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Tangent: Barbie (Patreon)

Published:
2023-08-06 22:57:09
Edited:
2023-10-13 19:06:39
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hi friends,

Here is this month's book-report-ass Tangent on the Barbie movie.

I made this in about three days (not counting movie night), and we're getting closer to being back on monthly schedule. I'm anxious that this is mid content by my own standards, but hopefully it's still worth your time and support. The reality is that it's just not possible to make a 40 minute video in three days without cutting some corners, so some corners have been cut. But at least you know I haven't died, and I hope that is comforting in some way.

Let me know what you think, and thanks as always for your support!

-Natalie

P.S. Here's the video link, in case the embedding doesn't work for you: https://youtu.be/3OdgRPd8N0c

Files

Tangent: Barbie

Thanks so much for your support! ▬ Contents▬ Part 1: Barbenheimer 00:13 Part 2: Barbie Has Gone Woke 03:49 Part 3: The Existential Horror of Barbie 12:49 Part 4: Healing the Mother/Daughter Split 16:17 Part 5: The Crisis of Male Identity 23:27 Part 6: Movies Are Just Commercials Now 29:04 Part 7: Lingering Questions 37:18

Comments

highclass_lady

This is my dream come true! 💖 Come on Barbie let's go partyyyyyyy! 🎉

Frankie

Perfect time for a drop im currently bored at my liminal night shift

feral sara

So excited to waaaatch!

Curious Gorge

Just saying: in order for the Barbie movie to be remotely historically accurate there should have been a naked scissoring scene.

Anna

She is become content, the destroyer of sleep

Jaololpes

I've literally just watched this movie. Now I'll let you tell me what to think about it

sarah

Hi Barbie!

smashleydee

Hi Barbie! Casual Tangent actually sounds really nice ❤️

Austin F

only halfway through the video and i just want to say that the billie eilish song from this movie about the existential dread is an extremely good and poignant look at just how dehumanizing it is to have people project on you so much that they don't allow you to be your own person. i honestly think both celebrities and internet creators might be hit harder by it than anyone

Stephen Brealey

It was hardly an unfounded hope you'd cover this, but I'm very happy it's now here.

ryan rieffel

Ive gotta say, watching this video gave me the irrational impulse urge to go to a store, buy a barbie, and start playing dress up with it. I hold fast against such temptation, and I rebuke that fire. But can we not talk about the Wildeish beauty for beauty’s sake? Is there not a pure bliss in just playing dress up and engaging with the doll as a toy and a vehicle for fantasy? TL;DR this video could have used a break in the middle where you try on various barbiecore outfits from Casa Wynn™️

Austin F

also i swear to god twitter leftism has turned me anti-intellectual because when you were reading those tweets about barbie's "trash politics" and the antarctic sea ice, i just wanted to shove the twitter users into a locker

Cat Cannon

She's a feline girl, in a feline world, life in cat ears, it's her career

Abigail

I am conflicted about the lack of sex. Or I should say, I think the overall trend is bad, I think it's part of an overall pattern of rushed, sloppy movies with a recognizable name slapped over it. But the Barbie movie didn't bother me because it spoke to my specific experience as an ace-spec woman. Like Gloria said, "Be pretty but not so pretty that you tempt men." And when men are tempted, I often want to preserve their feelings because I feel like I'm in the wrong, much like Barbie wants to preserve Ken's feelings. TL;DR Barbie is my emotional support sexless corporate shlock.

Alex

I was talking with my girlfriend yesterday about how we both wanted a Natalie take on Barbie/Barbenheimer. This is like Christmas morning.... Or something better than that.. amazing. Gorg. Thanks, Barbie!

Brad

I really enjoyed this video, I wouldn't call it "mid". Thanks!

S. R.

Ben Shapiro specifically burnt those Barbies as an A-bomb joke, which made me so goddamn nauseous. Also, your point that "a corporation is trying to dismiss sexist decisions they made about an object as mean about the object as if she were a real woman" is something I've seen over and over again wrt sexist character designs in nerd spaces. "She chooses to dress like this, so you're the misogynist if you don't respect 'her' choices"...

Count Crackula

I think it's interesting that the film brushes on a schism in feminism between its conservative and liberal branches of thought. Which is even more interesting as feminism, certainly in the public eye, is seen as largely liberal/leftist. Think of that whole cottagecore trend/Lana Del Rey brand of feminism (that somehow gets branded as "anti-feminist") which lionizes traditional gender roles and patriarchal femininity. The conflict between the zoomer and Barbie kinda hints at this. Barbie still wants to adhere to those traditional ideals of beauty and femininity, while the gen-Zer sees them as the trappings of patriarchy. I'm just riffing and I don't know shit. Just something I noticed.

durnsidh `

Don't, worry it hasn't. Those tweets were in bad faith, trying to generate engagement.

S. R.

Also... Just gonna warn you in case... Ending the video with the bomb footage and posting the video on the anniversary of the bombing from Hiroshima has some Optics... Be safe out there in the wilds of Twitter...

Evan Pitkin

didn't disagree with a word of this, and yet was profoundly relieved when the nuke finally went off.

