Well the Barbie movie has finally come to streaming, and I actually quite enjoyed it. I thought it was successfully funny and absurd, and it didn’t really lose its pacing until the last quarter or so. It was way better than I thought it would be. But to me, what makes Barbie interesting is that from the very beginning it’s full of social commentary and criticism; not just criticizing misogyny, but really, more so, corporatism and greed. And yet, despite that, the film is inevitably a product. A product about a product. And the writers cannot escape the fact that without corporatism and greed, this film would not exist, nor would they as professionals. Watching Barbie is a bit like watching capitalism eat itself, just a little bit. I was not expecting to say that.
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I found the inclusion of Will Ferrell very distracting a) because he is hamming it up and b) his role in The Lego Movie. It and Barbie were telling different types of stories but the parallels were there and to use the same actor play a pivotal role (both authority figures in the "real world") was too much or too meta.
Never saw it. Sounds pretty much exactly like it seemed. Still don't care
…….never mind
Thank you, good one again
Meh. Not for me. Will Ferrell is dead.
You should review 'Infinity Pool' directed by Brandon Cronenberg (son of David Cronenberg), starring Alexander Skarsgård (son of Stellan Skarsgård) which explores themes of inherited privilege. But with a straight face.
This channel has really gone downhill over the past few months
It's commentary was as deep as the commentary that Jurassic World tried to push.
Barbie did it more enjoyably and with more creativity, but its still the same issue
Yeah, I haven't washed yet. Maybe I will if it happens to be on the TV while I'm at somebody's house (the only TV I own I use as a computer monitor, and also I rarely ever visit anyone). I figure every dollar I give them supports groups that play America like a chessboard to win everything and none of them care about the people in the crossfire, or pedophilia groups, or groups who handout fentanyl like TicTac's, or just about every horrible group that's ever existed has have had been already been proven to have a direct link to media INCLUDING THE KKK so. . . . It's impossible to escape, but I minimize it as much as I can. That's why I use Ad Blocker and feel no shame.
It's more like a pink Che Guevara shirt, with golden strass and stuff. A loophole of hyper-self-awareness that gets away with whatever you make of it without any possible demand of explanations
I quite liked Barbie, but I did feel like it just shot itself in the foot many times over. Ken learns about the patriarchy and in the span of 5 minutes, he has the entirety of Barbieland just going along with it? And all it takes to undo their hypnosis or whatever is angrily yelling about the hardships of being a woman – hardships that the Barbie's never would have faced? Then after Barbie learns about just how the Ken's felt and makes amends, she still says "lol no" and puts them right back as second class citizens? I don't get it.
That's not to say that I thought their messaging was necessarily bad, I thought it was really good at certain points, but the last third kinda muddies my feelings on it.
🙂
Really enjoyed seeing the film on opening night. Last show of the day in downtown toronto. Third row seat since it was totally sold out (to the point where they were running out of syrup for soda). Had an absolutely wonderful experience, it was such a funny and creative joint
I feel your pain.
I can’t prove this, but I am 100% certain I saw a tumblr post from years ago that is the monologue by America almost verbatim, because I remember it being half of shit no one ever says or clearly the societal expedition is a mediation between two extremes.
My mum went to the Barbie movie and unlike me, she absolutely loved it. Also unlike me, she then went and voted for the most regressive, self-proclaimed "anti-woke" right-wing government of my lifetime.
5:37 Is that fat shaming? What a geebag.
By this logic nobody can criticise anything, because we’re all part of the system.
I wonder how much CO2 I put into the atmosphere by watching this video.
It didnt explain what payriarchy is because even the top tier feminist intellectuals cant.
i can not get myself to see that movie, how can i be entertained or thought provoked in it? it is hard to see any redeeming qualities in it.
and i have never judge a movie wrong before i see it.
A $40 Che Guevara T-shirt is such a perfect analogy. My only defense is: if you can't use a medium to criticize said medium, then how do you criticize it? An academic dissertation is just going to preach to the choir. If you want to speak to semi-literate dummies, then you've got to use their medium of choice.
The cognitive dissonance in every major piece of media which criticizes the industry in which it resides and profits from has always been an interesting thing to me. It’s almost like fatcat executives are going “yeah, we know it’s corrupt, but we’re on top, and you’ll pay us to keep it that way.”
Zoolander
How you even watched this crap is beyond me.
Wahmen…
Am I right?
‘watching capitalism eat itself’ that’s what it is.
read capitalist realism read capitalist realism read capitalist realism
Did they really do to Barbie what they did to the Smurfs? That's just silly.
I've been a Green party activist in Scotland for over 20 years. Out canvassing I've been harangued by folk saying, "You used your car to transport that stall here, you hypocrite!"
So they feel justified not engaging on the climate emergency because those Greens drove his car 10 miles to set up a stall.
We exist within a capitalist, consumerist society. Short of going to live as a vegan hermit, we are all compromised by it. Good to be aware of that, Georg, but it's not an excuse to dismiss anyone who tries to change things or critique from within.
We're all within it, and even Marx couldn't make the imaginative leap to describe what an alternative might look like.
Within its limitations, I think the makers of Barbie did something really worthwhile. Yes, it has led to a massive spike in Barbie sales and merch, but it also planted seeds in a lot of young minds – maybe even the seeds of its own destruction.
Wouldn't that be worth it? Let's see how it plays out over the next 20 years or so.
What we saw from the movie is what the writers really intended to be.
I'm just glad pink is making a comeback, it can be fun to wear
Your review is the only thing that encouraged me to see the movie.
Isn't this mannequin?
This is a point that has surprisingly been absent from a lot of the reviews and conversations about this movie. Good Vid.
"Do as I say, not as I do", advice from hell.
Well observed.
Then toss in the Barbenheimer memes, and it becomes a total "the joke's on . . .someone . . . " deal.
I'm a dullard so I could be wrong, but didn't some famous philosopher say that we are at a point where an extremely capitalist product like a movie can criticize capitalism itself because no one can imagine a world outside of capitalism anyways? It isn't seem as a threat. At this point we treat our capitalist system as though it was the rain. Can't stop the rain, but we can complain about it.
This is all very well Georg but when are you going to challenge 'The Critical Drinker' to a boxing match? Its what we all want.
to quote GTA IV's I'm Rich, I furiously masturbated to that
I’ll take the role of the critic of the critic. Complaining about the hypocrisy of the capitalist entertainment industry through a video on a platform owned by a multi-billion dollar media company has an absurd twist to it.
Anything on YouTube cannot get away from its media business capitalist association. For a message to be removed from capitalist, entertainment influence it would need to be some pamphlet written and handed out by some worker’s collective.
We are all doing our part to support mega corporations, that includes Barbie and anything on YouTube from George’s video, all the comments, including this one.
I was team Oppenheimer. The Barbie movie is a paradox. Oppenheimer is not as much. You can watch and appreciate both, but one has a more pressing message. Basically, it's the end of the world.
In other words, Barbie does patriarchy quite well.
The possible moral benefit to this movie is it gets people (like you) talking about these issues… our contradictory motivations and desires.
Don't Look Up isn't hypocritical. Individual responsibility is not what's going to fix climate change. We need governments to move the energy industries over to renewables. This will only happen when there is widespread consensus. So Leonardo took a helicopter, it's not good, but he shouldn't lose all credibility because of it.