Hi! It’s Annie!
I’ve said for a while that at the end of the strike, this was the very first thing I was going to write about. ‘Barbie’ went viral for many reasons, one of those being the movie outfits and everyone greeting each other with “Hey, Barbie!” as they entered the theater. But anyone could tell you that the pink and cute aesthetic was far from the most important thing about this movie. This movie is the movie for women. It was written by women for women and completely about how it is to be a woman and the experiences we all universally have. I love Greta Gerwig as a filmmaker in the way she talks about women’s experiences in general. I remember crying at Jo’s speech about how she wanted to be loved but also wanted to prove that women were good for more than that. And this time there was an even more impactful speech that left the entire theater in tears. I’m going to go through some of the most real scenes in ‘Barbie’ and why they are so incredibly impactful.
Real World:
When ‘Barbie’ first gets into the real world, she and Ken have massively different experiences simply by observing how the people around them are looking at them. While Ken feels respect and a massive ego boost, Barbie marvels at how she feels extreme hostility to the point where she fears for her own safety. The way she’s objectified in the scene is completely relatable to pretty much all women. I don’t think you’ll find a woman who hasn’t been in a situation around a man where they felt unsafe because of his presence. Personally, I will sometimes get a negative gut feeling the first time I meet a guy. It’s rare, but it happens. The scariest part of it is that I have yet to be proved wrong when I have that gut feeling. Every man I have ever felt that about ended up being an unsafe person to be around. Women are constantly pulled back and forth because of these gut instincts. We will have an instinct that a guy is into us but decide not to trust it because we feel like we don’t have enough information about that person and we don’t want to confront anything. Or even more dangerously we can be convinced to disregard the negative gut feelings we have. Gut feelings like this are built up over time because of experiences we have or observations that are then stored in our brains without having to think about them. Often times we don’t know where they come from, but we know they came from some sort of learned experience. They are for a reason. Don’t ever let anyone tell you not to trust your instincts.
Ken’s Rule:
When the Ken’s take over Barbie world and all of the Barbies are brainwashed, a lot of different experiences come up. For example, the Kens impressing the Barbies but also refusing to commit to them and otherwise being really disrespectful. The only way to un-brainwash the Barbies is to tell them truths about the patriarchy. One of the truths that America Ferrera’s character tells Barbie herself is that there is no reason to feel bad for Ken. While she may have crossed an emotional boundary with him; it was him who crossed boundaries with his actions by stealing her house and brainwashing her friends. This seems to happen all the time. I’ve said this before and I will say it again, I have never been so disrespected as when I attempted to enter the dating field. I have had guys talk down to me about my own hobbies or my career choices only for them to then talk about how great their own choices are. There’s sometimes this feeling as a woman that most men don’t want to be with you unless they can be sure that they are more intelligent than you are. These blows are always annoying and obvious. The worst blows come from men who assume they know the right answer and call themselves allies when they are actually spewing sexist views. Like when they compare something that they’ve gone through to a common problem that women face. I’ve actually had this happen recently. While the comparison can sometimes seem close, it is unfair to compare patriarchal societal behavior to a common issue. This can sometimes look like a guy saying that they feel bad for the way men treat their female friends and then say that they don’t understand why those women date the men that they do. As if they know better for them than their female friends. Or it can look like a guy comparing a situation he was in directly to an issue that women regularly talk about suffering from. There are exceptions, but for the most part this isn’t great to hear from a guy who you’re close with. Just like Barbie doesn’t just leave Ken, I’m not saying that this is a reason to drop your friends unless you’ve communicated the issue with them and they are still being unreasonable. But these remarks from people close to us can hurt more than the obvious ones.
The Speech:
America Ferrera’s speech was definitely one of the most impactful pieces of the movie. I will never forget sitting in a theater of almost entirely women for my first viewing of this film and sobbing while looking around and seeing everyone else sobbing at this scene as well. The speech is prolific and it covers everything from the slack that women have to pick up when it comes to men to the way society expects us to act. It includes how women are expected to be thin and pretty but are not supposed to be so much so that we tempt men because that would be stealing them from other women. All of these things come up constantly for women and are nothing short of ridiculous. Women are expected to be completely complacent to the way men act and are then blamed for the way men act anyways. We have to do what they say but we also have to take responsibility for them. When a mistake is made, women are expected to carry all of the shame and all of the weight while the man gets to go about his life as if nothing happened. I can’t explain this speech better than the speech itself so I highly recommend going to watch it, but it is too real to the point of being incredibly sad. This speech in itself is a reason why every person should watch this movie. Not just women, but men too. They should know what we experience too and they should be helping, But, obviously, there’s no relying on them here.
Men have treated women horribly for ages and there’s still things we have to work on. I often don’t know how to broach topics with men when they say something sexist, especially when they say it accidentally and I know for a fact that they didn’t mean it. I am very sick of being blamed for the behaviors of men and it isn’t my job to educate them. But I hope that I’ll get to the point where I do get confrontational about things like that because it’s important. It doesn’t matter what my relationship with these people are, it’s important that we all start speaking our truth and this move showed me that more than anything else recently. One thing I do know, is that I’m going to stop blaming myself for things that men do because it only hurts me when I’m the one who got hurt to begin with. Women are stronger than we are given credit for and we don’t need men in our life to be meaningful by ourselves.
See you across the pond!
Sincerely, Annie
Oreos & Peanut Butter 