this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Here's a list of tons of leftist movies.
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If you want to get down to the nitty gritty of it, Barbieland doe not exist independently as everything that happens in Barbieland is a reflection of what happens to the dolls the real world, so there is no real "immune system" there to stop the misogynistic ideas from spreading like an infection once it was brought back by Ken from the real world.
This is the justification given by the film in a single line, but I find the analogy highly unsatisfying. Sure, Ken accepts patriarchy when exposed, it benefits him. The Barbies accept it because... it was a strange new idea?
Surely lack of exposure to the idea of a large societal shift increases resistance to it, rather than causes uncritical acceptance?
Are we to expect that men who live in patriarchy, unexposed to feminist matriarchy just instantly accept the idea when exposed to it by feminists? Surely not.
Here is the key point of the movie that I think you are missing: the Barbies and Kens (and Alan) are NOT human beings, but IDEAS made into shapes of human beings that funhouse mirrors the thoughts and conditions of the real world. People can choose to accept ideas, but ideas can't choose, which is why when the patriarchal ideas was brought back by Beach Ken from the real world, the entirety of Barbieland physically twisted itself to match these ideas.
You could say that the whole movie was about Stereotypical Barbie's transition from an ideal as a "Barbie" to a real independent human being, capable of making choices on her own.
That's a good explanation. It doesn't quite work for me but that's my fault.