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?
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.