34 lines
6.0 KiB
Markdown
34 lines
6.0 KiB
Markdown
# Barbie essay
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2 lenses: Buddhism and Marxism
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Looking at it from the 3 buddhist marks of existence: anicca, dukkha, and anatta (attachment to identity and self), of which the last is paramount. Really gets to the heart of the limitations of attachment to self/identities, even if these identities are admirable ones. Humanity, authenticity being sold as marketable commodities.
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Marxist concepts: Alienation, and the commodification of identities. Trying to escape from consumerized identities, and the catch-22s of being an oppressed group. Particularly the selling of identities of the 80s-90s, related to commodity fetishism: where the products themselves seem to have more "humanity" and authenticity than humans do.
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Not a straight-forward Marxist story: the villain is not a capitalist exploiting the labor of the characters, and the main characters aren't fighting for their. But it is an attack on a patriarchy, and domestic exploitation.
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- A vulgar Marxist might make a point about these toys being a source of profit, but of course all children deserve playthings, and this capitalism is just currently the way they're produced. Young girls also need play, and figures to look up to. That being said, all of these identities being sold, are "marketable" in some way. There is a constant search for authenticity.
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## Characters and what they represent
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- Daughter represents the critical view of even feminist beauty standards, and the vapidity of consumerist culture.
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- Ken represents male fragility, and the attachment to vapid identities of power, none of which ultimately bring him happiness. A lack of self-esteem outside of not just a position of power, but even more fundamentally outside of a relationship. After his position of power is shedded, all he feels he needs to be happy, is for barbie to love him back. His unrequited love is the real source of all his actions: to try to make barbie love him.
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- Will ferrel, seen as a goof. He's a man in charge, but kind of a buffoon who doesn't know what he's doing. While its cliched trope to show the "evil main-character capitalist", in reality the patriarchs in charge of society know how to keep their position of power, continue exploiting women's household and reproductive labor, and adapt barbies for that purpose, serving the dual purpose of making a profit, as well as ingraining patriarchal and pro-capitalist ideologies in the products they sell.
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## Pluses
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- Riotously funny, and the jabs at patriarchy are hilarious. This movie doesn't punch down, but always up.
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- Pretty to watch: beautiful visuals.
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## Shortcomings
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- Doesn't critique the idea of physical beauty, and patriarchal beauty standards. All Barbies are "beautiful", even if they don't conform to patriarchal standards of beauty. The idea isn't that ugliness, or a lack of physical beauty is acceptable, no, the idea is that each specific identity is beautiful, and every woman is beautiful. There is one scene where she says that an old grandmother is beautiful, pregnant or overweight barbies. But the idea of not attaching to physical beauty is never questioned. Basing self-esteem on physical beauty, even outside of normative standards, isn't a helpful thing. Perhaps a better message would be to not base our identities around beauty at all, and embrace even societal ugliness as being acceptable. Weird barbie (while being an oracle of sorts) is also looked down on by other barbies for her perceived ugliness and strangeness: an alienation and ostracism existing even with the group of barbies / women.
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- The political problem and its solution. Bourgeois democracy is seen as the solution to the political problem. They distract the men, play on their vanity, get them fighting with each other, so that they can vote all women into power. While this shouldn't be taken too seriously as its clear this segment of the film is mainly for comedic effect, the message of "vote out the patriarchy" doesn't have a good track record, and only Marxist feminists have posited effective solutions here. There are a few cases in the film of "the politics of representation" being the answer, as the main character mentions that she sometimes hopes a powerful woman will come along and save the rest. Get into "representative" / bourgeois feminism and its short-comings, how most of the US war industry are run by women CEOs, bombing women and children in the global south.
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- Asks more questions than it answers, and never gets to the heart of identity. Its asking too much of any one film to solve all the problems of woman-hood and finding an identity within patriarchal systems, how to live with and co-exist with people who you care about that are still exploiting their position of power. Outside of these consumerized identities. By the end of the movie, barbie does reject this simplistic consumerized identity, but an alternative is never posed. An admirable goal would have been for barbie to reject that these identities and traits make up who she is, but an advanced view of Not-Self is difficult for anyone to imagine. Barbie rejects the "consumerized" identity, but never completely rejects all attachments to self, and never profoundly says, not just these identities, but ALL traits are impermanent, and not-me, and I'm fully unrestrained by any attachment to self.
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- Pacing. Late-capitalism has reached an end-stage of attention-spans, where everything needs to be as eye-catching, titillating, as possible. You never get to rest, relax, or take a breath. The attention-span The "big 30-second attention-span, in all movies made after 2010. If you watch any movie before the year 1990, you'll know what I mean: the characters can breath, dialog can be slow and intentional, points can resonate, we can relax with the characters, we can experience their emotional journies in real-time. In the 2010s afterward, everything is a 30-second attention-grabbing soundbyte.
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Even for all its problems, the film deserves to be lauded for taking on these complex issues, in a big-budget hollywood film whose ultimate purpose is to reinforce bourgeois and thus patriarchal attitudes.
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the buddha discovering death
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