Barbie trailer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I loved the movie I agrees the message was a bit heavy handed in places. But I interpreted that as necessary. Yes, some (most?) of the audience would understand a more subtle message. But not everyone would have Gerwig knew this movie would get picked apart. She wasn’t leaving room for error or misinterpretation about the intent. I am ok with that. There were still a lot of more subtle messages built in as well (Barbie and Ken’s relationship)

Fwiw, no one has said that Oppenheimer/Nolan talked down to or was condescending to the audience.

I haven't seen either movie yet (when school starts, DH and I will see both of them in the theater). People have had a lot of reactions to both movies, but only one was considered heavy handed.

Only one of them was heavy-handed and only one of them lectured the audience. Oppenheimer presumed its audience had more than one brain cell. Barbie didn’t.

I am the PP upthread who like it was a bit heavy handed. I totally disagree that the heavy handiness implied the audience wasn’t intelligent. I don’t think that at all. I just think this move was ripe for attempts to misinterpret it (see pp re: Barbie’s genitals) and they wanted to be explicit in a couple scenes about the primary points. It’s not like the whole movie was that way; in fact a lot of it was light hearted and silly.

Also Oppenheimer didn’t have some grand social message to get across.

I don’t understand how the point that Barbie is considered a real woman in the real world because she presumably now has genitalia is misinterpretation. Did you hear the last line? That was extremely clear.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It was only preachy for those who didn't like the message. Just like Fox News is preachy for those who don't agree with their message. Otherwise it's just fun on air banter and news, right?.....

Do you mean the message that while Hari Nef might be a Barbie in fake Barbie-land, Barbie only becomes a true woman after she gets female biology? That true womanhood is achieved by female reproductive status? That message?

Out if curiosity, are you the PP from up-thread who was convinced that anyone who didn’t like the movie was a Trump voter? I’m sort of fascinated by what it must be like to be so blindingly partisan.

WHAT???

People see things through their own lenses, obviously. That was not at all a message I got from the movie. Hahaha!

And where is that message wrong, exactly?

Barbie became a “true woman” when she made the choice to become a “true woman.” That’s where that message is wrong.

Now cue the “what is a woman??” idiocy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I loved the movie I agrees the message was a bit heavy handed in places. But I interpreted that as necessary. Yes, some (most?) of the audience would understand a more subtle message. But not everyone would have Gerwig knew this movie would get picked apart. She wasn’t leaving room for error or misinterpretation about the intent. I am ok with that. There were still a lot of more subtle messages built in as well (Barbie and Ken’s relationship)

Fwiw, no one has said that Oppenheimer/Nolan talked down to or was condescending to the audience.

I haven't seen either movie yet (when school starts, DH and I will see both of them in the theater). People have had a lot of reactions to both movies, but only one was considered heavy handed.

Only one of them was heavy-handed and only one of them lectured the audience. Oppenheimer presumed its audience had more than one brain cell. Barbie didn’t.

Well look at who Barbie is appealing to. Barbie appeals to certain types.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s clear that while people are going to see the movie, that doesn’t mean the movie is actually that great.

+1

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Anyone bummed they didn’t get together in the end?

I think they missed an opportunity for Barbie to realize how self-centered she was in terms of taking Ken for granted.

No, not at all bummed. “True love” isn’t the only answer to having a fulfilling life. Ken was an abusive stalker. He shouldn’t be rewarded for that. Barbie should have apologized and did, but she doesn’t owe him a relationship.

Huh? He was just an airhead dud.

And Barbie was a valid, self-centered, materialistic twit who completely lacked any awareness. But she seemingly grew throughout the movie…so why couldn’t his character grow?

He can, and did, I think. Doesn’t mean she should be his girlfriend.

+1. My daughter had a very good male friend who started seeing her as more than a friend about 6 months ago. She was honest with him that she did not return the feelings and they stayed very close. Recently he blew up at her and ended their friendship because (I kid you not) “she should have changed her mind by now.”

No one owes another person romantic feelings, even if that person is a wonderful friend. I think it was really important they didn’t get together and for Ken to understand that simply being someone’s friend or liking them obligated them to one day feel more.

I had a male best friend for six years who did the same thing. Doesn’t make him abusive. He was in love with me. He dated other women but always hoped I’d change my mind. He got pretty upset with me one night. It was pretty upsetting. And he was angry but he wasn’t harmful to me.

Life went on and we married other people. He’s a wonderful person and father of three. Not an abusive jerk.

I’ve been happily married 16 years. My husband and I saw Barbie together. We felt pretty sad that they chose for Barbie and Ken to not end up together. Felt like it it was a missed moment to show how men and women can develop understanding and evolve together.

Not really surprising though. This was made by Gerwig and Baumbach. I generally find both of their movies and takes on romantic relationships insufferable.

