Part of me feels a little embarrassed to write this because I expected the faux outrage to die down weeks ago, especially since my inbox is filled with real outrages like child rape victims and worsening maternal mortality rates (did you know homicide is the leading cause of death in pregnancy? I did, but it might be news to people offended by imagined slights.) The other part of me remembers an old Facebook post I’ve been wanting to rework for my blog.
When I wrote the original in 2018, the biggest news stories involved sexual assault and school shootings (or gun violence in general; see also: 2019, 2021, 2022…oh hey, Spring of 2023 says hi, too). The perpetrators of both possess an inability to cope with failure or rejection. They seek to reclaim the power to which they feel entitled through any means necessary. Unfortunately little has changed since then, and some things have even gotten worse. People would rather blame ‘kids these days’ than address root causes – like the teacher whose nasty viral essay inspired my original post. She saw her students as potential shooters rather than potential victims. Bad at empathy and math. Amazing qualities in an educator. As a parent and educator myself, I continue to be horrified by disdain for children en masse. The victims (some of whom died protecting others) and survivors deserve better than being dismissed as a generation of spoiled brats by those who fail them.
That woman devoted an entire paragraph to how she would never dream of shooting up a school. For all the girls and women who have been abused by men, and all the men who worry we want revenge, it’s still mostly men killing men (and women.) A man is more likely to be killed by himself than anybody else. Statistically, he is his own worst enemy. Suicides still account for most gun deaths. People who choose other methods are more likely to survive. Nine out of ten survivors will not die of suicide later on because suicide is often an impulsive act and not an inevitable outcome of mental illness.
A lot of people talk about the differences between men and women while ignoring the role socialization plays. Everybody is different, but we’re not given room to be different. Even in a world where some people are born of indeterminate gender (the human body is complex, and nature doesn’t care about our personal hangups), girls are expected to neatly fit into one box and boys into another. Back then I saw the two gender presentations described as “pink” and “violence” (and I would love to cite the originator). These boxes are bad for us (this is also the theme of Barbie both explicitly and implicitly, but more on that later). One box allows the occupant to release only anger, and if the box can no longer hold the rest of their emotions, it explodes. The other box allows the occupant to release everything but anger until it implodes, violence turned inward. I don’t think I’m any less angry than a man, but my anger gets internalized and any physical manifestation takes the form of self-harm. Obviously, there are some girls who express anger outwardly, but that goes back to the thing about everybody being different.
Fast forward to today when one of the biggest stories of 2023 has been Barbenheimer. Oppenheimer is a docudrama about the inventor of the atomic bomb, but it’s the bright colorful spoof of the toy bringing pink and violence to the cineplex. If you’re confused, you saw the same cut I did. The movie includes some very light satirical elements poking fun at hierarchical systems that harm men and women, but Greta Gerwig may as well have taken the kit gloves off because some people can’t handle constructive criticism no matter how gentle the delivery. In this “attack” on men, Barbies have all the jobs and Kens bum around on the beach. Wait. That sounds pretty good, actually. Beach, please! It’s also less of a role reversal (no domestic labor or sexual violence in Barbie Land) and more like the way we played. My Ken never saw the outside of the toy box, but I loved My Little PonyTM most of all.
Anyway, one Barbie starts to become more human instead of an empty headed doll like all the other Barbies and Kens. She gets sent to the real world to fix it. And one of the Kens tags along because he doesn’t know what do with himself until he discovers a way to achieve the external validation he desires. While Barbie tries to help a mom afraid of losing her connection to her daughter, he goes back looking like a pick up artist, steals her house, and dupes the other Barbies into being objectified. Barbie escapes a weirdly endearing CEO who wants to put her back in the box to restore some semblance of balance to the real world and pretend world. She also talks Ken down from the roof – literally – when he realizes his hollow PUA antics haven’t made him any happier, and patriarchy isn’t even about horses so what’s the point (right?!) She apologizes for her lack of romantic interest and encourages him to find validation from within.
Barbie also decides she wants to give up her perfect immortal life and embrace the good, bad, and ugly of being human because she doesn’t enjoy matriarchy any more than Ken enjoyed patriarchy. It’s a bittersweet movie that has everything to do with self-actualization, and nothing to do with hating men – only hierarchical systems that harm us all. But consumerism and plastic waste aren’t great, either, so Barbie’s not a complete innocent. She’s just not the hateful monster some men and women pretend she is. And she’s definitely less scary than atomic weapons.
A son who enjoyed the movie raised his eyebrows and said “wut?” when I asked if it hurt his feelings. Amazingly the thirteen year old boy who loves rats, Fortnite, and the color pink did not identify with any of the characters, least of all the dolls, but understood the social commentary because he’s confident and perceptive. Seems to me people feigning offense on behalf of men should give them more credit because the real offense is pretending this gentle hug of a movie attacks them. Kenough already.
As an addendum, I’m reminded of similar uproar over Guild Wars 2 several years ago. There’s a pompous but well-meaning NPC Lord Faren who tries to rescue the queen, but gets captured by the villain so we have to rescue him, and he’s in his skivvies to poke fun at a common trope throughout film and video game history. A lot of players acted like this one silly reversal went too far. In a later chapter his airship crashes in a jungle, but he keeps everyone alive – in a loincloth, by choice. He’s basically the Todd from Scrubs. It’s goofy. He has agency. Non-issue.