Dialectics of Barbie

I finally saw the Barbie movie. Obviously a lot of annoying commentary about it has happened already. I’m not interested in that. Especially the gender war/culture war stuff. That stuff is in the movie for sure—they say the word patriarchy a million times—but I found that boring, obvious, played out, etc. I want to briefly touch on some things that happen near the end. Spoilers from here on out if you care.

Barbie and Ken go to the Real World (leaving Barbieland), and Ken learns about patriarchy, and brings it back to Barbieland, turning it into his Kendomland. The Kens now rule, and the Barbies seem to enjoy their newfound subservience. (Before Ken’s revolution, the Barbies were the overlords of Barbieland). Barbie brings her human friend from the Real World, Gloria, with her to Barbieland. Gloria gives a dialectical speech to the Barbies that reignites their intelligence and sense of agency—after this, they set their plan in motion to retake power in Barbieland. Gloria’s speech is a laundry list of the contradictions of being a woman. Some examples:

“You have to be thin, but not too thin…You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. you're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that…you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood….It's too hard! It's too contradictory…”

This is dialectics—showing how the essence of something contains contradictions that work together to make the thing what it is. And when these united contradictions are laid out to the Barbies, they gain a kind of self-awareness that they never had before. They stop being “brainwashed” by the Kens. Dialectics unlocks the power of their brains.

When I was watching it, I kind of couldn’t believe it—that this big dumb movie had dialectics as like its main plot point. And that it’s one of the most popular movies ever, making over a billion dollars. Dialectics really is for the masses. Love to see it.

What do the Barbies do with their newfound agency? They hatch a plan to take over Barbieland once again—they will use mansplaining against the Kens. What is mansplaining in this movie? It’s when the Kens play guitar for their Barbies and sing cheesy songs. They also talk about why they like the songs they like and explain it in detail. This is all the Kens want to do. The Barbies range from indifference to mockery, but they pretend to enjoy it, so that the Kens become vulnerable. The Barbies have coordinated all of this like a form of psychological warfare. The Kens are simple guys, and they really love doing this. They have come to rely on the Barbies’ earnest interest in their musical passions, and when the Barbies coldly cut them off, they are deeply hurt. The Barbies plan it all out just like this—get the Kens to share their passion, which makes them feel good, then pull away so that the Kens are confused and helpless. It’s all a masterful game of manipulation by the Barbies. So the Barbies take control again, as the Kens are devastated by this form of psychological warfare that only women could achieve.

There’s a little more to the end of the movie, as the Kens come to accept their subordinate role, so it has somewhat of a happy ending. But make no mistake—Barbies use malicious psychological warfare to achieve their victory.

Now, I don’t think the movie was portraying this psychological manipulation tactic as good necessarily—it was just an honest way of portraying how women operate. They use psychological games, because that’s what they’re good at. And it’s effective. It isn’t saying that this is what women should do, but just it is what they do in fact do. In that sense it may be something of a critique of how women operate more than anything.

Anyway, that’s what I got from it: dialectics and a (perhaps) critique of the psychological manipulation wargames that women play.