[Anonymous]

^^^I should add while I can’t stand Gerwig/Baimbach, I was there for the spectacle. Robbie was masterful in her way. Gosling was hilarious, sweet, and kind of subversive in undermining the writing team, I felt. I was cheering him on. Kate McKinnon is always perfection.

Loved the set design, costumes, and camerawork. Hated Ruth’s mom speech so much. Was pretty much eye-rolling at Gerwig the whole time because she doesn’t have the freedom to mention that Barbie was originally based on a German sex-doll for grown man. I don’t think you can really address the inherent problem with Barbie without tackling that but Gerwig thought she could get around that. Sorry, she’s not a genius and she lacks real chutzpah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone bummed they didn’t get together in the end?

I think they missed an opportunity for Barbie to realize how self-centered she was in terms of taking Ken for granted.

No, not at all bummed. “True love” isn’t the only answer to having a fulfilling life. Ken was an abusive stalker. He shouldn’t be rewarded for that. Barbie should have apologized and did, but she doesn’t owe him a relationship.

Huh? He was just an airhead dud.

And Barbie was a valid, self-centered, materialistic twit who completely lacked any awareness. But she seemingly grew throughout the movie…so why couldn’t his character grow?

He can, and did, I think. Doesn’t mean she should be his girlfriend.

+1. My daughter had a very good male friend who started seeing her as more than a friend about 6 months ago. She was honest with him that she did not return the feelings and they stayed very close. Recently he blew up at her and ended their friendship because (I kid you not) “she should have changed her mind by now.”

No one owes another person romantic feelings, even if that person is a wonderful friend. I think it was really important they didn’t get together and for Ken to understand that simply being someone’s friend or liking them obligated them to one day feel more.

I had a male best friend for six years who did the same thing. Doesn’t make him abusive. He was in love with me. He dated other women but always hoped I’d change my mind. He got pretty upset with me one night. It was pretty upsetting. And he was angry but he wasn’t harmful to me.

Life went on and we married other people. He’s a wonderful person and father of three. Not an abusive jerk.

I’ve been happily married 16 years. My husband and I saw Barbie together. We felt pretty sad that they chose for Barbie and Ken to not end up together. Felt like it it was a missed moment to show how men and women can develop understanding and evolve together.

Not really surprising though. This was made by Gerwig and Baumbach. I generally find both of their movies and takes on romantic relationships insufferable.

Ken evolved but he hadn't really evolved into boyfriend material - and it was clear that Barbie had an "I choose me" ending. I though it ending with her getting excited to go to the gyno was very sweet - she was no longer "plastic" and perfect, but now was going to run toward every experience life had to offer her, with their ups and downs.

I really enjoyed the movie. I saw a bunch of women crying coming out of our packed theater. I didn't quite have that reaction, but I did appreciate that my husband chose not to give me any lectures about music history on the way home.

[Anonymous]

I saw it with my wife and daughter. It was great. Loved the bit where the narrator broke in to say that casting Margot Robbie maybe wasn't the best choice for a plot point about someone feeling ugly.

It was clear that the movie hit deep for my wife in part simply because Barbies were something she played with a lot as a kid. So, in a way, she was reconnecting with herself as a child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone bummed they didn’t get together in the end?

I think they missed an opportunity for Barbie to realize how self-centered she was in terms of taking Ken for granted.

No, not at all bummed. “True love” isn’t the only answer to having a fulfilling life. Ken was an abusive stalker. He shouldn’t be rewarded for that. Barbie should have apologized and did, but she doesn’t owe him a relationship.

Huh? He was just an airhead dud.

And Barbie was a valid, self-centered, materialistic twit who completely lacked any awareness. But she seemingly grew throughout the movie…so why couldn’t his character grow?

He can, and did, I think. Doesn’t mean she should be his girlfriend.

+1. My daughter had a very good male friend who started seeing her as more than a friend about 6 months ago. She was honest with him that she did not return the feelings and they stayed very close. Recently he blew up at her and ended their friendship because (I kid you not) “she should have changed her mind by now.”

No one owes another person romantic feelings, even if that person is a wonderful friend. I think it was really important they didn’t get together and for Ken to understand that simply being someone’s friend or liking them obligated them to one day feel more.

I had a male best friend for six years who did the same thing. Doesn’t make him abusive. He was in love with me. He dated other women but always hoped I’d change my mind. He got pretty upset with me one night. It was pretty upsetting. And he was angry but he wasn’t harmful to me.

Life went on and we married other people. He’s a wonderful person and father of three. Not an abusive jerk.

I’ve been happily married 16 years. My husband and I saw Barbie together. We felt pretty sad that they chose for Barbie and Ken to not end up together. Felt like it it was a missed moment to show how men and women can develop understanding and evolve together.

