(Average+) Barbie

Movie in one sentence:
It's only alright when women have absolute power.

Movie in more sentences:
In a perfect, pink world, where Barbie and Ken dolls live out their immortal lives, one Barbie suddenly experiences human emotions and a body that's losing its plastic perfection.

Understanding that this is likely caused by her demoralized human owner, she visits the real world to find this child and cheer her up. Her less popular and self-proclaimed boyfriend, Ken, comes along with her and feels inspired by the real world -a reality where men actually have value- and takes all he's learned back to the other shunned Ken dolls in Barbieland.

I was looking forward to this movie and went to the theaters for it. The trailers made it look like it was going to be campy nonsense, the likes of White Chicks, but I was unpleasantly surprised by what it ended up being.

About 10% is campy nonsense, I laughed, but the musical scenes really dragged and the rest of the movie was this exaggerated "patriarchy vs women" preach-fest. It portrayed the real world as this anxiety Hell for women (and women only), where men unabashedly catcall and assault them without getting scolded by bystanders. Like, really? In today's age? In America? And a woman gets arrested for defending herself after getting her ass slapped? All very unlikely situations, just like Ken not receiving a single homophobic remark for basically wearing the same attire as her.
"Toxic masculinity" is very selective in its toxicity, it seems like. Or perhaps Ken did the right thing by taking on a positive attitude and moving on, instead of getting depressed and teary-eyed the moment people made eye contact with him. The pervert touching Barbie deserved to get socked, but again, would any man today actually do that, let alone in public? Accompanied by whom people would likely assume is her boyfriend?

I suppose the idea in this particular scene was that Barbie had turned so far human -or rather, into her human owner- that she understood what was going on and felt uncomfortable by it.. but.. I would've preferred if the movie hadn't taken this route. Her acting like a downer isn't funny and is a wasteful use of the Barbie property. Couldn't she and Ken explore the world as their innocently clueless doll selves? The movie lost its comedic edge rather quickly and felt needlessly mean at times.

In a strange way, it attempted to uplift women by describing how much of a victim we are. And the more I think about it, the more it disgusts me. Stop telling me how hard my life is, shit man..! I live in a first world country, just like you!
Having that said, I didn't recognize myself in the pessimistic utterings of the female characters. Western feminists have the least to complain about, yet shout the loudest out of all feminists in the world, and I'm getting a bit tired of hearing about it in our entertainment.
The unsubtle pro-woman storyline is hard to take seriously when male dolls are introduced who're comically dumb and treated as subhuman by absolutely everyone. The end of the movie doesn't even introduce a proper compromise, but instead jokes that maybe one day the Kens will have the same position as women have in the real world, which is a ridiculous remark, because the one true thing that holds women back from achieving high positions is ourselves. How many more years will we blame the dicked ones?

The Barbies are patronizing, admittedly funny narcissists who rule Barbieland, while the real victims in the movie are the Kens. I could not pretend to be sad for the girls when they got dethroned, and honestly, how can anyone look at them as the heroes of the story, worthy of getting their power back?
Ken's pain far exceeds Barbie's, because that woman has only ever known comfort and blissful ignorance. None of the Kens even have a house to live in, and despite the disrespect they've suffered, they continued to jump out of their seats to help out any Barbie who pretended to be in need of assistance, which the movie portrayed as a bad thing. It called their generosity and love for them as their desire to have the women be helpless, which I found a severely uncharitable position.
Why is it fine for the Barbies to be at the top and infantilize the Kens, but when the Kens want a taste of it, they're painted as the villains? They've lived their entire lives as emotionally neglected props and simply wanted to be needed for once.
Them making the Barbies play their beer bringers was rude, but I took it as short-lived "revenge", since these men clearly want them as their girlfriend, not enslave them.

The movie didn't care to explain its supernatural elements, either. How can dolls come to life, how does Mattel know about it, what's the logic behind the method of crossing the border, why is the ghost of Barbie's creator living in a room of Mattel's headquarters, how is Barbie able to become a real human being, etc., etc.? It explained nothing.

The overall story was a mess, and while there were some good jokes and I really liked the Kens, there's nothing in here that motivates me to watch this ever again.