The Enlightenment

Warner Bros.

All you need to do to rise above the patriarchy is spend $12 and 2 hours watching a film based on a children’s toy. If I had told you that even just a few weeks ago, you would’ve called me crazy. But then came Barbie.

The film has been lauded for its message of female empowerment. Having watched it, I came to the opposite conclusion. I think the movie is actually very anti-feminist and disempowering to women.

Alrght, you can cancel me now.

(Just kidding. No one can ever really be cancelled.)

If you enjoyed the movie, or if you felt empowered by it, I don’t want to take that away from you. But I am going to seriously engage with the material and dissent from the majority opinion surrounding the movie.

SPOILERS FOR Barbie (2023) AHEAD!

Let’s start with the theme of women’s liberation. Look at the film and take note where women are portrayed as happy, liberated, and in control of themselves and society. Did you notice that the only times in the entire movie where women are portrayed that way is in the fantasy world of Barbieland, a place that doesn’t really exist?

And let’s look at the utopia in Barbieland. It’s only possible because the Barbies (an allegory for women) control every facet of governance, while the Kens (an allegory for men) are relegated to secondary status. Such a situation is unlikely to occur in the real world.

Even in the feminine utopia of Barbieland, there are still problems between women. Certain women like Weird Barbie are made outcasts because they are not made up, don’t have perfect skin, and don’t have perfectly managed hair. In other words, even in the perfect scenario, women still judge and ostracize each other.

On top of this, women are portrayed as incapable of critical thought. After Ken brings patriarchy to Barbieland, the Barbies uncritically adopt patriarchy and actively enjoy it. The Barbies give up power, dress in revealing clothing meant for male enjoyment, and do nothing but serve beer and give massages to the Kens without question.

How can a film like Barbie be “empowering” to women while at the same time perpetuating the stereotype that women are fundamentally catty and exclusionary of “ugly” women? And what is feminist about portraying all women as unable to think for themselves and of breaking away from the influence of a man? Remember, this is the utopia.

When I put all this together and apply it to the real world, here’s the message I am getting as a woman from this movie.

• The only escape from patriarchy is in a utopia.
• Liberation requires the complete control of society by women, which is impossible, or at best extremely unlikely.
• Even in this feminine utopia, I still have to worry about social exclusion by other women and the unconquerable influence of any man who seeks to end this utopia.

In what possible universe is any of this “empowering?”

I understand what Director Greta Gerwig is trying to do here. She is trying to tackle themes and issues within feminism, e.g. the idea that some women actively support patriarchy. But these ideas are only addressed in a surface-level fashion, with no time for exploration.

As an example: going back to when Ken brings patriarchy to Barbieland, the Barbies are either unanimously in favor or against patriarchy, when in reality, some Barbies would’ve resisted the change to patriarchy, and some Barbies would’ve wanted to remain under patriarchy. Gerwig thus muddies the waters on the role of women in patriarchy and instead portrays women as uncritically believing whatever thing they last heard from someone else.

Okay, that all may be true, but the film does talk about the hurdles facing women. But what exactly is so empowering about stating facts?

There are countless double standards for women that men don’t have to face, there are few women in positions of power, women are held to impossible standards of beauty, and violence and assault against women by men is a problem.

There. I just summed up the entirety of the messages in the film for you in one paragraph. Are you empowered now? On the contrary, I rebut by saying it is degrading for women to be told about their problems on screen when they experience them personally every day.

Sure, it may feel cathartic as a woman to finally hear your problems being acknowledged on screen, an event that rarely happens. But that’s all it is: catharsis. As soon as the movie ends and the lights turn back on, you’re right back in the patriarchy.

What solutions, practicable actions, does the movie actually offer the viewer to end patriarchy? One solution offered in the movie is for women to educate each other about patriarchy, like when Gloria snaps the Barbies out of their trance by affirming their self-worth.

In other words, the burden of ending patriarchy is placed squarely on individual women to conduct conversations to change hearts and minds. Furthermore, the idea that a single conversation about patriarchy is enough to change the mind of a woman who has been indoctrinated to see herself as subservient to men is laughable.

Another solution offered is to have more women on corporate boards, which does not help any women except the female executives earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Just ask Beyoncé, owner of the $450 million Ivy Park clothing line that pays its mostly female workers in Sri Lanka 64 cents an hour to make clothing.

All Barbie offers to women and feminists is highly individualistic and ineffective solutions. What could possibly be more discouraging than to hear that the burden is on YOU to talk every single person around you out of supporting patriarchy?

Why didn’t the film talk about systematic solutions, such as raising the minimum wage? That would do leagues more to help women than more female CEOs, considering that in the United States, as an example, the majority of minimum-wage earners are women, and among those women a disproportionate amount are minority.

The answer is that ending the patriarchy will require the mass mobilization of individuals challenging patriarchal systems of power, and a message of masses of people joining together to threaten systems of power is scary to Mattel, the multibillion dollar company behind the Barbie toy brand and a major production company behind the film.

A multibillion dollar company has appointed itself the flagbearer of feminism, and we are being hoodwinked into believing that the mere act of paying $12 and sitting for two hours is a feminist act, when all Barbie is doing is steering your righteous anger away from useful solutions long enough for the anger to dissipate. In that regard, the very basis of Barbie is dystopian.

It is no coincidence that the only time in the entire film where women fight patriarchy as a social organization, and not as individuals, is in Barbieland. The Barbies trick the Kens into giving up power by preying on stereotypical male traits, an event that is conspicuously portrayed as a joke secluded in a fantasy world when the truth is that that type of organization is what is necessary to end patriarchy!

So, in summary: having watched Barbie, I know that ending the patriarchy is a fantasy, women are irrevocably catty and judgmental, no woman is free from the alluring sway of patriarchy, and while the movie made me feel good, it turns out the only way to defeat patriarchy in real life is to have conversations. LOTS of conversations.

This is a “feminist film?” Oh, please. Don’t make me laugh.