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starlene · 9 months

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Layers of symbolism in Barbie (2023)

I’ve seen Barbie twice now, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the symbolism in the story. It’s a lot!

So, I wrote a breakdown.

Barbie (the character)’s story

In Barbie’s story…

👠 Barbieland symbolizes girlhood, childhood, innocence, immaturity, and naivety.

👟 The Real World symbolizes womanhood, adulthood, growing older and more mature, and becoming a fully realized human. It also symbolizes accepting the inevitability of change, aging, and death.

🏢 Mattel symbolizes society in general, and men in particular, telling women how to live their lives.

✂ Weird Barbie is an example of a woman who does not look and do as she is told. For that, other Barbies have punished her by calling her names and pushing her aside – so at first, Barbie is terrified of becoming like her. At the same time, Weird Barbie is a wise female mentor who helps Barbie along on her journey.

→ For Barbie, moving to The Real World means she is free of the expectations Mattel, and people in general, put on Barbie dolls: she doesn’t have to be perfect or only dress in pink and pastels anymore. No one can put her into a box anymore.

→ At the same time, Barbie leaving her hyper-feminine aesthetic behind when she leaves Barbieland for good symbolically connects that aesthetic with childhood and immaturity. In turn, her more subdued costume in the last scene of the movie symbolically connects that aesthetic to adulthood and maturity.

→ Moving to The Real World is a positive change for Barbie: she becomes more mature and learns to appreciate the beauty in aging. However, I think it’s noteworthy how the movie mostly shows The Real World in a negative light: while in The Real World, Barbie gets disappointed, harassed, and chased down, and all of this makes her experience anxiety for the first time.

→ In the end, Barbie can’t stay in Barbieland because she’s grown too mature for it, showing that it’s impossible to escape growing up – even when the world of grown-ups seems very chaotic and unfair. Becoming a woman means you have to encounter, and learn to deal with, toxic masculinity and the patriarchy.

Ken (the character)’s story

In Ken’s story…

🕺 Ken himself symbolizes a young, immature man who hasn’t found his place within society and who has a very low self-confidence. Instead of placing value on himself and his inherent qualities, he has tied his whole sense of self-worth to Barbie’s approval. As a group, Kens are oppressed within Barbieland.

💃 Barbie symbolizes an idealized image of a perfect girlfriend. At the same time, she is someone who inadvertently hurts Ken because she doesn’t understand her own privileged position within their society. As a group, Barbies are the oppressors within Barbieland.

👠 Barbieland symbolizes oppression, marginalization, and social exclusion. For Ken, it’s a society that has no place for him or people like him.

👟 The Real World symbolizes patriarchy, which Ken interprets to mean a society where things are better for Kens than they are in Barbieland. (In truth, as Ken grows to learn, it’s a system that harms all genders with its strict and oppressive gender roles.)

🐎 Horses symbolize all the positive, joyous, healthy, harmless, non-toxic parts of masculinity.

→ In short, Ken’s story is about a young man falling into the manosphere, and how good self-confidence and supportive connections with other men can help battle toxic masculinity.

→ Just like Barbie, Ken too matures during the course of his character arc: he acknowledges that he’s been wrong about the patriarchy, he starts to feel a sense of self-worth that’s not tied to Barbie, and he learns to lean on other Kens for support.

→ Unlike Barbie, though, Ken remains in Barbieland at the end of the movie, and presumably starts working together with other Kens and Barbies to shape it into a more equal society. This is because to Ken, Barbieland does not symbolize childhood like it does to Barbie, so he doesn’t have to leave it behind when he grows up.

→ When you think about Barbie as a part of Ken’s story, it feels disappointing that when they arrive in The Real World and Barbie experiences the way real women are mistreated, she doesn’t seem to make much of a connection to the way Barbies mistreat Kens in Barbieland. This is, again, because The Real World symbolizes different things to Barbie and Ken.

→ Unfortunately, all too often, the joyous parts of masculinity become tied together with sexism and toxic ideas. The way horses are often seen as a girly thing in our modern-day culture underlines how ridiculous this is: Ken assumes horses and the patriarchy go together and gets into both, though actually, they have nothing to do with each other. In reality, Ken just wants to enjoy the majesty of horses – that is, the positive parts of his own masculinity.

Barbie <3 Ken

👫 The relationship between Barbie and Ken symbolizes heteronormativity and amatonormativity, and the way those concepts are forced down all our throats practically from toddlerhood.

