So is everyone who saw the movie supposed to have the same interpretation of it?
That sounds vaguely sexist.
It's Gerwig who claimed the movie is a feminist film and the critical reactions to the movie with regard to feminism are very mixed.
It's Gerwig who claimed the movie is a feminist film and the critical reactions to the movie with regard to feminism are very mixed.
My read was similar to yours. At least on the film I felt they actually wanted to make and instead only got to hint at. While the primary storyline is there about a woman’s struggle to promote feminism only to be told she’s disparaging the cause of women; I think the second story is more pessimistic. The scene where the men ask for a share of the political power and are explicitly denied is jarring and frankly outrageously unattended to in the end of the film.
The Ken’s are a metaphor for women and the feminist movement. The Barbies are the men. Which kind of fucking brilliant imo. But they decided to water it down and make the ending about Barbie’s individuality and a joke about her vagina.
On the most abstract level, trashing your moment in the sun to ditch your actual plan and instead make a joke about your pussy is pretty meta feminist though. /s?
This is an argument that you put in my mouth.
I just said that the comments from the production-side of the movie were braindead and sexist.
This is all a conversation that _you_ wanted to have.
It is in fact, a humorously ironically relevant argument.
Only if you're in that middle-class, ultra-consumerist "girl-boss" demographic that the movie is marketed/trying to appeal to. That message is largely lost at the margins, as is typical in "pretty, white feminism". You're ignoring the elephant in the room -- any empowerment message takes a back seat to the goals of selling tickets and "buy our shit".
Which is fine, because it's a goddamned studio film. Studio films aren't supposed to be what the movie they thought they were trying to make is.
It ends up being so paint-by-numbers that it subverts whatever they might have wanted to do.
But that is not a blanket excuse to diminish everything it says.
Totally not relevant to the discussion.