For some women in China, “Barbie” is more than just a movie — it’s also a litmus test for their partner’s views on feminism and patriarchy.
The movie has prompted intense social media discussion online, media outlets Sixth Tone and the China Project reported this week, prompting women to discuss their own dating experiences.
One user on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu — a photo-sharing site similar to Instagram that’s mostly used by Gen Z women — even shared a guide on Monday for how women can test their boyfriends based on their reaction to the film.
According to the guide, if a man shows hatred for “Barbie” and slams female directors after they leave the theatre, then this man is “stingy” and a “toxic chauvinist,” according to Insider’s translation of the post. Conversely, if a man understands even half of the movie’s themes, “then he is likely a normal guy with normal values and stable emotions,” the user wrote.
Nothing against female directors, but the movie went from pretty damn good to pretty damn boring after a while.
You’ve got a fun and quirky beginning that makes light fun of barbie, mattel and patriarchal society. Then you’ve got the bits where
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Barbie and Ken get to the real world, get arrested twice for doing stupid shit.
This part was funny and for a bit there I felt like it was mainly not about driving a message home, but still had SOME things to say. Great! Then you’ve got the parts where
spoiler
Ken went on his own journey to discover patriarchy (which he thought had something to do with horses and was disappointed to find out it didn’t), Barbie meets her owner’s daughter, goes to Mattel HQ, then gets chased out and rescued by her owner.
Many hilarious moments here, poking lots of fun at patriarchy again, but it never felt like it was too on the nose. I mean I kinda expected that from the trailers and everything.
Where the movie started changing for me was when
spoiler
Barbie, her owner, and the latter’s daughter went back to the Barbie world to help fix the balance, only to find out that the Kens had completely taken over.
While the twist was predictable, it was still interesting because I wanted to know how they would resolve it. But it just kinda… fell off after that? At this point you have the expected low point in the protagonist’s life, and then they figure out how to fix everything, but it was just so… boring and uninspired somehow. By this point, the movie’s quirky and fun nature has worn down its’ course and the
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battle of the Kens
just did nothing for me anymore.
What’s worse, I was expecting
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the Mattel board of directors, particularly Will Ferrell’s characters to be villains and instead they just… arrived by the end of the movie and had a change of heart.
That subverted my expectations for sure, but not in a good way whatsoever. Slightly reminiscent of the last seasons of Game of Thrones.
And lastly, I really expected the resolution of the plot to have something to do with horses and I was sorely disappointed about that too.
TL;DR: Movie starts out great, but foreshadows things it doesn’t follow through on very well, ending is boring and sappy.
About at the part where ::: spoiler spoiler Barbie is comforting Ken on the bed ::: I said to my partner “It feels like this movie has been ending for a while now,” and that was still a good way off from credits. I did appreciate that ::: spoiler spoiler Barbie and Ken didn’t end up together, it was a good message that men and women both need to be okay with themselves before they pursue a relationship. I loved the “I am Kenough” shirt. :::
A few issues I had personally (oops wall of text lol): ::: spoiler spoiler They really hold their punches on toxic masculinity. There are no men who are outright misogynistic and believe women to be subhuman. They’re all just dumb and misguided. They also made a small attempt to point out that patriarchal society is negative for men too with the “sometimes I wish we could all have tickle fights” bit, but I do wish they would have dug a little deeper into how awful it is that men are expected to never have emotions and bottle up. It was also really weird that the kid called Barbie a fascist… It almost felt like they were using that word wrong on purpose to reduce its meaning, or get Republicans in the audience to roll their eyes at the stupid SJW calling everything they don’t like fascist. Also weird that at different points the movie claims Barbie saved women or set them back 50 years…like, it’s just a doll. Yes, a popular doll, but it’s weird to claim women gained or lost power in society solely because of a doll and not through the actions of feminists and antifeminists. :::
I’m general, I’m happy with the film’s lessons, although it feels weird for Hollywood to be the one preaching them to me.
Most of the scenes were pretty enjoyable in isolation. The problem I see is that it feels like they tried to combine two scripts to address the same issue from opposite directions. Either approach could have been good, but each one undercut the other so it just wound up confusedly sabotaging its message.