Would perfect facial symmetry have been too much to ask? But I read the initial Ken doll came in two varieties: blonde "hair" helmet and brown "hair" helmet.
Saw this the day after Oppenheimer. It's a fun movie and I didn't really pick up on whatever it was that had the Ben Shapiro's of the world losing their mind over. Not going to win best picture or anything but it's a fun 2 hours.
Thanks for the doll history lesson, Smithers. They did pretty good with Margot Robbie and the facial symmetry.
From what I've heard, it sounds like a lot of people are learning the hard way that this is not a kid's movie. Seems more appropriate for mid-30s people who want the shallowest type of 2010ish girl boss feminism, or for those who just want a dumb, fun movie. And honestly I often do just want to watch a dumb, fun movie. But I'm in no rush to see this. Maybe someday... *Edit Oh and I have to say the Dua Lipa song is great.
It was really well done. One of the funnier movies I've seen in the last few years, while simultaneously engaging with some serious ideas. Robbie and Gosling are great.
I just haven’t figured out what the purpose of the movie is — like is it a comedy using Barbie characters as a theme for nostalgia? Is it supposed to be some kind of commentary on contemporary social life? Or is it just silliness? Either way, I’m not really interested in paying to see this. It’s hard to see myself even watching on Netflix in the future. It just seems … dumb. Shrug
It’s a nostalgia movie for women to dress up in pink and go to the movies together. At the same time it’s a heartfelt comedy that lightly tackles some current issues. It will be on Max, not Netflix.
Release date strategy-wise. WB's Barbie was originally released on the same weekend as Nolan's by WB to punish Nolan for leaving them (WB) for Universal. Box-office-wise Barbie did out-sold Opperheimer, but it ended up being this weird synergy by fans, and enough counter programming, that audience went to see both if possible. The execs at WB has changed quite a bit; the ones now; probably would want Nolan back if the opportunity comes. For Nolan, Oppenheimer was less about ticket sales but more of a chance to win his first Oscar (best picture).
not a dollhouse, a longhouse https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/what-is-the-longhouse The historical longhouse was a large communal hall, serving as the social focal point for many cultures and peoples throughout the world that were typically more sedentary and agrarian. In online discourse, this historical function gets generalized to contemporary patterns of social organization, in particular the exchange of privacy—and its attendant autonomy—for the modest comforts and security of collective living. The most important feature of the Longhouse, and why it makes such a resonant (and controversial) symbol of our current circumstances, is the ubiquitous rule of the Den Mother. More than anything, the Longhouse refers to the remarkable overcorrection of the last two generations toward social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior. Many from left, right, and center have made note of this shift. In 2010, Hanna Rosin announced “The End of Men.” Hillary Clinton made it a slogan of her 2016 campaign: “The future is female.” She was correct. As of 2022, women held 52 percent of professional-managerial roles in the U.S. Women earn more than 57 percent of bachelor degrees, 61 percent of master’s degrees, and 54 percent of doctoral degrees. And because they are overrepresented in professions, such as human resource management (73 percent) and compliance officers (57 percent), that determine workplace behavioral norms, they have an outsized influence on professional culture, which itself has an outsized influence on American culture more generally. Richard Hanania has shown how the ascendance of the Civil Rights legal regime, and its transformation into the HR bureaucracy that manages nearly all of our public and private institutions, enforces the distinctly feminine values of its overwhelmingly female workforce. Thomas Edsall makes a similar case in the New York Times, emphasizing how female approaches to conflict and competition have become normative among the professional class. Edsall quotes evolutionary biologist Joyce Benenson’s summary of those approaches: From early childhood onwards, girls compete using strategies that minimize the risk of retaliation and reduce the strength of other girls. Girls’ competitive strategies include avoiding direct interference with another girl’s goals, disguising competition, competing overtly only from a position of high status in the community, enforcing equality within the female community and socially excluding other girls.Jonathan Haidt explains that privileging female strategies does not eliminate conflict. Rather it yields “a different kind of conflict. There is a greater emphasis on what someone said which hurt someone else, even if unintentionally. There is a greater tendency to respond to an offense by mobilizing social resources to ostracize the alleged offender.”
Did not know that fun fact! Saw Oppenheimer last weekend and going to see Barbie this weekend, Oppenheimer was 3 hours (in a good way) and I thought about going to see Barbie afterwards but decided I had things to get done. Taking my nieces who are 21 & 18 and they are excited, they weren't huge into Barbie but they think it looks like fun, when I first heard of the movie, I thought NO WAY I was going but looking forward to it