→ Barbie and Ken are not in a real relationship with each other. At the start of the movie, they’re both too immature to understand what being in a relationship means – let alone if they really want that for themselves and each other.

→ Ken is in love with an idealized image of Barbie he has created in his mind. He tries to play the part of a perfect boyfriend, though he doesn’t really know or understand what being a boyfriend entails.

→ Barbie, in turn, is not romantically interested in Ken at all.

→ Despite all this, people (and even Barbie and Ken themselves) expect Barbie and Ken to be together. Notably, the Mattel CEO thinks that Barbie’s ending is that she is in love with Ken, even though there has been literally no evidence in the entire movie that this is the case.

From a female point of view

To the human characters Gloria and Sasha, and also to many real women watching the movie…

👭 Barbies symbolize idealized, stereotypical, perfect femininity.

👠 Barbieland symbolizes girlhood, childhood, imagination, and fun. It’s a thought experiment; a safe haven reminiscent of the innocence of childhood; a place where women can be whatever they want while looking and acting unashamedly feminine.

👟 The Real World is a place where the idealized femininity of Barbies and Barbieland is unobtainable. For many women, instead of being a source of inspiration, idealized depictions of womanhood turn into a burden, something that restricts and disheartens women instead of uplifting them.

Barbieland

👠 Apart from its role in the arcs of individual characters, Barbieland is an exaggerated mirror image of the real world we live in. It’s a joke that criticizes the gender inequality of our world – and as such, it acknowledges that one gender holding power over others is not a good thing.

→ Somewhat confusingly, it’s treated as a victory when Barbies take Barbieland back from Kens – even though that means returning to the unequal matriarchy, not becoming a truly equal society.

→ This is because in Barbie (the character)’s story and to Gloria and Sasha, instead of being a symbol of an unequal society, Barbieland symbolizes girlhood innocence and unabashed femininity. The Barbies, Gloria and Sasha take the joy they feel in their girlhood and femininity back from the patriarchy, which is certainly a feat worth celebrating!

Mattel (the fictional version of the company)

Finally, from the fictional Mattel board of directors’ point of view…

👠 Barbieland is a reflection of their Barbie brand and products, though it’s also shaped by the people who buy Barbies and play with them.

👭 Barbies are a way of making money. Because of that, the executives think they have to be perfectly beautiful and, thus, marketable. Notably, the Mattel CEO doesn’t like Gloria’s idea of a Normal Barbie – until he’s shown evidence that it will make Mattel loads of money, which causes him to immediately change his mind.

✂ Weird Barbie shows the way many children really play with Barbies. Rough play is not in line with Mattel’s pristine brand for Barbie, so Weird Barbie is pushed aside in Barbieland.

→ Barbieland is the way that it is partially because that’s how Mattel has designed it, partially because that’s how the girls who play with Barbies want it. For example, Kens are oppressed because no one likes to play with Kens as much as they like playing with Barbies, and thus, Mattel also puts less resources in designing and marketing them.

→ Somewhat confusingly, this connection goes both ways: the things that happen in Barbieland also affect the things that Mattel does. For example, when Ken redecorates Barbie’s Dreamhouse so it becomes Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House, Mattel’s factory starts producing Mojo Dojo Casa Houses in The Real World. What is that all about??

This is all I can think of right now. Let me know if you’ve interpreted something differently, or if you think I’ve missed something!

#Barbie #Barbie movie #Barbie spoilers #I really like the characters and the aesthetic of Barbie but the story...#something about it just left me feeling vaguely confused and disappointed #this is a part of my ongoing attempt of trying to get to the bottom of that something #I think it’s because many of these layers of symbolism clash with each other! Barbie’s and Ken’s individual stories especially #I hope I’ve managed to shed light on some of those clashes in this post #this is inspired by a hundred different posts I’ve read in the Barbie tag and also the chat I had with Tumblr user neroushalvaus yesterday #anyway! not a perfect movie but fun to think about. like someone putting an enrichment pumpkin in my enclosure #long post

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jizzlords · 26 days

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❝ If nobody's told you today, babe? You've a great ass. Just callin' it as I'm seein' it. It's voluptuous, thick with two Q's. ❞ holding up two fingers for emphasis.

