ON HOW FEMINISM INFILTRED WITH THE TROJAN HORSE OR RATHER WITH THE FILM ‘BARBIE’

2023-07-24 12:35:32

ON HOW FEMINISM INFILTRED WITH THE TROJAN HORSE OR RATHER WITH THE FILM ‘BARBIE’
Laura Triviño Cabrera

Some heels with a pink pompom appear, tiptoe feet and a total stage pink. There is no doubt, it is Barbie. If we did not have enough with the rise of post-machismo and with it, the macho hoaxes, the increase in hate speech towards women and the danger of a setback in the conquest of human rights; a film appears whose protagonist is a doll that has imposed a canon of feminine beauty for generations of girls for decades: western white woman, blonde, blue-eyed, thin, young, heterosexual and without functional diversity. Barbie represents the ‘physical perfection’ that every woman wanted to achieve and that every man wanted to possess. And all that dream world is painted pink, the color that has served to strengthen gender stereotypes; despite the fact that it was not always like that, and precisely, the color blue served to identify women in the West until the 20th century.

In addition, the absurd idea that to be a feminist you have to reject the color pink has spread. Some of our students come to think that the feminist movement “forbids” them to wear the color pink. Well, for all those women who yearn to claim pink because that ‘so bad’ feminism won’t let them, one of the greatest cultural and commercial phenomena of all time is presented that dyes movie theaters, multinational clothing collections, gastronomy, kitchen and bathroom accessories, etc. pink. Everything you can imagine turns into pink in honor of Barbie, the iconic doll known worldwide and criticized for her superficiality by the feminist movement and whose appearance congratulates the machismo of yesteryear and recovers the idea of ​​women as fair sex.

part of the public hater It has relaxed because, in this film, its actress is exactly the same as the doll and it has respected the icon, unlike the new Little Mermaid, the African-American actress Halle Bailey, whose film is not worth seeing, for some and some, because it has ‘ruined’ childhood memories by not being represented by an actress who resembles a white-skinned, red-haired, blue-eyed mermaid.

But it is that Barbie or rather its director, Greta Gerwig, has played her feminist cards very intelligently. Don’t you want ‘forced inclusion’ when it comes to the female lead? Don’t worry, we will put the “steotypical barbie” (blonde, blue eyes, tall and thin) as the protagonist and you will have a great time with all the merchandising, the childhood memories with your Barbies and the selfies playing at being #Barbie on social networks. Everything, just as you imagine, superficial, fantastic and very plastic, just as the hegemonic industries and the media mark.

And as secondary dolls, you will allow us to accept that there are other Barbies corresponding to the inclusive line (different races, weight, height, functional diversity…); just as you did with the Disney princesses from different countries and cultures (as long as they are protagonists of their stories in their geographical areas and do not star in the ‘only Story’, the western story).

Even Barbie has awakened from the patriarchal cave and has returned to educate you in feminism, not from the classroom – because you could tell us that we impose gender ideology… – but from crowded movie theaters, to which the public goes voluntarily, paying their admission. And if you turned all your hatred towards The Little Mermaid for a black protagonist, you can’t even imagine how white and blonde Barbie is scoring goals in your own goal and here are the keys (spoiler attention):

1. Barbie does not have the vital objective of being a mother, she never had any pretensions that girls were. In fact, Barbie’s motto is “you can be what you want to be”, aimed at girls aspiring to practice any profession. At the beginning of the film, it is explained that this doll is created as an alternative to the exhaustion of girls who could only play motherhood through their baby dolls.

2. Barbie is not in love with Ken. The audience will watch the movie, hoping that Barbie and Ken end up together because that’s exactly what they accustom us to, that there is no happy ending if there isn’t a happy couple (something that does happen in The Little Mermaid). Barbie not only shows no interest in Ken, but she shows no interest in finding a partner. This leads to an identity crisis for Ken who doesn’t know who he is, without Barbie. She already says it on the poster: She is everything and He is only Ken. Barbie doesn’t need Ken to feel valued. In fact, when the merits of a Barbie in her profession are recognized, she adds: “I deserve it.” Goodbye, impostor syndrome. On the opposite side, there are the Kens who, when they establish the patriarchy, need Barbies to listen to them for hours in silence and to have to explain things they ‘don’t know’, the mansplaining of the real world… When the Barbies take back Barbieland, Ken starts crying and doesn’t want anyone to look at him in tears. Once again, the need to deconstruct the stereotype that men do not cry is emphasized.

