The far right is constantly warning that if you go woke, you’ll go broke. But when it comes to the new Barbie movie, they couldn’t be more wrong.

Barbie, which follows Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) as they leave Barbie Land to explore the real world, earned a whopping $162 million in its opening weekend, Variety reported Monday. This is the biggest opening weekend of the year, and the biggest opening weekend for a female director ever.

The film had already made $22.3 million at the domestic box office from Thursday previews, the biggest preview haul of the summer. It blew the previous record of $17.5 million (made by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in May) out of the water.

  • Jordan Lund@lemmy.one
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    11 months ago

    The weird thing is, if they actually WATCHED the movie, it makes a strong point for mens rights.

    Ken is an accessory to Barbie, he has no real life outside her, doesn’t even have his own house. As the film states, for Barbie, every day is the best day ever. For Ken? It’s only a good day when Barbie looks at him, and she often doesn’t because “every night is girls night.”

    When Ken finds out the real world is not like that, he fills the void with “Patriarchy”. It’s an absolutely toxic reaction, but it’s hard to fault Ken for trying to find meaning for his existence and instead, slipping and falling down a red pill rabbit hole.

    So you can see why disaffected men might feel attacked, Ken is a mirror to their own existence. Sidelined by women, powerless, and told their reaction is, ultimately, unhealthy and self-destructive, but they can’t see how else to react.

    The main problem is Ken, and the real world men like Ken, aren’t presented with a socially acceptable alternative.

    The end of the film ALMOST recognizes that Barbie’s Dream World and Ken’s “Kenergy” are equally toxic, but I expected a better conclusion where they realize it’s an inversion of the “real” world where women have been seen as accessories for decades, and the only real solution is true equality on both sides.

    They don’t take it that far, it’s still Barbie’s world, the Kens just live in it, with token integrated positions for equality, for example, Kens get 1 position on the Barbie Supreme Court. Even in our admittedly imperfect world, the Supreme Court has 4 women on it (Kagan, Sotomayor, Barett, Brown-Jackson). You’d think they’d boost the Barbie supremes to 4 Kens, or at a minimum, 3+Allan.

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      You’re wrong.

      spoiler

      They get denied even one position on the supreme court, they get lower court appointments, which the Kens are fine with since it means they get to wear robes