❝ It saddens me you don't realize what you've got. ... unless you do then, well, why are you just sittin' on it like that? Don't waste the opportunity, babe. Live a little. ❞

#⸻ ♡ ❝ show me some lust! ( in character )#grieving took a Lot out of me lol #I'd rather not harp on it it's been ongoing but ozzie's an uplifter. an attempting uplifter 🏋🏾🧎🏾#mobile #sure it's an opener if u got smth to say to him lol

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lancrewizzard · 4 months

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I'm not going to pretend to be particularly knowledgeable about geopolitical history, but I do know a little about my own family's history and I'd like to share a hypothetical to do with that.

Thanks to the Domesday Book and a bit of linguistic history, I can say with reasonable certainty that my family (at least my paternal ancestors) originated from a specific village in the English Midlands. I'm sure no one would begrudge me for wanting to move to said village my ancestors lived in even though I've never been there and know nothing about it except as the place my family came from, as much as any family can be said to come from anywhere.

However, if I were to declare that I have a right to live there and my family should forcibly take ownership of all houses in the village because our ancestors lived there before the current residents, then you would rightly think I was deranged. I seriously doubt the fact that the UK government is deeply and dangerously transphobic would convince many people that this was justification for such a plan.

All similarities to present political situations are purely coincidental, this is just me thinking about how weird it would be if one of my distant cousins in America decided he had a God given right to steal some random British family's home because of his surname. 🍉

#this isn't worded as well as i want i've just seen some insane attempts at justifying a certain ongoing atrocity #and i'm tired and angry and powerless

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whatudottu · 8 months

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Angey Dreadwing AKA, “POV you used his brother’s corpse to make your new skin suit”

Ah a traditional pencil to paper Dreadwing, and he’s FUCKING PISSED :D!

#dreadwing #tfp dreadwing #transformers #tfp #altered loyalties #maccadam #fanart #yes babes this is going in the altered loyalties tag because i put skyke through some shit y’all #in deciding to keep breaky alive i wondered who might fill an (actually- unlike canon) emotionally charged replacement #and well- i have a corpse right on hand #because altered loyalties screamer doesn’t attempt to revive skyquake even if he does use de for a healing boost #*looks at megan and his ‘i survived a spacebridge explosion and all i got was a cocaine addiction’ ass*#shadowzone is instead the return to skyquake’s deathbed (his earth comm tower) only for de hopped up screamer to find NOTHING #something something the terrocons are an ongoing threat in altered loyalties- yada yada the ‘crime’ scene has been disturbed #the first assumption is that maybe the presence of uncloaked energon brought the dead here and got their own energon all over skyquake #but why is his hand still there? why is his hand the ONLY THING LEFT!?#why is the dirt full of small little footprints #starscream doesn’t have much time to question the details for there WAS a terrocon presence nearby and the autobots are reading loud and-#clear starscream’s dark energon signature- assumably the terrocons did too as they seem to have caught the scent #shadowzone would then play out like it does in canon but be vehicon terrocons (skyquake’s previous guardian team)#but honestly i just wanted to draw a really REALLY FUCKING PISSED dreadwing because i wanted to see that #do you think that if a bot with optics like the twins (and breakdown) can get so angry that you can see their pupil just from how bright the #optics get? just enveloped in a sea of red that all leads directly to the white hot centre?#because i like to think that :)

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laundrybiscuits · 1 year

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(purify our misfit ways tag | AO3)

When he wakes up, Eddie’s stretched out next to him, still clutching his book, snoring a little. Steve waits for the panicky feeling to come back, looking at Eddie and looking at the way the morning sun is bright on his skin, but it never hits. It’s just Eddie. Strange, clever, funny, kind.

It’s weird to think how Steve hasn’t known him all that long, but it already feels like Eddie’s a part of him now. More a part of him than high school or prom king or Scoops Ahoy; maybe about the same as monsters and a backyard pool that he doesn’t ever use anymore.

He feels kind of dumb, not noticing something like that about himself. He thinks it’s probably not the kind of thing that comes out of nowhere, but he doesn’t like thinking about anything he might’ve missed in the past.

It’s not like it matters, probably, because Eddie hadn’t been offering anything last night, so it’s just Steve here by himself in this. It sucks, because if he’s going to have a big gay revelation, he should at least get to fool around with a guy about it. Maybe he can still do that, though—there are bars and stuff, right? He lies there for a little while, just looking at Eddie, trying to remember every stray rumor he’s ever heard about homosexual lifestyles. He’d never thought it would be important to know, but he guesses now he’s got to learn all the rules.