3. Barbieland can be a kind of feminist utopia because sorority is the fundamental axis and Barbies govern the institutions, they exercise all professions (from workers, portfolios, doctors…), they have their own houses and cars, they are educated, very happy, they maintain security and order and an important fact, they ignore the Kens. The Kens are one more accessory of the Barbies. In fact, Ken is created as if he were Barbie’s ‘rib’, a pop challenge to the biblical story. And this leads to Ken feeling admired and comfortable in the real world, and encourages him to bring the patriarchy to Barbieland. Ken feels inspired by characters like Rocky or Danny Zucco and manages to brainwash the Barbies so that they feel happy living subject to masculine desires and abandoning their professions. Little by little, Barbieland is a place where chaos, dirt and the reduction of women to mere decorations, devoid of aspirations dominate; with the danger of repealing the Barbieland Constitution and, therefore, the rights of Barbies to be who they want to be.

4. In this film, the solution to patriarchy is implicitly proposed. The women and some men escaping that toxic masculinity, represented in Alan have to come together and have to talk about their own intersectional and intergenerational life experiences. This is how they wake up from their oppression, sharing their anxieties, their problems, their hopes and their goals. Once the Barbies have ceased to be puppets in the hands of men and have broken their mental and physical chains, they defeat men, inducing rivalries among themselves. Precisely, it is one of the strategies that the patriarchy has used with women, getting them to compete among themselves to be the most beautiful, the most desired, the most perfect… Finally, the women manage to restore their Constitution and the government of the Barbies. Therefore, a majority of women in governments would ensure the strengthening of a culture of peace and social welfare.

5. Barbie questions her own portrayal as stereotypical and when she comes back from the real world, she becomes depressed barbie. Also, physically, when she observes that her feet are flat, Barbie states that if she always had flat feet she would be unable to wear heels. A hint to that real world in which women feel compelled to wear heels and the corresponding pain of wearing them. Barbie evolves from her plasticity towards her feminist rationality, with philosophical reflections on human existence and the need to stop being an infinite idea, an object at the service of others, to be a person who creates meaning, a subject who thinks. She doesn’t care about imperfections, cellulite, depression, anxiety, sadness, tears… that she will have to assume as a human and as a woman in a patriarchal society, if she leaves behind being a doll run by a multinational in the hands of men. Here is another key. In this film, the creator of the doll, Ruth Handler, is recognized because women are producers, although it is difficult for them to reach positions of power in multinationals, evidencing the glass ceiling. Barbie is disappointed when she observes that, at the top of Mattel, there are only men governing how Barbies have to be for girls. For this reason, the encounter between the creator (Handler) and her Barbie doll of hers is so relevant. In fact, there is a caveat. The patriarchy imposed by the Kens sweeps sales and becomes a commercial success. Therefore, feminism sells but it may stop selling and be outdated, and be replaced by a post-machismo like the one that is spreading and becoming fashionable, having its own places of expansion, what is known as the manosphere.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is no longer stereotypical, she is feminist. Barbie is not an object, she is a subject that thinks, creates and, in the end, leaves behind the color pink. However, before, with a spectacular marketing campaign, it has managed to attract an audience that would not imagine that it would go to the cinema, to see a film that, with intelligent feminist humor, makes you think about the reality of a macho world, the possibilities of a feminist utopia and the strategies of women to achieve their rights and that of all the people who find themselves oppressed and excluded by the patriarchal capitalist system. But she remembers, the feminist world needs an indestructible, intersectional alliance of all women to fight the patriarchy.