Not really surprising though. This was made by Gerwig and Baumbach. I generally find both of their movies and takes on romantic relationships insufferable.

Putting Barbie and Ken together would have ruined the entire movie. Barbie was adamant that she did not feel that way about Ken. Honestly he probably only had feelings for her because he based his whole "life" on her. Idk, I really hate when movies feel the need to force a relationship as if the only happy ending is a partnered one. This seems a very old fashioned way of thinking that women need a man. Maybe Barbie is gay... she did like having girls night every night ;)
Barbie got her happy ending and Ken probably got his own in Barbieland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I loved the movie I agrees the message was a bit heavy handed in places. But I interpreted that as necessary. Yes, some (most?) of the audience would understand a more subtle message. But not everyone would have Gerwig knew this movie would get picked apart. She wasn’t leaving room for error or misinterpretation about the intent. I am ok with that. There were still a lot of more subtle messages built in as well (Barbie and Ken’s relationship)

Fwiw, no one has said that Oppenheimer/Nolan talked down to or was condescending to the audience.

I haven't seen either movie yet (when school starts, DH and I will see both of them in the theater). People have had a lot of reactions to both movies, but only one was considered heavy handed.

Only one of them was heavy-handed and only one of them lectured the audience. Oppenheimer presumed its audience had more than one brain cell. Barbie didn’t.

Well look at who Barbie is appealing to. Barbie appeals to certain types.

It seems to appeal to lots of types? Malala - you know who that is, right? - went with her husband and posed in one of the cutouts. I went with my husband and teenage son and we all loved it. The theater was full of women, men, and kids of all ages, most of them in pink (the guys too), and they all seemed to like it. This weekend it will probably cross the $1 billion box office mark.

Seems like it appeals to a pretty broad cross-section of people

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone bummed they didn’t get together in the end?

I think they missed an opportunity for Barbie to realize how self-centered she was in terms of taking Ken for granted.

No, not at all bummed. “True love” isn’t the only answer to having a fulfilling life. Ken was an abusive stalker. He shouldn’t be rewarded for that. Barbie should have apologized and did, but she doesn’t owe him a relationship.

Huh? He was just an airhead dud.

And Barbie was a valid, self-centered, materialistic twit who completely lacked any awareness. But she seemingly grew throughout the movie…so why couldn’t his character grow?

He did grow, or began to. He realized he needed to define himself for himself, not in relation to Barbie.

Also, you all realize Barbie was a doll, right? She chose to become human. Of course she lacked awareness when she was a doll.

And also - I actually did not realize this - Barbie and Ken are both supposed to be teenagers, I think? I believe I saw Greta Gerwig say that somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I liked about the movie: Amazing costumes and set design. Ryan Gosling was very good and stole the show in every one of his scenes. Loved the nod to the original inventor. In particular, going back to Gosling but really masterful by Gerwig, liked the subtlety of Gosling’s performance and how he straight-up owned how women are relegated to arm candy roles reflective of the man in most movies.

What I didn’t like: Exhaustingly preachy to the point where I thought Gerwig must think her audience has the intelligence of an eggplant. Condescending tokenism in the Barbies. Relationship between mother and daughter was very stereotypical and shallow and therefore plot development on that point felt contrived. In general both mother and daughter were depicted as what a Millenial thinks Gen Z and Gen X are, and they didn’t ring true. Perhaps controversially, thought the last line was stupid, and sad.

Spot on, though I didn't mind the shallowness of the mother-daughter characters or relationship because I think if they'd fleshed those out, it would have detracted from what I think the movie did best, which was create hilarious and believable Barbie and Ken characters who were actually grappling with what it means to be a Barbie and a Ken. The one area I think could have been better in this respect would have been to better develop the relationship between Robbie's Barbie and America Ferreira's character, since ultimately that was more significant than the relationship between mom and daughter. But I think they made the choice to focus more on Barbie and Ken, because Gosling was SO GOOD in that role, and it's hard to argue with that choice.

Agree the end kind of sucked, both the stuff with Ruth (I really hate that line about mothers standing still so their daughter can see how far they've come -- BS martyr complex motherhood that I have no interest in) and the way they ultimately resolved Robbie's character.

I agree with the tokenism criticism EXCEPT that I thought Issa Rae and Hari Nef were both great in their roles and neither of those examples felt like tokenism to me at all even though the casting was. I think they really failed on the question of Barbie and body image and I feel like they used Sharon Rooney's character to sidestep that question in a really hamfisted way. There's never been a Barbie that actually looks like Rooney or Nicola Coughlin who briefly appeared, and everyone knows this, and yet they want us to just pretend for the sake of the movie that this isn't the central criticism of Barbie? Come on.

