Review of Barbie (2023) by Nerwan — 21 Jul 2023

There was something very off about this film. It's a surprisingly serious film and not especially funny. I ended up having a really deep and excellent conversation with my wife about it afterwards. She's a feminist and made this really great point. She said, "This film is so keen to talk about women's oppression in the real world that it forgets that it's created a fictional oppressed people in the Barbie world". You can't make an oppressed group and then have them become the villains simply because it suites another part of your story".

Doing so made the film seem very mean spirited and, honestly, quite supremacist. It's treatment of patriarchy is also extremely simplistic which adds to that unpleasant affect. There's no way in hell I'd take my kids to see this. I think it's kinda harmful.