Barbie

 This movie falls apart with any sort of critical evaluation. There are good and funny moments of the film, but I don't think the film is going to hold up in the coming years. It claims to be an examination of feminism through the eyes of this doll. The dolls think that they have solved the problems of the real world by their existence, a trip to the real world makes it clear that this is not the case. The Kens, who are an underclass in the fantasy world, stage a rebellion and take it over. The rebellion is put down and everything returns to the status quo. And the status quo is not gender equality, it's a ruling class and a subservient class. Stripping the ideology away from the film, the story of how this universe works doesn't make any sense. The dolls are the way they are because of the way that children are playing with them. So if there is sort of a matriarchal Utopia, it's because little girls and little boys who are playing with the dolls have created it. So the ending of the film doesn't make any sense because the Barbies say that they don't want to return to the status quo and the Kens are learning about the real me. But they're not real. They're dolls, and their realities are determined for them. That's not the only weird part about the movie, there's the scene where the creator of the Barbie holds hands with Barbie and shows her all the feelings of a woman so that she can decide if she wants to be real or not. But in that montage, are no scenes of pain and suffering. So this Barbie becomes a real person and is set up for a life of horrible suffering because she does not understand the reality of pain. She hasn't even had a stomach ache before, or even digested food before, and now she's going to be a real woman? I don't mind films having ideologies, but I think the way filmmaking is going is not a direction in which I can follow. Apart from superhero movies, which people finally seem to be tired of, modern movie making is more about the feeling of a story, than the story. And I think there are a lot of problems with traditional storytelling and films, like the fact there are never unhappy endings in Hollywood blockbusters. But the structure of storytelling is one which gives satisfaction to the viewer because they can feel the process of the story coming together, and if there's no actual story where is the satisfaction for the viewer?

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