Barbie is BroKen Beyond Repair

The Barbie movie, as well as its world and characters, are confused, broken, preachy, reductive, and so much more. Time to explore why.

Thank you to HP Lefty for the fantastic pixel art of "Krenk".

00:00 - Preamble
06:32 - The "Good" Bits
08:45 - Welcome to Barbieland
14:58 - The Weird Call to Adventure
19:58 - The Social Commentary Begins
24:28 - FBI/Mattel Subplot
27:48 - The Impact of Barbie
29:17 - Ken Discovers Patriarchy
34:51 - Of Patriarchy and Brainwashing
43:36 - Woman/Daughter Subplot
48:03 - Depression Barbie
54:49 - Weird and Ugly
58:11 - I Am Woman, Hear Me Reeeee
1:09:06 - Lies! Deception!
1:14:56 - The Supreme Court Joke
1:20:29 - Real Human Being
1:21:41 - Conclusion
1:27:40 - Outro

[zyxxy]

The weirdest thing, to me, is that mattel board (who are 50/50 male and female) agreed to be represented as completely male and dumb in this movie - bizarre.

[SquareViking]

I distinctly remember a pregnant Barbie where you could pop off her stomach and PRESTO; a baby.
Imagine that nightmare fuel in Barbie world.

[Dalieday]

Honestly I didn't expect myself to root for Ken of all characters. He is dumb, stupid, obsessed and weak... and yet he is the only character who seems to actually have the guts to fight as an underdog. And instead of maturing and having a more nuanced view of the world, he just gets crushed. My poor heart...

[AnaatthiGozo]

I don't have much else to say that hasn't been already, but Barbie pretending to like Ken's guitar for four hours and then tricking him really made me feel sorry for Ken. Being supportive of each others' interests is something I find extremely important in a relationship

[Etherlad]

Barbie is strawmanning feminist talking points so much that it comes off as satire, and it's easy to assume that the movie is very clever by making fun of both sides. But when you watch and read interviews with Gerwig, that assumption is quickly put to rest.

[grandarkfang_]

This film may be broken beyond repair, but we gotta remember, lads: that we are Kenough.

[dandare]

It is Kenceptually broken, but inKencivably it has Kenly on point message about Men being actually Kenough.

[TheMPExperience]

New subscriber here! Spent the last couple of weeks bingeing all your Rings of Power, and Hobbit videos. I not only am very entertained but I also learned a lot about writing good screenplays and fantasy stories. And I clicked immediately when I saw the Barbie premier. Keep up the great work.

[silverswordsmith]

You know, I think I would like to go back to the days of the animated Barbie movies that were re-imaginings of classic stories with actually pretty darn decent voice acting and a clear effort to be creative.

[Andreamom]

13:40 I've seen girls play with Barbies, and I have played with Barbies, and I've never seen girls in real life play like Barbieland. Ken is either a friend or boyfriend, and when a girl is done interacting with him, he "goes to work, " which is usually something vague and businessy where he gets rich and is powerful and successful so he can give Barbie presents and take her out to eat and on trips. Ken is sweet to Barbie and Barbie is sweet to Ken because they are either friends or "in love."

This was one of my main problems with the plot of the movie. Girls DON'T play with Ken and Barbie like Barbieland. Barbie treats Ken like poo in Barbieland. I've never seen that in real life. Girls playing want a happy home (hubby and kids) or romance or a successful career woman with a successful boyfriend/hubby. They don't want "girls night" and ignoring Ken. So Barbieland ISN'T the representation of girls' play, yet it also isn't any sort of reflection of the actual world we live in or even the "real world" of the movie. It doesn't make sense. (I thought Ken working at "Beach" was hilarious, though.)

[maykechi]

Sasha: "Where do the Ken's Sleep?"
Barbie: "Lol Idk"
Fun fact: Males consistently make up the majority of the homeless population, as you stated.
1 minute later when the Kens went full Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité:
Barbie: "You can't do that Barbieland was perfect!"

[cranberryrosebud]

As a woman, I'm starting to really wonder if a well-made, well-written movie worthy of being taken seriously, yet generally of a feel-good nature, that also includes things women tend to like, like notable fashion and pop music, with a female protagonist that goes on the very basic arc of following a certain worldview, having said worldview being challenged, and ultimately changing as a person, is so much to ask for.
They did it with Clueless back in 1995 - it can not be that hard.

Don't even get me started on the people that come in like, "oh, it's just a movie about barbies, why are you men so angry, meh meh meh bla bla bla", because Greta Gerwig and co. brought this on themselves by shoving this movie into the current political conversation.
If it had just been chill, as chick-flicks and feel-good summer movies used to be, it probably wouldn't be the subject of so much in-depth media analysis, and if it had been particularly creative or had particularly strong writing, it might have even been put in the spotlight due to its high quality. Instead, RFT is able to make a well-reasoned video like this, that just so happens to not look upon this movie very favourably - and that isn't due to him being a man or misogynistic, that's just because the film sucks balls.
You don't want men getting grumpy and raining all over your favourite movie? Demand better female-targetted entertainment then. I'd join that cause in a heartbeat.

Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed this video, Random! Entertaining and digestible as always, it really didn't feel like 90 minutes at all (:

[Aspie_Aunty]

We live in a world where a Barbie movie my 7 year old neice watched is more politically charged than a movie about the inventor of the Atomic Bomb, THIS IS WHY THE ALIENS HAVEN'T INVADED

[spartan]

The fact that this “movie” managed to propaganda so hard they accidentally parodied themselves is the funniest thing I’ve seen in years

[zoom]

But, but, Random what about the hobbitses autopsy precious?

[sebastiankrutschoff]

Women, find a man who hates every peril you face as much as RFT hates bad writing.

[Srhuevos]

You missed that the Kens are singing a song about a man getting abused by his girlfriend. The film attempts to frame this like this is the men saying they will abuse the barbies, but the song at that chorus switches to the view point of the abuser. What is actually happening is that the kens are calling out the barbies for manipulating them for decades.

[dontree]

He said women and men a physically different, he said the thing. Let's get him.

[AnotherJenn]

Women tend to spend time with other women that have similar interests and life experience. Therefore, working women hang out with women with jobs, stay at home moms hang out with other moms, etc, etc. I was a full-time mom while I raised my kids. When I was with my friends, we talked a lot about our kids and having babies. Nobody was ever bored of the subject because it was the focus of our lives. The writers of the Barbie Movie have a very narrow view on womanhood while claiming to speak for all women.

[rise-my-angel]

Barbie land would've actually been a lot funnier, if the barbies were treated like actual barbie dolls for individual use. Just in the middle of a conversation, one's head pops off but they just keep talking because it's entirely normal. There's so many barbies in Barbie land that they all have to fight whose going to be the president barbie or the firefighter barbie and there's just the right amount of Ken's to equally take over some of the jobs and try and settle some of the chaos of all the barbies.

If they really wanted a social message, maybe have some sub plot about how the president barbies are mad because now Ken thinks he's doing a better job, but they resolve it by simply comparing how effective he is versus them and how him being a Ken has nothing to do with it, and merely that he just had better ideas. Some other jobs the Kens took over go back to the Barbies because those Kens are worse at the job, and they realize that hey, letting the Barbies run things all on their own led to all this chaos and maybe we need to work together now to prevent it in the future.

I don't know, but something had to be better then this. This cannot be the best plot someone suggested in the writers room.

They don't go to the real world ever, because this movie's portrayal of men actually makes me loose brain cells.