Barbenheimer: Public Relations Move or Trojan Horse?
Socialism is worse than communism, patriarchy is immature, and victimhood is a strategy.
I promised myself I wouldn’t write about this. We are choking with Barbie opinion pieces. What is Barbenheimer anyway? Someone invented a name, a term, and we all just went for it? I’m aware it’s just a PR move to get us all back into the theaters, but it worries me how obedient we became.
Why are we listening? How are these two movies even related? You can’t tell me there weren’t films worth seeing last year or so.
I never really dreamt of Barbies. I was one. The last thing I wanted was another me to play with. I did use them to make clothes, try it on them, but I don’t have very many pleasant memories from that time. I used to cut my mother’s fabric to make the clothes, and I didn’t cut from the edge of the fabric, I did it from the middle; an illogical move fitting for a 12-year-old, and my mother wasn’t happy.
I remember her coming home from work, at 3.30 pm, on a dot every day. And every day, I was eager to show her the Barbie with the jacket I made and sewed myself, and she would say: “How could you cut the fabric from the middle, now you ruined it all, all you do is ruin everything … I just realized I forgot her exact speech here. I used to know it by heart and it was the source of my biggest frustration throughout my life, my mother not nurturing my artistic expressions, realizing what I made at 12 years old well surpasses the ruined fabric from Turkey or Italy.
I went on 30 years with an installation in my head - I’m the person who ruins things. The fact this is the first moment in my life I actually don’t recall her exact words of admonishment; it’s a win, friends. I finally won. I don’t care.
I MAKE things.
So, Barbies, yeah.
The movie.
Regarding this subject, reluctant to even add to the chatter, I listened more than I wished to form my opinion.
I read opinion pieces, I read Instagram comments. My collection of favorites is, as follows:
“This doll was the most name-brand touchstone of female body shaming. From that to “Yasss Queen!”. Or is it a Trojan horse?”
“The movie addresses all those issues, it doesn’t gaslit audiences.”
Does it not?
“Barbie has been trying to rebrand their body image since 2016. This isn’t a 180 turn coming out of nowhere. Also, you can absolutely be skeptical of Mattel as a brand using Barbie to give this message, and still agree with the message itself.”
Well, the impact of the message depends on who’s sending the message.
“Women, through Barbie, have been put in a box and men have been put in the box, when both parties just want to be seen and heard and respected by each other for who they are.”
Box depth.
Victimhood strategy.
It isn’t working.
“Women have been a voting majority for over 50 years. White women are the largest voting block, but most of them repeatedly vote Republican. In 2016, white women voted for Trump over Hilary. In 2020 they increased their votes for Trump. In contrast, white men decreased their votes for Trump in 2020. Let’s vote differently and change the rules of the patriarchy in the process.”
Patriarchy?
Barbie just satirized what we all know.
Patriarchy is immature.
It’s infantile.
“The victimhood strategy hasn’t been working. It’s as if women keep looking towards the men to initiate the change.”
They won’t.
I watched Oppenheimer first, Barbie second, per directions, like a good pedestrian who follows orders. I was only going to spend 3.5 hours in the theater for Oppenheimer if Cillian Murphy’s face is attached to that scenario. Luckily it was.
Within 10 minutes of the movie, the deep programming started:
“Socialism is worse than Communism.”
Under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state; under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government.
You’ve been told socialism is a dirty word.
“Socialism is based on the idea that common or public ownership of resources and means of production leads to a more equal society.”
Equal = unwanted.
The same opportunities for everyone are offensive.
“Capitalism is better.”
“It creates people who actively exploit the world for their own benefit and are treated like kings.”
“Contrary to what socialists say, capitalism, with all its warts, is the preferred economic system to bring the masses out of poverty and to make them productive citizens in our country and in countries around the world.”
Warts.
How’s that poverty schedule working so far?
Cillian.
The Angelina of men.
Oppenheimer.
The power of vendetta, jealousy, pettiness.
JFK, always on the right side of consciousness.
"In England, Oppenheimer would have been knighted.”
I went on to research Oppenheimer’s life, and this part scared me. Shitless. Wikipedia says:
“Oppenheimer's ordeal signified that the postwar "messianic role of the scientists" was now at an end. Loyalty and security tests spread throughout the federal government. At these inquiries, federal employees were asked questions such as:
There is a suspicion in your record that you are in sympathy with the underprivileged. Is that true?
Have you ever made statements about the "downtrodden masses" and "underprivileged people”?”
There is a suspicion in your record that you are in sympathy with the underprivileged.
I’m frozen. Caring is suspicious? Offensive? You can’t work for the government if you are in sympathy with the unprivileged.
“Socialism is worse than communism.”
It went over our heads. How cruel America is to its citizens, how skilled it is in presenting the lack of empathy as a quality and any sense of decency, or caring as a weakness.
We’re back in theaters, money is rolling back in, imagination, life is your creation, come on, Barbie, let's go party!