Obviously he can still go with girls, or at least he will as soon as this dry spell’s over; it just seems like kind of a waste not to try this new thing out, now that he knows it’s an option. Maybe it’s easier with guys or something. Guys usually want sex more than girls, right? So it seems like it would probably be pretty simple to get laid, if you knew for sure a guy liked other guys and you wouldn’t get decked for asking.

Would Eddie deck him for asking?

Steve’s stomach picks this moment to remind him that this is a lot of complicated thinking to take place before breakfast, and he eases off the bed. It’s not like they’re even touching or anything, so it’s not that difficult to get up without waking Eddie.

He stands there for a second, just looking at the way Eddie shifts a little to stretch into the warm place where Steve used to be.

Steve’s shirt looks and smells like it was dragged through a bush, which isn’t too far from the truth, so he swaps it out for a shirt he finds on the floor which doesn’t smell too bad. It smells a little bit like Eddie, actually, which is kind of cool. That’s probably a benefit of dating a guy that he’d never thought of before—getting to wear his clothes, or getting him to wear yours. Well, maybe some girls wore their boyfriends’ shirts, but not as regular clothing, and it’s not like Steve ever got to wear his girlfriends’ stuff.

He leaves before he can get sidetracked thinking about that too much, and runs right into an old guy making coffee in the kitchenette.

“Uh,” he says.

The old guy looks him up and down, and Steve’s heart starts to pound. If his dad had caught some guy coming out of his bedroom, wearing his shirt…

“Sit yourself down, have something to eat,” says the older guy. “You can call me Wayne. I’m Eddie’s uncle.”

“Yessir,” Steve says, automatically, and sits down.

Wayne grimaces, and Steve realizes that he’s seen that same expression on Eddie’s face. “None of that, now. Just Wayne’ll be fine. You okay with cereal, son?”

“Cereal’s great, Wayne,” says Steve. Being polite to parents—or, well, parent-type people—is like muscle memory at this point. He used to be good at this. “Really appreciate it, thanks. I’m Steve Harrington.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Steve Harrington. Hope I didn’t interrupt you running out on Eddie.”

“Running—um, no sir. I mean, Wayne. It’s not like that, I swear.”

Steve feels like he’s been bracing for a punch to the jaw and suddenly he’s getting his knee kicked out from under him. So far, being into guys is turning out to be a lot like being into girls: getting cornered by stern parent-type people wanting to know his intentions and assuming the worst, while Steve pretends like he wasn’t thinking what he was thinking a few minutes ago.

He takes the cheerios that Wayne hands him and tries his most winning, parent-pleasing smile. “I’m a friend of Eddie’s who got a little too tired to drive last night, so he let me stay over.”

Wayne snorts. “Heard that one before. Okay, Steve Harrington, I’ve got to get to my shift. Help yourself to coffee, and you better not leave before saying goodbye to my boy.”

“Yessir,” says Steve.

As the door swings shut behind Wayne, the words heard that one before ping-pong around Steve’s brain. Does that mean—it could just be a turn of phrase, or it could mean that Eddie’s—that there have been—

Wayne didn’t seem all that surprised to see a boy coming out of Eddie’s bedroom. It’s not solid proof of anything, but Steve’s worked with less. And now that he’s got most of a bowl of cheerios in him, he’s pretty confident that even if Eddie’s not interested, it’s not like Eddie’ll take a swing at him or anything. Plus, Robin would definitely take Steve’s side in this, and it’s not like Eddie’s going to ditch Robin too.

Huh. That’s another good thing about this whole situation, he realizes: it’ll be something he has in common with Robin. She’s probably going to be stoked to hear it. And he still likes girls too, so that’s double the things they have in common.

He washes up and grabs a mug that reads ROANE COUNTY 4-H FAIR ‘77 from a shelf. It has a llama wearing a hat on it. He’s just pouring a nice hot cup of coffee when he hears shuffling footsteps from the direction of the bedroom.

Eddie’s standing there, still barefoot and in boxers, looking sleepy and confused with one side of his hair all messed up. Steve feels a little shot of adrenaline go through him, just a nice little buzz, like the feeling he always got before a swim meet or a basketball game. Not nerves, exactly, just his body letting him know it’s go time, that there’s something big coming up just ahead, right in front of him.

“Hey,” he says.

#and now for a version of eddie that has absolutely none of the experience I've been talking about in the meta stuff #mostly due to having a more contentious relationship with his own sexuality than I usually write for him #nothing is set in stone! nothing is immutable!#also. this is my ongoing attempt at writing steve as a teenage boy who is not incredibly emotionally stable or prone to self-examination #fic: purify our misfit ways #this fic is wrapping up REAL soon #like. probably within 12 hours soon.

