TMS Discussion: Is Feminism Taking a Step Back in 2023?
(Jaap Buitendijk / Warner Bros)
WARNING: This article contains spoilers for recent movies.
Let’s start with my history with the word ‘feminist.’ I probably first got wind of this word in middle school, after embracing ‘girl power’ as a little girl of the 1990s. The impression I had from media exposure, and the wild west days of the Internet in 2000-2003, was that feminists were mean, angry manhaters who complain a lot. By the time I was in high school, I didn’t want to be associated with this word because I had friends who were both boys and girls, and obviously didn’t want to alienate some of them. So that was a no for teenage me. When I’m in college in the late 2000s/early 2010s, I learn a bit more on the context and background of feminism. In layman’s terms, it’s believing and supporting women’s rights and equality between the sexes. No manhating necessarily required and seen more as a cliché by most. Oh. Well in that case, young adult me is definitely a feminist, no brainer there. But only a year or two after graduation, I’m starting to notice terms like ‘white feminism,’ ‘choice feminism,’ and ‘performative feminism.’ The type of ungenuine feminism where a woman—usually white and from a privileged setting—only associates as a feminist for her own gain and reputation, rather than empowering the whole species. The term ‘intersectionality’ and relevancy of women of color’s place in feminism being virtually ignored as well. Uh, with this in mind, I should probably distance myself from the label ‘feminist,’ since I’m white and don’t want people to mistakenly think I don’t care about race…These days, in my 30s, I’m not too concerned about the ‘F’ word. I went through a brief period where I would specify with a disclaimer that I’m pro-women’s rights, but don’t like the label ‘feminist.’ If someone calls me a feminist, I won’t pitch a fit or anything. I’m comfortable with my beliefs as an experienced adult who knows right from wrong.
(IFC Films)
When Greta Gerwig’s current mega blockbuster Barbie was announced and subsequently went through its insane 18 month promotional cycle; I never once expected it to be anything artsy, let alone some brilliant feminist study through Mattel’s Barbie IP. I thought, surely these comparisons to Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch are just from the initial teaser, which parodies the opening of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). [Fun fact: this teaser is actually just the opening sequence of the new movie.] This has to be tongue-in-cheek joking around, and the fans don’t actually expect Greta to make an arthouse subversion of a classic toy doll, especially since she doesn’t even make artsy films herself. This is the queen of mumblecore indie cinema, after all. While the final result definitely isn’t anywhere near Kubrick’s wheelhouse, the early reactions kept mentioning buzzwords like ‘groundbreaking,’ ‘relevant,’ ‘refreshingly innovative,’ and ‘inherently feminist.’ Okay…now I’m interested in seeing what the big twist of this supposed family comedy [with a PG-13 rating] is going to be since Greta doesn’t exactly present her work as the second coming of Chantal Akerman or Agnès Varda or even Diablo Cody either. So on the big day of release, I’m sitting in my local theater to view the most hyped movie of the year, and discovered it’s…fine? Okay? The bare minimum? Basically the depth of Bob Spiers’ Spice World (1997), and I’m saying this is a lifelong Spice Girls fan. In fact, if Barbie was made for young children, like a Disney or DreamWorks movie, with a PG rating; then I think they could have gone for an even simpler theme of essentially “Girls rule, boys drool! Friendship never ends!”
(PolyGram Entertainment)
Instead, Barbie is rated PG-13, and nearly all its humor and gags are directly aimed at older millennials [and believe me, I laughed at every joke as a fellow millennial]. There are also plenty of jokes directed at the lack of genitalia on the Barbies and Kens. Greta Gerwig just turned 40 this year, so it makes sense she’s most in tune with late ‘90s and Y2K period pop culture, and would want to throw a bone at the parents. Especially since she’s known for making movies for young adults [Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019)] more than with legitimate children. There were multiple times where I wondered what it would have been like if Greta and boyfriend/co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach had gone all the way with an R rating. The best comparison I’ve seen to Barbie is Josh Greenbaum’s Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021), which was a bizarre slapstick comedy with absurdist humor.
But Barb & Star is a goofy comedy intended for adults, hence the R rating. By giving Barbie a PG-13, Mattel and Warner Bros. clearly wanted Greta and Noah to make sure they didn’t limit the age groups, since they want to make a lot of money at the box-office and with merchandise [which they certainly have been the past month]. But here’s the problem. If the comedy is for adults, and the message is for kids…who is this movie for? This isn’t like John Musker & Ron Clements’ Aladdin (1992) or Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson’s Shrek (2001), where there are some irreverent references to TV icons and famous news stories in the middle of a traditional fairytale. We get themes about serious topics like gender roles, patriarchy, gynecology, etc. and with those big, serious words written into the dialogue. The tone, design and direction suggest the viewer should be no younger than a teenager, but the writers are babying the feminist message in the second half so much that it comes across as borderline condescending and too bare bones. Little kids aren’t going to understand or care about society’s inequality and double standards in direct form and would probably learn better with metaphors. The grown-ups watching Barbie should already know the differences between men and women and basic understanding of feminism, so you wouldn’t have to explain it so simplistically.
