Like almost everyone else on planet earth and parts of the known galaxy, I’ve heard the outraged opinions about the Barbie movie from both the right and the left. And to be fair, there is some truth to a lot of it. I will do my very best to avoid that. I mean, enough is enough, right? I do not subscribe to the tribalist mindset. Not only do I believe we can bring both tribes together, I think we have to. If we are going to survive as a country and a species, we have to find our way back from the edge.

In so saying, I appreciate a lot of what the Barbie movie had to offer. Did I like it? Parts of it, I did. Were there parts that were poop-trash? Yeah, there were, for sure. But try, if you can, to set aside your biases and pretend that this is just a movie about a child’s doll. Because at its core, that is exactly what it is.

Check your lenses at the concessions stand

Advice to the right-wing Barbie movie haters…you need to stop viewing this through the lense of the problems of current culture. Remember, movies are (for the most part) supposed to be an escape from those things. If you do that, there is a movie here that has some redeeming qualities.

Offering advice to Hollywood about excising woke from their movies is a lesson in futility. And, in this case, the clash of political ideolgies only served to sell more tickets for Barbie. Was it part of the plan for this movie to become a standard-bearer for wokeness? Don’t know. What I do know is that this movie contained a metric shite-ton of wokeness even as it overtly ridiculed same. I found this to be curious, hilarious and disheartening in turn. Everything about this movie is appealing to a certain sub-culture of society. Again, this is a child’s toy. Specifically, a female child’s toy. That there are a lot of adult men excited for this movie is…well…insert eye-roll here.

Okay, now that I have that all out of the way, lets look at the things I liked about Barbie. From the git-go, this movie reminded me of Wreck-It-Ralph…an inanimate thing (or block of code that has not achieved AI status…yet) that has now realized that there is a bigger existence than previously imagined. This part was fun. Toy Story did it better, but whatever.

‘There is no Ken without Barbie’

The status of Ken as an accessory of Barbie and his existential angst over that was hilarious. And in the world of Barbie, totally true. Nothing to get bent out of shape over. Or to cheer for. Remember…it’s Barbieworld. The world of a little girl. Feminists who love this as a champion of their cause or right-wing anti-wokers alike are overlooking the fact that Kenneth Sean ‘Ken’ Carson has been a Barbie accessory for 62 years. Stop trying to coopt him for your respective causes. Jeez.

Then Barbie took a page from Pleasantville. Societal norms are tested and shattered by this new truth. Cartoonish emotional reactions ensue: fear, disgust, denial, rejection. Margo Robbie portrayed a sentient child toy’s journey through all these stages quite well. Again, we saw it done to perfection with Buzz Lightyear, but whatever.

Sometimes less is more

Finally, the Barbie movie shoehorned Pinocchio in. Having seen and heard too much, Barbie couldn’t be happy with her life of ease and excess and perfection. The fog of illusion was dispersed. No closing Pandora’s box (giggety). Adding this element is a lot to digest in one movie and something had to suffer. In retrospect, it might have been a good idea to explore this path in Barbie 2: the Awakening. But whatever.

There is a lot more that could have been left out of the Barbie movie that would have made it so much better and so much less of a controversy. The woke-embracing, angry, entitled bully-child was cliche’ and unnecessary. Worse, it was poorly done. Same thing with the Mattel boardroom filled with corportate suckups headed by a man-child (played by a completely un-funny Will Ferrell). Totally gratuitous. And don’t get me started on the mega-cringe anti-patriarchy diatribe spewed in the final reel. Puh. Leez.

To try and sum it all up and failing miserably…

I get that maybe adult women would want to see Barbie. Nostalgia. Fashion. Girl stuff. Even a reminder that women can achieve greatness in their own right. Not that anyone needed that reminder. It’s common knowledge at this point and Barbie over the decades had something to do with that. Much in the same way, dudes love seeing a Transformers or G.I. Joe movie. Cool tech toys come to life. ‘Splosions. Good childhood memories. It’s not quite the same but you get the point.

Trying to turn Barbie into a woke commentary on patriarchy fails utterly because in doing that you have to recognize that Barbieworld is a matriarchy on steroids. Or estrogen. Or whatever. You can’t really promote the one without recognizing the other. That would be blatant hypocrisy. Sadly, this movie tried to do exactly that. Even the most dishonest intellectual observation has to acknowledge this. Just a gentle scratch of the surface on the Barbie movie reveals so much that is antithetical to woke ideology that it melts my brain. Which brings me to my final point…

It kind of annoys me when I see the major right-wing talking heads trying to brow-beat us with the anti-woke battle cry. My dudes, we get it. We got it a long time ago. Believe it or not, we are smart enough to see what you all see and brave enough to take appropriate action. And we are smart enough to watch the Barbie movie and not get unconsciously indoctrinated into the ranks of woke. Let a word to the wise be enough and trust us.

After all of this, I’m giving Barbie a 3/5. There’s a lot of fun in this movie. Unfortunately, it gets blunted or outright abandoned in the third reel (that’s an ancient projectionist term. Look it up). Enjoy it if you dare. Remember that doll and movie alike are pretty much just plastic. And sorry for the Pandora’s box (giggety) joke. Couldn’t help myself.

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