I was thoroughly entertained by the Barbie movie. It was both silly and serious and full of clever humor. By exaggerating and reversing the patriarchal order in the imaginary Barbie Land, the movie highlights inequities in our very real world today.
At the movie’s beginning, it uses satire in relation to the misguided view that sexism and misogyny are things of the past. Helen Mirrin as narrator delivers the line, “Thanks to Barbie all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved.” The theater movie audience erupted in laughter.
The movie pokes fun at modern forms of sexism that attempt to deny the issues, and if you understand the nuances, shows that feminism has a lot of work to do. The vast differences in people’s reactions to this movie may reflect the differences in the capacity to perceive what is presented in this movie. Internalized misogyny is a theme woven through the scenes. When the Sasha character says “Oh come off it. Everyone hates women. Women hate women and men hate women. It is the one thing we can all agree on.” She speaks of the sad truth of how women, via thousands of years of oppression, now self-perpetuate patriarchy because of the process of internalized misogyny.
Studies show us that women that perceive less sexism have more internalized misogyny. This is sad, and scary, because internalized misogyny is what perpetuates relational aggression between women and upholds the patriarchal order. Using Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie character, the movie shows how women use relational aggression to target women that chose authenticity over conformity. The Barbies that meet patriarchal expectations repeat, “We called you weird Barbie behind your back and also to your face.” In this way, women keep other women in line with oppressive societal scripts and norms. It highlights the choice we women face today, “You are either brainwashed or you are weird and ugly, there is no in between.”
In today’s post-me-too world, many hypocritical organizations with well-documented histories of oppressing women and being complicit in the abuse of women, are now attempting to rewrite history and claim they were pro-women all along. Will Farrell, as Mattel’s CEO, on an all-male management team, is hilarious as he fumbles around to show how this is done.
Demonstrating the current state of men’s entitlement to unearned privilege and feeble attempts to keep our world from evolving towards equality, a job-seeking Ken asked his interviewer, “Isn’t being a man enough.” His interviewer’s reply, “Actually right now, it is kind of the opposite.” Ken protested, “You guys are clearly not doing patriarchy very well.” And the interviewer beautifully summed up today’s underground, implicit state of misogyny and sexism with this reply, “We are doing it well, we just hide it better now.”
The movie, and especially its commentary, show us what we are willing to tolerate in the oppression of women, and what we are not willing to tolerate in the oppression of men. If men were to be treated as our society treats women, we can’t let that happen. The movie touches men’s fear of women’s power. The fear that women will use it to oppress them as we have been oppressed. Yet a serious feminist agenda is about equality for everyone, not finding a way to get the upper hand so that we can oppress men. Mature feminism is in the best interest of men also. Anti-Patriarchy is not man vs. woman. I believe the filmmakers, given the depth of nuance in this movie, understood that exaggerating the reverse highlights the extremism and harm done to everyone because we are a patriarchal society.
Yet men’s reaction to this movie is not the only thing that gives me concern. A dimension of internalized misogyny, male prioritization, is seen in much of the commentary by women regarding this movie. Many women may not yet have awareness that the movie may bring up their inner patriarchy-approved role as self sacrificing caregivers. In their analysis, many women are acting on their drive to protect and care for Ken by turning the conversation back to how this movie is unfair to men whom we need to remember, are the dominant group in the patriarchal order. We would not want our empowerment, independence, intelligence or confidence to get in the way of our men feeling needed or powerful would we? Patriarchal conditioning tells us we must make this right. Yet we have left our sisters hanging for thousands of years without action.
Patriarchal society is ridiculous. So ridiculous that it makes for an entertaining movie. Patriarchy is structured in such a way that it creates a lack of emotional and existential depth and robs all people of an authentic sense of self, and their full humanness. Coming to consciousness and reconstructing a healthy sense of self free of patriarchal conditioning is a task for everyone across the gender spectrum. That is hard work, and this is psychological work.
In much commentary, this Barbie Land is supposedly the ideal world. Yet in this so-called ideal world, women can’t speak of real things like death. Women are expected to experience life with a wide smile and exaggerated optimism so as to not to make anyone uncomfortable. We are still here for other people’s service and comfort.
This movie is also a great example of how white supremacy and agism intersect with sexism and misogyny, The stereotypical Barbie, the perfect Barbie, is white, young and pretty. She is the one that is allowed to be the main ideal Barbie. The black and brown Barbies can come to her party, they can even be civil servants as President, but it is white savior Barbie’s party. Older women offer wisdom from the background, in cameo-like appearances they demonstrate that they get it and have risen above patriarchal norms, yet the young, beautiful Barbie is our focus. In Barbie Land, women lack the full spectrum of human expression. Physical attributes are still prioritized because cellulite and Birkenstock-wearing flat feet are terrifying. In Barbie Land, there is still an abdication of value, power and self, because Barbie doesn’t yet know who she is without patriarchy and she still thinks she needs to be pretty in addition to independent and powerful.
Patriarchy wants woman in a box and many women feel safe in that box, especially women that are receiving the benefits of patriarchy. Stepping out of the box is dangerous and if you speak out against the box you will lose benefits. Many women in today’s society don’t want to involve themselves in the cause. Because if they do, they may lose both benefits from men and patriarchy and popularity with other women. Patriarchy-rejecting Weird Barbie is not fully accepted or respected. Yet Weird Barbie gets it, “You have opened a portal…and now there is a rip in the continuum that is the membrane between Barbie Land and the real world…You have to fix the rip yourself.” But white, pretty, ideal Barbie replies, “I don’t want to.”
It does not matter if we want to change or not, patriarchy harms women’s mental health, even those that deny the existence of sexism and misogyny. The movie touches this in the line, “Anxiety, panic attacks and OCD sold separately.” In our real world, we need to realize it is in fact a package deal. It is well-researched that sexism and misogyny are mental health issues. Patriarchal norms harm women’s sense of self. There is a thing that has been identified as Sexism-Based Traumatic Stress and it contributes to PTSD.
So what is the sequel? I suggest the sequel is the individual psychological task we each need to undertake to transform ourselves. To undertake the psychological process of coming into a Woman Informed consciousness that transcends patriarchy. It starts with education and the ability to see what is happening. As a line in the movie suggests, “By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy you robbed it of its power.” We need to understand that patriarchy is not outside of us, it is deeply embedded in each of us. We need to uproot the patriarchy within ourselves and as a result, everyone across the gender spectrum will have greater access to freedom, fulfillment and an authentic sense of self.