To think America Ferrera’s speech in Barbie isn’t that great?

[Prrambulate]

BARBIE SPOILERS BELOW

Everyone seems to be raving about this moment in the Barbie movie - possibly worthy of an Oscar nomination, and a quintessential characterisation of what it’s like to be a women in modern society.

I thought it was lacklustre. There are parts of it that ring true - the incessant need to be likeable - but they’re kind of cliched. And other parts I just don’t agree with (love your kids but don’t talk about them all time, ie retain a semblance of identity beyond motherhood. Isn’t that a good thing? And who’s saying we always have to be grateful? I feel there’s much more collective understanding now about the challenges of being a woman and/or mother…)

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Speech:

”It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.

You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass.

You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people.

You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.

But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line.

It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.”

Issuefroth - you felt sorry for the men in the audience? Did you actually ask them? Because I know a bunch of young men who went with their girlfriends and they all loved it. Maybe they're OK with and agree with the message, unlike their older counterparts I'd imagine

I live in a deprived lower working class area. I. My Facebook every weekend/festival is young women looking like fully made up, over sexualised dolls with lads who've barely had a haircut, wearing a tracksuit. The women/girls are doing all the household stuff and earning money. Then spending a good portion of injections, tanning etc to hang on to scrotes who tell them how they aren't good enough. It's a different world to the majority of MN and shows that this message is still needed. It's like whenever someone posts an outrageous scenario of abusive behaviour and posters ask, do you think it's ok? Well yes, they doubt themselves because that's what they've grown up with, are being told to put up with in their peer group. I despair at the amount of DV, the everyday sexism etc still around in my DD's peer groups.

Name the film's and we can see if groups of young women and girls who need this message are likely to see them and take note. Every few years are girls who don't know what we know, haven't read, or watched. We never stop anti racist messages, why not, anti sexism messages?

I don’t even know where to begin with this misogynistic embarrassing garbage but you certainly don’t speak for every woman. Especially if you think being a being today is brilliant and we should be grateful and the hardest thing we face is wondering if men fancy us enough.

Don’t you just live it when women are blamed for men’s sexism too

I agree with you. I find it narcissistic, self absorbed and completely tone deaf to the real inequalities people face around the world. Plus it defines women in a subservient way, always worried about what others think.

It got a ‘preach!’ And a round of applause when I went to see it….. very young demographic of teens-early 20s so I guess it’s newer to them. I being in my 30s obviously heard it all before so coming from a different perspective.

Don’t you just live it when women are blamed for men’s sexism too

"You're accountable for men's behaviour, which is insane...."

The film isn't entirely without any problems; I don't know how any film about Barbie could be, even and especially a satirical adult one. But it's at least aware of them, answers them...and so many comments about it only prove what it's saying.

What I found most telling about that pile of tosh you quoted was that it did actually go into quite strong detail about just some of the problems of being female, and then dismissed them with "and that's it", as if a) that were indeed it and b) that wouldn't be enough if it were!

@AtlasOfBirds yes agree that Ken's arc was ultimately more interesting than Barbie's flop on the ground/become a real person story. Learning not to define himself by Barbie and finding himself in his own right was a great end.

I just get frustrated with people offhandly saying 'team Ken' as if boys inevitably have it the hardest; perhaps I misinterpreted the earlier poster.

I'm Team Alan.

Just as an aside, I found the info on Barbie’s origins v interesting:

‘Barbie actually started out life in the late 1940s as a German cartoon character created by artist Reinhard Beuthien for the Hamburg-based tabloid, Bild-Zeitung. The comic strip character was known as “Bild Lilli”, a post-war gold-digging buxom broad who got by in life seducing wealthy male suitors. She became so popular that in 1953, the newspaper decided to market a three-dimensional version which was sold as an adult novelty toy, available to buy from bars, tobacco kiosks and adult toy stores. They were often given out as bachelor party gag gifts and dangled from a car’s rearview mirror.’

Have you any fucking reading comprehension? At no point whatsoever did I say I speak for every woman. I said the bilge in this movie doesn't speak for every woman. At no point whatsoever did I say anything at all even remotely, at all, not even one tiny bit, about men fancying us to us. What the actual fuck did you read? Honestly? That's such a weird response. The only thing I said even remotely about attraction, is that despite a significant minority of men posing a very real physical threat to women. Most of us are attracted to men and have no genuine way of telling in advance if the men we are attracted to are the ones who pose that threat. And that, it's common for those men to become most violent when we are pregnant. How the actual fuck did you read 'oh no, maybes the mens don't fancy me' into that?

