just saw Barbie so here are some (non-spoilery) highlights:
ken becoming DEEPLY obsessed with horses
MULTIPLE highly choreographed dance numbers that last for several minutes
kens job is beach
a tween calls Barbie a fascist (?????? ok screenwriters)
mojo dojo casa house
kens big mink coat having a HORSE THEMED LINING
i know we were deeply obsessed with the outfits but good god. the OUTFITS.
extensive Barbie lore
Barbie’s heart to heart with a lovely old woman
the kens building a wall
beaching one another off
KENS SONG THAT HE SINGS FOR LIKE 5 MINUTES
like twelve executives on one tandem bike
depression Barbie
ALLEN
i am kenough :)
gynecologist.
beautiful beautiful deeply camp coming of age story with layers and so much life. ive gained twenty new sewing projects from the opening shots of Barbieland alone. made my gf cry. 20/10
“The idea of a loving God who’s a mother, a grandmother— who looks at you and says, ‘Honey, you’re doing OK’— is something I feel like I need and I wanted to give to other people. If I cut that scene, I don’t know why I’m making this movie.”
And also the way Barbie and Ken are role playing heterosexuality without any inherent sexuality of their own, without any understanding of what it means, or even any genitals at all! Just pretty-girl + handsome-guy = obviously a couple. And the way it fucks them both up! Because they’re both stereotypes, neither of them is a specialist version, no brain surgery or pilots license or Nobel prize for either of them. They’re just assigned the roles of Every Man and Every Woman. And Ken ends up doing Way Too Much because he’s hanging his entire self-worth on being important to Barbie. And Barbie just isn’t interested in him, she was assigned a boyfriend she didn’t ask for and doesn’t want and doesn’t know what to do with, just because that’s what society expects of men and women, that they will necessarily couple up and fall in love because… that’s what they do. Regardless of any personal quality of either party.
It’s about heteronormativity and amatonormativity and the unrealistic expectations society sets boys and girls up for from infancy. Barbie and Ken are every pair of toddlers sharing a sandbox while the adults around them call them each other’s little “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” even though neither party understands or is capable of understanding the implied meaning of that. Or wants to.
It’s a literal funhouse mirror of that weird pressure put on kids to perform heterosexuality from an early age. It examines how that leaves us unprepared for the complicated reality of actual relationships even if it turns out that you are heterosexual and do want sex and romance. Boys and girls aren’t really allowed to be just kids on the same team, so they grow up into men and women who generally want very different things from each other and are trained to look for it in everybody because anybody is better than nobody, and try to force it to work.
Barbie and Ken letting each other go in the end was perfect. Barbie the Every Woman realizing that she doesn’t have to be special, she just has to be, and Ken the Every Man realizing he has to seek validation elsewhere and lean on his fellow Kens for emotional support, WHICH THEY GIVE.
noooooo i don’t have a praise kink haha….. it’s just a coincidence that my pupils turn into little pink hearts when you tell me i’ve done a good job 🥴🥴🥴
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