Barbie: Twitter's Elon Musk Takes A Shot At Blockbuster & Political Resentment Grows
SpaceX founder and noted fan of the letter "X" Elon Musk is coming for America's favorite doll.
After a Twitter user compared Musk randomly changing the social media website's name to X this past weekend — using a photo of Margot Robbie as Barbie to symbolize Twitter and a photo of Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer to symbolize X — Musk hit back. "It you take a shot every time Barbie says the word 'patriarchy', you will pass out before the movie ends," he tweeted, incorrectly placing the comma outside of the parentheses.
Musk is, predictably, the latest in a long string of conservative and right-wing voices going after Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" movie. The film, which sees Robbie's Stereotypical Barbie undergo a massive existential crisis while her overlooked boyfriend Ken (Ryan Gosling) gleefully discovers the patriarchy and wrecks the utopian, female-led Barbie Land, has become a lightning rod for controversy thanks to people who are angry over the film's overtly feminist message. Everyone from Musk to Ben Shapiro to Senator Ted Cruz has thoughts about the "Barbie" movie, whether they're claiming it hates men or it's "pro-China" (that last one is courtesy of Cruz) — so why is the "Barbie" movie whipping conservative voices into such a frenzy?
Conservative commentators have a lot of feelings about the Barbie movie
The "Barbie" movie has drawn considerable ire from critics on the more conservative end of the spectrum, with commentators complaining that Gerwig's film denigrates its male characters. Ben Shapiro posted a lengthy diatribe to his YouTube page about the film — which kicked off with him setting two Barbie dolls, which he presumably purchased for the video, aflame on a grill while pretending it was an "Oppenheimer"-level explosion — where he criticized its major messages. "The basic sort of premise of the film, politically speaking, is that men and women are on two sides and they hate each other. And literally, the only way you can have a happy world is if the women ignore the men and the men ignore the women," Shapiro said, predicting that the film would bomb at the box office.
Florida Representative Matt Gaetz and his wife Ginger attended the film's premiere, after which Ginger took to social media and complained that the movie was anti-family and that Ken, a doll without all of his anatomically correct body parts, was "disappointingly low T" (referring to testosterone). Conservative pundit Matt Walsh also made a YouTube video complaining that the film "bombs innocent families with feminist propaganda," and finally, Ted Cruz said that a map in the film was indoctrinating viewers in favor of China. (The map in question says that England and Asia are next to each other, and countries in it wear crowns.)
Clearly, most people don't agree with the anti-Barbie voices
Shapiro's predictions aside, "Barbie" most certainly did not bomb at the box office. In fact, its pairing alongside Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" led to a huge uptick in ticket sales over the weekend of July 21, and together, the two movies marked the fourth-best box office weekend in Hollywood's history. As of this writing, "Barbie" has crossed the $200 million dollar mark, easily making it the best summer box office opening of 2023. Not only that, but it's kept steady since its release, and stands to earn even more — and Gerwig has set her own record as the movie boasts the highest opening weekend from a female director.
Putting criticism aside for happier things, Kyle Buchanan of the New York Times spoke to Gerwig after the film's $162 million opening weekend, and she was elated that her deceptively personal film based on a toy resonated with so many people. "I'm so grateful," Gerwig told Buchanan. "I'm so amazed. I'm at a loss for words, really. I've been in New York City and spent Thursday and Friday just spot-checking different theaters, listening to the levels and making sure the picture looked nice and trying to relinquish control, which is difficult. But honestly, it's been amazing to walk around and see people in pink. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine something like this."
Critics going after Barbie's anti-patriarchy message are totally missing the point
Ultimately, watching the "Barbie" movie and getting mad about its thoughts on the patriarchy betrays a pretty basic lack of media literacy. The thing that's clearly making conservative pundits like Shapiro and Walsh angry is that, as the movie begins, the Kens are second-class citizens in Barbie Land. After Ken and Barbie go to the real world and Ken realizes men (and perhaps horses) run things out there, though, his worldview is changed, and he transforms Barbie Land into the naively macho "Kendom," complete with minifridges stocked with beer and plenty of flat-screens playing footage of horses.
After the Barbies regain control, though, they do realize that any one group having full and unmitigated power maybe isn't the best idea. That said, the Kens were very, very bad at leading, and they have to learn to be comfortable with themselves, so the Barbies ultimately decide the Kens should work towards having as many rights as women have out in the real world. Ultimately, patriarchy isn't even good for the Kens — they don't like it very much, proving that supremacy is just, well, bad. Is all of this on the nose? Sure. Is it making Gerwig's point, just a bit, when men mock it? Yeah.
As the movie draws to a close, Ken realizes he is "kenough," complete with a sweatshirt which says just that. For the men criticizing the movie, the jury's still out on whether or not they, too, are "kenough."