But yes, in spite of that danger that those men pose, due to their greater strength and speed. We still live in the safest, most luxurious and fair society that has ever existed. That's just a fact. It doesn't mean that it can't get better. But part of making it better means being able to truly acknowledge what has been achieved. Because not acknowledging that has, in part, lead to it getting a bit worse due to the fact that women's sports are being spoiled and our former levels of safety and security in toilets, changing rooms, prisons, hospital wards, etc have been undermined.

I watched a documentary about Barbie that told the story of how the original dolls came out of the factory with nipples and they all had to be filed off.

I thought it was brilliant

That might be your experience. It’s certainly not mine. When in my earlier career I was being expected to make the tea, talked over and ignored in meetings, had pathetic jokes made I wasn’t worried in that moment about being raped or murdered. But it did erode my sense of my importance in the world, my right to have a voice. How can you fight against all those things if you don’t feel you can have a voice?

I’m disappointed that you don’t see the connection between these micro aggressions that many women experience every day and the sense of entitlement that make men think they’re allowed to rape and murder women with impunity. Your viewpoint doesn’t chime with psychology. You only have to read some of the psychological studies where you randomly hand power to a group to notice that they very soon start to be corrupted and use their power to debase and subjugate.

It’s easy to sneer that people’s efforts are the wrong kind of feminism. But it’s exactly playing into the hands of those who prefer the status quo to squabble between ourselves. Anything that makes young girls and young women change how they are perceived and perceive themselves is a good thing and starts to roll back the attitudes that lead to the things you most fear. As a basic example if you’re not trying to please a man in bed (because you’ve been brainwashed to think it’s your role) then you’re not going to accept the idea of choking as a mainstream sexual activity. In which case men will not be able to claim that as a defence against murder.

Completely agree @Greenberg2

I’m in my 40s and thought it was a great movie. I loved the speech. When it’s all put together, it shows how ridiculous and contradictory the expectations are. You will never win.

Agreed OP. I agree with the sentiment but as an adult I have surrounded myself with women who I have had such conversations with for a very long time. But if there are woman out there that have not had such an ‘awakening’ before that but could get some cogs rolling which is great

I agree. I think a more powerful and useful message would be "society judges women and places expectations on them but, surprise, you don't have to do what society says". It had the feeling of ranting against an imperfect world but moaning isn't enough, we need to be talking action to change it.

That's exactly what the speech implies.

Well I would argue that Greta Gerwig in bringing this message to an extremely very wide mainstream and also young audience is “doing something about it” 🙄. What are you doing?

What am I doing?
I'm the main breadwinner of the family. I laugh at people who imply my husband should feel emasculated.
I chose a profession which isn't typically "female" and well paid so I wouldn't get pushed into the role of "oh I earn less so it makes sense for my career to take a back seat".

I took short maternity leaves and went back full time so I didn't get bumped onto the mummy track and knacker my pension.

Share all domestic and child related labour with husband.
Kept my own name when I married.
Was not given away at my wedding ceremony.

Learnt to use power tools and do basic car maintenance.
Dress for myself and don't care what anyone else thinks about my clothes, looks, weight.
Openly discuss all the above with my children (one boy, one girl).

Haven’t we all pretty much done that? Also are you saying it’s “wrong” for women to take a few years out with their young children?

Don’t notice producing a film
that gets a feminist message out to the mainstream and millions of young girls on your pat yourself on the back list though.

Nobody's arsed or impressed, take your weird self gratification elsewhere

Well, no. The speech tells women/girls they 'have to' be thin, and not too pretty because other women are mean and envious. It's a list of things that women 'have to do.' Says who? Who is she talking about? Other women? Social media? Films and celebrity culture? The speech reads better if you substitute 'don't have to' for 'have to.' It would be even better if it identified who is telling women they have to be any way. Could it possibly be women themselves? And that's without the fact that the tone is helpless, oh poor me with my privileged lifestyle worrying so much about how I look. FFS, looks are fleeting and not really that important in the grand scheme of things. What you do is what counts.