Patriarchy According to The Barbie Movie

This video essay uses the Barbie Movie as a primer to help explain what patriarchy actually is, what it isn't, and how it ends up harming everyone, including men.

PATREON
PAYPAL

REFERENCES
• The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy by Allan G Johnson
• The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks
• Masculinities by R. W. Connell

VIDEOS
• Longer supercut of conservatives freaking out
• Longer supercut of fictional characters saying the word patriarchy
• Supercut of fictional male characters saying the word patriarchy
• Julia Fox Takes A lie Detector Test

SUBTITLES
• Help translate this video over on Amara

TEXT TRANSCRIPT
• Coming soon

COMMENTS
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[brandiepop]

the idea of going "how dare they say this word so many times" and then in the next sentence going "i have no clue what it means" is so funny

[ArtemisPearl]

I loved the way the Kens healed their dispute and came together was through an interpretive ballet dance, something often derided for being 'not manly and too feminine'. Through shedding these manly expectations and pressures they come together and are able to support each other

[tritonis]

One thing that amused me during the film is to see the link made between horses and masculinity, while in France (can’t talk for the rest of Europe) horses are strongly associated with women. Shows how all of this is not a grand order, but just cultural.

[wolfboyfilms]

As a male nurse I despise Meet the Parents for its running gag where Ben Stillers character is ridiculed for having a female job.

[dodgyrhubarb]

But what if we tried a system where the power is not held by men or women, but by horses? I think The Barbie Movie really should have explored that idea. I, for one, welcome our new horse overlords. The Neightriarchy, if you will.

[LaurasBookBlog]

Truly incredible how a movie that says "what if . . . we could solve the patriarchy . . . by making men feel more valued?" set so many conservatives a-froth.

[nikolaib]

Babe wake up Pop Culture Detective dropped a new video recontextualizing popular media under a feminist lens in a way that fascinates and educates me!

[trinaq]

I love that Ken was only interested in patriarchy when he thought that it involved horses. They're actually a matriarchal animal.

[Nat_]

I found it a bit of a lost opportunity to not have Ken also face harassment when Barbie and him go into the world in their 80s rollerblade outfits. The harassment women usually get is explicity s-xual with an undertone of violence. But as a gay man, I find the harassment I face to be a mirror image: I get threatened with explicit violence with an undertone of s-xual insecurity. It perhaps could have shown another reason why Ken was so motivated to conform to toxic ideas of what masculinity is

[julenegarcia]

I like how the Barbie Movie calls out "the sisterhood" and how women are toxic to each other as well.

[Leftistattheparty]

Piers Morgan snapping his fingers and everything turns pink is an amount of power that all gays deserve.

[PeteD]

Sometimes I manage to go a while without remembering that Ben Shapiro exists

[Marlin]

If the writers hated Ken so much, why did they give him THE GREATEST MUSICAL PIECE of our generation?

[lice]

Completely off topic, but with the second and third trait of the patriarchy, my mind went to one of my favorite movies, the devil wears prada. It's a heavy and interesting theme in the movie that Miranda was a woman of power, only able to gain the upper hand by qualities that are often considered masculine. Emotionless presenting, tough decisions. But the film interprets her as a villian, even though the protagonist herself stated if the roles were reversed, no one would have a problem. I think its important to realize the harm of this ideal for both men and women.

[rottensquid]

I think there's a pervasive misunderstanding of this film that the Barbie world is "meant" to be a utopia. But the rivalry between the Kens, and the very fact that Kens don't have a place in Barbieland except as a Barbie accessory, is meant to depict the fundamental injustice of inequality in any world, not just a patriarchal one. Of course, I say "meant, " but it's always dicey to presume the intent of the writer. That's just what I took away from it. But I feel pretty confident in saying that Ken's insecurity in his place in the world was ultimately generated by the Barbie World, just as women's insecurity in their place in the real world is generated by patriarchy. Barbieland may not be a patriarchy, but it has the same problems.

And I think it was clever of the film not to resolve this, even after acknowledging it. In the end, there will still be no Kens on the supreme court, let alone the Whitehouse (Pinkhouse?). It's considered progress even to let a second-class citizen like Weird Barbie have a place in the power structure. But Helen Mirren makes the final comment on this, saying that someday, hopefully, Kens will have as many rights as women do in the real world. So long as there's inequality in the real world, it will have its symmetrical mirror in Barbieland.

I also think there's something important about the use of the Kens' irrational jealousies against them. Ultimately, empires tend to destroy themselves in exactly this way, for the very reason that patriarchy still doesn't make Ken happy, and of course, once he's conquered the Barbies, he has to project the cause of his unhappiness on someone else, because he's still not ready to accept that it's his own identity that's causing it. As a means of overthrowing the Kens, perhaps starting a war isn't the way. But turning bullies on one another has a way of weakening their power. I don't think it was a bad story choice. Just one man's opinion.

[JJBeauregard]

It's crazy how often you hear certain buzzwords thrown around seemingly everywhere and nobody actually knows what they even mean.

[Leahcimmichael]

Whar if Ken borrowed a bell hooks book at the library

[HumbleWooper]

I appreciate how your essays point out some of the biggest systemic blind spots in popular media and culture, without shaming anyone on any side of the matter. Zero finger-pointing, guilt-tripping, or blame-throwing. Not at we the viewers, nor at anyone who participated in making or distributing media that has harmful elements in it.
Thank you so much for all your hard work and attention to detail!

[antisocialxconstruct]

The sequence with all the Barbies using the Kens' insecurities to play them against each other always struck me as strangely regressive given the overall sentiment of the movie. Having the big Unified Girl Power moment revolve around all the female characters acting pretty and helpless and feigning interest in their men's passions in order to manipulate those men into compromising their own bid for power and independence feels like.... the exact kind of fearmongering you'd get from "alpha male" tiktoks.

[ChloeOHwowie]

this vidoe is so good, im so happy with the part where he talks about how movies portray male protags as just normal human stories, while female protags are 'a female based story that deals with female issues' and not just this is a human with a cool story, fuuuck me im so happy someone said it XD