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goingsparebutwithprecision · 6 months

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We are once again playing Gothmog's favourite game, in which I (innocent, gentle, harmless) attempt to interact with my laptop and Gothmog (wretched, villainous, adorable) stares unblinkingly at my moving hands with an expression of deepest homicide.

#we are at two stabbing attempts and counting #goingspare rambles #the ongoing adventures of gothmog the menace

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princess-of-the-corner · 5 months

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i just realised, with the rats of nihm living in docs, we could do Ratatouille, just have one of the younger rats be the remy of this universe.

I feel like Ratatouille is what would happen if Jenner's group didn't get their asses electrocuted a week after they left.

Just still vibing on stealing shit and they have one of the newer-gen kids want More™ and they're all like 'damn it didn't we already have this fight?!"

#okay wait shit I realized some context #in the /book/ Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH #Jenner is not a major villain he doesn't appear on screen at all really #onlly in nicodemus's exposition/flashback and mentions here or there #because Jenner and his group who want to keep stealing from Humans have already defected #the group dies off screen attempting to break into a hardware store but cutting the wrong wire and getting electrocuted #one of the many changes they made to the movie was having the debate between the groups be an ongoing thing instead of decided #and keeping Jenner here to be An Asshole™

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anarchistettin · 3 months

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pleading with tumblr to stop employing sass to discuss genocide

#please try to imagine what it's like to be affected by ongoing events #there's not a gotcha here this is an attempt to preserve lives swiftly being destroyed

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jasontoddenthusiastt · 9 months

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no because i read the first like, four chapters of the outlaws webtoon and was immediately like "haha, no?? why is jay acting like bruce never thought of him as his son? why does this author have it out for b so bad?". i'm glad to know i made the right choice if it just got worse

I could understand the ‘wow, I guess I never really found a family with Bruce if this is just always how it’s going to be with him’ mindset, especially if Bruce was being particularly cruel with him.

[ Batman and Robin #20 (2011) ]

He can be cruel. Exploring Jason’s thought process, how he resolves this in his mind and comes to forgive Bruce again and again is something they could have at least touched on. Instead, they not only did nothing new to move the disagreement forward, but they also muddied it further, in a bad way. If they want to complicate (or worse, attempt to resolve) Jason and Bruce’s decades long conflict, that should be a separate comic entirely.

They could have just had Jason cut Bruce off completely (even if temporarily) with the set-up they had, but they did nothing with it (even though they could have avoided the mess they made if they took this route).

Bruce again does something unforgivable to Jason (but now his friends get fucked over too), only for there to be a half-assed make-up conversation that didn’t really address the real issue, and then there’s no further mention of it. Bruce put the outlaws in a simulation for months without their knowledge, and the conversation Bruce had with Jason later wasn’t even about this. Screw Artemis and Bizarro, I guess. They’re expendable because the core conflict is actually about Jason and Bruce.

I wouldn’t say the bad Brucie moments are too ooc based on how he is in canon. The abuse, and him being big on mass surveillance/never trusting anyone while being the one to repeatedly betray other people’s trust. It’s just all the other characters being so tolerant/accepting of his actions is kinda funny, it’s almost like they’re NPCs lol. But also again why are Bruce’s trust issues which cause a strain on his relationship with Jason a main theme in the outlaws book lmao

Ultimately what this webtoon did was take every irritating plot from Jason’s canon appearances, amplified them tenfold, and mixed in even more unresolved plotholes and horrible mis characterizations.

#if I complained about how ooc Jason was in this this post would be 7 pages long #i mean just the Jason almost killing two face as robin incident alone was framed in such an incorrect way #i just accepted the fact that the author has a poor understanding of Jason’s character and that’s fine because this isn’t canon #look. imo the outlaws work best as a fun adventures type story #the outlaws stuff has no reason to mix with Jason and Bruce’s ongoing disagreement on their moral stances.#attempting to mix the two was a very weird and bad idea??#especially when they very evidently had no idea how to deal with the aftermath of it #i mean Artemis just lovingly told Jason to go and try to apologize to Bruce #after he practically studied her under a microscope for three months #you know this woman is on par with Diana Prince right? 💀#and why did they have Biz talking backwards again 💀 it only makes the confusing plot even more dizzy #there’s just too much wrong with this one lol #asks

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