief systems to the greater murder, without really saying anything of substance.
OP literally asked “Who saw it” and you respond “Haven’t seen it, don’t plan to, don’t care tbh” and then give an opinion…
Unreal.
Because OP literally only asked who’s seen it all the answers here are plain yes/no ay?
This “you have to experience something to comment on it” is liberal individualism anyway. I don’t have to be a farmer to comment on the impact of climate change on farming or climate change more broadly.
You’d have a point if I had commented on the movie’s writing, aesthetic, picture, acting performances, score, etc. But I didn’t. I made a general point about the nature of cultural products under capitalism and the laws that govern this movie as much as any other.
If you haven’t seen it and don’t care about it, then how are you able to discuss anything within the movie and give your opinion on its content?
Imagine a film critic giving his opinion and in the end saying “I actually didn’t watch the movie”.
You are just formulating an opinion based off of what you’ve heard other people say, and it comes across as pretty foolhardy and arrogant.
The farmer example is also not applicable at all, because that’s still something you can research and find data on independently. You can’t independently gather data or an opinion on a movie. Unless you read the plot summary I guess, but that competently destroys the point of it being a movie.
No investigation, no right to speak.
And no, reading the plot summary or watching a YouTube analysis isn’t investigation.
I watched the 45 minutes long Ben Shapiro video, can I criticize the movie?
That is excellent investigation comrade. Everyone knows that Comrade Shapiro’s analyses are so bulletproof and awe inspiring and you don’t even need to watch the movie after listening to him.
Eh, had a response for you but clearly by your post history it would have been a waste of time. You don’t get it and you won’t. Take care.