But I'm actually willing to forgive a lot because of how great the Ken storyline is and how much a lot of the emotional core of the movie resonated with me. I absolutely cried during America Ferrera's monologue about how impossible it is to be a woman, even though I've heard that exact diatribe before,[b] because it's just very true. And I thought the way they handled Barbie's experience in the "real world" and how her experience so thoroughly changes when she's no longer in a place where her personhood, independence, and intelligence aren't just assumed, was pretty resonate. These aren't profound points, but using Barbie to make them was a stroke of genius, and I think Robbie did a good job with it even if her performance wasn't as showy as Gosling's.

This part actually really bugged me.
Yes, it’s hard to be a woman. It’s also hard to be a man. Being a human is just plain hard.

Your latter point is basically what Greta Gerwig said in response to the right-wing backlash against the movie. Ben Shapiro and his ilk are up in arms about it, which I find puzzling. Is it that they don’t like that it is female-centered? Is it that the Kens are marginalized? Because that’s kind of the point - the better goal is equality, not female dominance or male dominance. I can see how that would upset some of the right wing lol

Anyway, she said this: “My hope for the movie is that it's an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of the things that aren't necessarily serving us as either women or men."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone bummed they didn’t get together in the end?

I think they missed an opportunity for Barbie to realize how self-centered she was in terms of taking Ken for granted.

Why would I want them to get together when she didn’t love him in that way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Watched it today and enjoyed the historical references, the costumes, and the jokes.
I also found the movie preachy and the message a bit shallow and tired.
I wish they made it a cute summer movie.

This sums up my feelings about the movie.
Overall it was very enjoyable but I do wish they would have toned down the political message.

It can be both - a cute summer movie and a movie that makes a statement. I thought it accomplished that very well.

I didn’t think it was perfect, but I love that it is making a hell of a lot of money, inspiring a lot of spirited discussion, and clearly speaking to a very wide audience.

I liked Barbie as a kid. But I was in the Kate McKinnon and Greta Gerwig camp. Like them, I sometimes steered mine into Weird Barbie territory I’ve always thought Barbie was a blank slate for everyone to project their feelings onto, and it seems like that’s true.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I just saw it with my sister and we both thought it was just okay. The best parts were the set and costumes. Everyone was cast really well and Ryan Gosling was fantastic and funny. But overall? It was so heavy handed in the writing. It took a very complicated topic and made it so simplistic. I don’t get all the love for the writing team who wrote the script. It really wasn’t that good.

Yes, this. I am also surprised when people discuss the message that resonated. We've been hearing the message over and over for years, e.g., here https://vimeo.com/393253445

What's new and eye-opening did the movie do with the message?

Well, since the issue is still very real, I think it's resonating b/c it's talking to a new generation and the video you posted didn't change anything. I think people are getting riled up b/c it's a movie that really was *for* women and that doesn't happen a lot. It makes people uncomfortable.

And the movie will change everything? You are treating it as a feminist manifesto of sorts, which it is not.

And about a movie for women? Are you posting from the 1950s?

The fact that the movie is a huge financial success will actually make a real difference in terms of what material gets greenlighted and backed, and who gets to write and direct. That’s the point Gerwig made when Little Women was a big success but was snubbed at the Oscars. And it seems like she was right

Maybe, although I am not so sure. The success is very much due to marketing. With a budget of $140 mil, it would be surprising if the move flopped.

This is just not accurate. Many heavily marketed movies don’t meet expectations. This movie made nearly $350 million worldwide in the first weekend it was out. That is just staggering. It far exceeded the modeled box office numbers.

Like which ones?

Barbie's marketing is truly outstanding: https://www.vox.com/2023/7/21/23801727/barbie-movie-marketing-budget-pr-hype-mattel

Time agrees with me https://time.com/6292203/barbie-box-office-women-movies/

“ It’s safe to attribute some of Barbie’s anticipated success to an onslaught of marketing from Mattel and Warner Bros.”

Some, for sure. Also, it kind of beat the box office predictions in an article. Just saying.

It is really interesting how women like to heap scorn on hugely successful projects that are imagined and brought to fruition by other women.

Womanhood is not unified in anyway other than the fact we are women. There have been terrible people in the world who are women, I am glad they were not successful. "Barbie" was just a movie. It is not culturally, socially, or historically significant in anyway. There isn't anything important about it. Nothing. Movie studios are in the business of making money. Barbie was a money making venture, that for some reason some found to be entertaining.

Of course movie studios are in the business of making money. It is hugely important for a movie directed by a woman, produced largely by women, centered on women, and with a mostly female cast, to make so much money. It is breaking every record for movies directed by women, and it will probably be the biggest box office winner of the year.

Money is power in Hollywood and when women emerge from a movie with this much power, that is definitely significant in terms of what movies get made in the future, and who gets to make them.