(Lionsgate Films)
The weirdest part of Barbie is how many viewers are not only finding it hilarious, but also praising it for being a landmark, empowering portrayal of feminism. Five star reviews from professional critics to Letterboxd users. Hype up the wazoo on social media. Huh? Yes, Barbie is a funny film, but it also has major structure problems in both its story and messaging. I knew there were going to be some naysayers and trolls accusing the movie being ‘misandrist’ like usual, but I was not expecting so many people to act like feminism is some obscure concept just now being introduced. So many comments about how this movie is important and relevant to current times. To whom?? Middle schoolers and old people in Utah? I find it hard to believe the average person is that in the dark on the history of women’s rights, especially in the digital age where we have more access to information than ever before. Even if, say, you don’t necessarily agree with feminism as a concept, you would still have heard of it. I was always under the impression that the issue is most people don’t agree on how feminism should be utilized, not that most people don’t know what it is. Then there are those suggesting that this is a good time to start teaching young girls about the power of feminism. Which is always true, but uh…do you really want your child learning about it from a silly Barbie movie? At least in textbook terms.
And of course, there’s the biggest elephant in the room. All the hype and praise for the aesthetics, message and hilarious moments, and yet, near the middle of my viewing, I’m thinking, “Is it me or does this feel kind of…dated?” Not because of the millennial pop culture references, but the fact that Barbie actually has quite a diverse cast that the film doesn’t fully use. Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, Alexandra Shipp, Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Will Ferrell. So many cultures and ethnicities represented in the cast, with barely a hint of them incorporated into the script. This again calls back to the 1980s-2000s, when movies with diverse casts opted for the ‘color blind’ portrayal. When I was younger, I thought this was the way to go with race in fiction, assuming it was an accurate portrayal of living in harmony. Sometimes it can be appropriate and not make a huge difference to the plot [such as in Alice Troughton’s The Lesson this year, which is a standard drama-thriller]. But then I realized this narrative actually isn’t much progress in movies centered on things like politics, social commentary and other real-life issues. It’s more like a work-around to not have to acknowledge race inside the dialogue because the casting is allegedly good enough. With this in mind, I did some lurking on Tumblr and Twitter with the key words ‘Barbie,’ ‘white feminism’ and ‘intersectionality’ in the search engines, and lo and behold: plenty of young people of color are calling Greta’s film basically a white liberal/feminist fantasy that ignores the differences between women of each race. Those defending Barbie are saying, “Well, it’s not that serious, it's just a movie about dolls.” And that’s the thing. If Greta and Noah wanted their movie to have such a mature and important theme, they should have gone all the way with it, or have made something more in line with Mark Rosman’s Life-Size (2000) or Kevin Lima’s Enchanted (2007).
(Paramount Pictures / Universal Pictures)
To be clear, I don’t completely have it out for Barbie. I already started noticing outdated female characterizations the same month of its release, beginning with Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Part 1. In the new action/adventure, Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust—who has grown to be a favorite within the series’ fanbase—appears with a fake-out death in her first scene, only to be unceremoniously killed off during her last scene in the second act. When the latter occurred, my immediate thought was, “Did I just see a character get fridged in 2023?” The definition of fridging is when a female character [a lot of the time a love interest] is killed off for no reason other than to emotionally motivate the male lead forward. The ‘king’ of fridging 10-15 years ago was filmmaker Christopher Nolan, who ironically enough, also had a movie out this past July with Oppenheimer. And just as expected, a love interest dies right in the middle of this film too. Though in the context of the drama, Nolan can argue he’s being historically accurate to Jean Tatlock’s [Florence Pugh on screen] fate with her death scene, even if it feels redundant in his filmography. Regarding Dead Reckoning, Pt. 1, I’ve seen theories from COVID restrictions maybe affecting some of the actors’ availability to Rebecca just losing interest in the M:I franchise. Whatever the case, what a terrible way to send off a great action character.
There’s a lot I haven’t even covered about the Barbie discourse and the current state of women represented on film or why we seem to be going backwards with female characters. Such as Greta’s polarizing attempt to represent the Kens as the ‘girls’ of Barbieland and the Barbies as the ‘boys,’ or how she arguably gave Ryan’s Ken a more fleshed out arc than Margot’s Barbie. But I’m going to quit while I’m ahead to not make this article anymore longwinded than it already is. To be honest, I feel a little out of my depth commenting on some of these topics as a white woman from Orange County anyway. I’m not surprised Barbie is blowing up with audiences. They not only promoted the hell out of it, but the title character is one of the most popular toys of all time, and people are remembering how fun it is to meet-up at the movie theater. Like I’ve said multiple times in my newsletter recently: I’m glad new releases are doing so well with critics and audiences this late summer, including Barbie, and I hope the trend continues. But they should have taken full advantage of their potential and fired on all cylinders.