Why the right-wing is so mad about Barbie.

"For I've become Barbie, destroyer of worldviews that are stupid."

Since the beginning of time (Helen Mirren voice), humanity has addressed the problem of rebellious women by setting them on fire. Ever the traditionalist, screechy right-winger Ben Shapiro is reasserting the natural order with a ranty video that shows him throwing a Barbie doll in a fire pit, exulting as her flesh blackens and melts off. Cool optics bro, I’m sure you wouldn’t have burned “witches” in olden times. “Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Barbie movie!” the video claims.

The message of the movie, according to Shapiro, is the false feminist idea that “In the real world. Men. Run. Everything,” he says in outrage. “But who greenlit this piece of crap?” A picture of Greta Gerwig flashes on the screen. Yes, Ben, Barbie can direct movies now, we live in a matriarchy.

Despite a relentless marketing blitz directed squarely at my (early middle-aged female) demographic, I was grumpy about, and uninterested in, the Barbie movie. The partnership with Mattel smacks of gross consumerism. Casting Margot Robbie is not exactly a great rebellion against the unrealistic beauty standards promoted by the original doll (explored very well in the documentary “Tiny Shoulders.”). Yes, Robbie has a human body, not the body of an elongated alien, but her maddeningly perfect face, blue eyes and blonde hair, still present a beauty ideal beyond the reach of 99.999999 percent of the world.

For decades, Mattel has flailed, amidst dwindling popularity, to update the doll to match contemporary gender and race norms. “Tiny Shoulders” depicts excruciating office meetings where staff try to retool Barbie for the woke era. It lands flat from a feminist and race studies sense. We’ve got a gazillion dollar empire trying to make up for “Math class is hard!” Barbie with astronaut Barbie, which in turn sells the classic capitalist message of individual boot-straps success. It’s real #GirlBoss energy, which as the kids say these days, is “cringe.”

So I had doubts about the film’s vaunted feminism. But then right-wingers sucked Barbie into our stupid culture wars. In their fevered imaginings, the film may as well be a drag queen reading “Gender is a Construct and White People and Men Are Bad” to pre-schoolers. Jack Posobiec called the film a "man-hating woke propaganda fest," a criticism echoed by Matt Gaetz, his wife and also, Elon Musk.

Piers Morgan even fears for his life! “If I made a movie mocking women as useless dunderheads, constantly attacking ‘the matriarchy,’ and depicting all things feminist as toxic bulls***, I wouldn’t just be cancelled, I’d be executed.” Yes, so many film auters have been sent to death row for their poor depictions of women. Woody Allen. Alfred Hitchcock. Death row is filled with directors who abused or made women look bad.

As you can already tell I loved it. It breaks the 4th wall, but without the tweeness of a Wes Anderson movie. Virtually every joke lands. The acting in Oppenheimer part of Barbenheim is getting deserved raves, but comic acting is harder than dramatic acting, and Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie, and America Ferrera nail it.

The film is rife with neat cultural references without being annoying. Ken’s dancing is a play on viral videos of young Gosling dancing on the Mickey Mouse Club, another behemoth franchise with questionable effects on global culture. One scene that gives Shapiro conniptions is when real world Barbie gets heckled with, “Hey, blondie!” Shapiro seethes something to the effect that the scene is unrealistic, and a gratuitous smear of men. First, men are perpetually surprised to hear the creative things that come out of other men’s mouths on the street. But Ben Shapiro, you dumbass, it’s not just realistic, it’s a cultural reference to Deborah Harry coming up with the name for her band “Blondie” after getting heckled by construction workers in the exact way Barbie is. What a clever reference to repurposing patriarchy to feminist ends.

In his nearly hour-long rant, Shapiro claims that in addition to being insidious feminist propaganda, the movie just sucks; that it doesn’t make sense and is practically unwatchable. In fact, it is so watchable, particularly in a theater, particularly with women that know what it’s like to paste a grin on your face while your boyfriend plays guitar at you for 4 hours. Look I appreciate Oppenheimer—Cillian Murphy is a genius. But I didn’t enjoy watching 40 extraneous minutes of black and white footage of Secretary of Commerce drama with my bladder about to explode.

I’ll go one further: I think Barbie is more political than Oppenheimer, but nobody noticed because it’s presented as girly fluff. Oppenheimer never really takes a political position, apart from “McCarthyism is bad.” The Barbie movie is literally about power; not just gender power dynamics in relationships, but competing visions of how to run a society, which is traditional definition of politics.

I think Mattel’s next step is trans Barbie, so the global right-wing turns to dust in a nuclear head explosion and we don’t have to hear Ben Shapiro’s voice anymore.