Felicity Daleccio

I liked your takes, I didn't fully agree with them but I think its partly because trans women and cis women have very different relationships with womanhood and the movie will definitely be interpreted different by every woman. I think Kens ending was meant to be open ended because his entire character arc was about separating himself from Barbie. We aren't supposed to see exactly what he becomes because let's be honest, this movie isn't about him. I really resonated with the themes surrounding Barbie and Kens relationship because I myself have been in relationships with men who both wanted me to tell him what he is (mother him) and at the same time control me and be the dominant person in the relationship. I don't think the movie is afraid of tomboyish women who don't fit into strict feminine standards, I think the movie shows that women can become enlightened without falling in love, changing her style/appearance and stay girlie while also choosing her own path. I do however agree with your take on weird barbie being very queer coded and the movie being almost afraid of women being sexual. Weird barbie can kind of be seen as the weird side of being a girl exploring her identity and growing up and into the person she will be outside of the perfect girl mantra. Feminine aesthetics have often been criticized for appealing to the male gaze, I think it's nice that women can be portrayed liking girlie things and continue being her own woman. Anyway, loved this book reporty type tangent Natalie! You're awesome, and this movie is very contradictory anyway.

pinh3d_ (Jack)

Queen, we love all your content. It's not "high or low quality," it's just different types of content. I'll watch whether it's a video you scripted and reworked for 18 months or if you're playing Stardew on stream. It's all great to us 🙂

Dave L

Wow. This was a good one.

Yuripreamble

I honestly loved it! I haven’t watched the Barbie movie yet but I tend to be influenced by essay reviews on the movie. After hearing you talk about it I’m gonna watch it and keep in mind the points you made. Thank you again for posting this and wish you an amazing week!

Katie

Thank you for this! I hated this movie while also feeling like I shouldn’t feel strongly enough to hate it to begin with, and you really captured it all.

Eric Kaplan

this was crack -- cool aufhebung of serious and frivolous

Deconstruction Interactive

Loved this! I did not know there was a heroine's journey book, that's really cool. And I am very intrigued by the ace themes. I think it is possible to have equal, autonomous heterosexual relationships, but it's also very much not the script US millennials were given as kids, so I can see how the idea of such a relationship is suspect. It's very interesting how (speaking of 2010 feminist bloggers) there was this whole wave of sex-positive feminism in the last decade in the US at least, and at the same time we have this very popular movie selling this idea of a sexless utopia. There is maybe something there about sex for procreation, but I will comment later if I end up seeing the movie, I feel like I'm out of my depth here.

vossanova

the embedded video made me do an old-school captcha like nine times and I definitely thought it was part of the video experience for a minute. linked video was fine though haha

Nagito Komaeda 69420

great as always. lots of love mommy. good night now i have important business in the morning. xoxo

Seed Oil Sommelier

If this is video essay is mid, I’ve never made anything worth more than a pitcher of spit in my life.

Tall Jeff

This is not mid content by any standard! Long live frivolity

Jo Quigley

I think what makes Gerwig's movies different than the current trend is that they're not sexless despite never focusing on sex. Gerwig's take on Jo is like Barbie left ambiguous in terms of sexuality and if she even wants to pursue romance, but sex and romance still linger over her and she has an incredibly passionate relationship with someone regardless. Barbie is a movie where a woman learns being sexually harassed literally has nothing to do with you, has to awkwardly dismiss sexual comments about Ken's bulge, and goes to OBGYN. It's not the same as the sexless Marvel movies to me.

J

Isn’t the relationship of men to femininity that you reference kind of the master slave dialectic. Men need to subjugate femininity in order triangulate their subjectivity. That subjugation forces men to be repulsed by femininity as the negative image masculinity while simultaneously being inextricably bound to it. That’s the horror of accepting that dynamic and loading so much significance into gender. You become bound fast to that you which you must utterly reject. Idk though, I refuse to read Hegel.

Liska Ostojic

I could rip this movie apart, as a movie and as feminism, far more than the very sweet Contrapoints is apparently going to... and yet I feel like I couldn't even really expend the energy? Or I can't muster the energy to do it for something so dumb?? idk, but you expressed the contradiction perfectly

Jane Allred

So about the speech, it makes explicit a big vibe I've gotten from Gerwig's previous films, especially Little Women, and I think is interesting. While there's a feminist element to the cathartic 'being a woman sucks', and Gerwig especially leans into the feminism part, its something which is just so true to womanhood in the patriarchy that its appeal is much greater than any specific goals. I grew up in Provo, UT, a.k.a what if college town a la Madison, WI, but extremely mormon, and extremely republican. Who the fuck knows where women there are at politically and emotionally these days, but growing up largely before the 2010's feminist wave, I knew many women who would never think of calling themselves feminist, but who would lean hard into the 'being a woman sucks' line, again, as a means of catharsis. It also made for uniquely feminine form of virtue signal, given that mormonism is very much a hardship = godly religion. The difficulty of being a woman in this world is a point that's so obviously true, that you can do almost anything with it ... milquetoast feminism, holier-than-though-patriarchal-bargain-tradwife-core, hell its a strong undercurrent of the 'dost though bleed' gender critical nonsense. Anyway, catharsis is nice, it feels good, it can bring us together, a big 'yes, and' to catharsis. 'yes' and there's so much more to womanhood than suffering, and so much beauty and joy to be found even in the shit fed to us today. I appreciate the hell out of Gerwig, because in a world full of auteurs whose talents cannot save them from a lot of mediocre opinions, its nice that at least one of them can be the woman version of that -- and to her credit, I think she does try and find the joy in the femininity, but also there's all that sex negativity. I get where the ace/aro reading of Gerwig is coming from, but her approach to sexuality as a form of abstinence is extremely hetero. Just as political lesbianism isn't sapphic, abstinence isn't ace. Everything varies, of course, but I know a lot of ace people who are extremely open about sex, partly because they don't give a shit about the taboo. Sex negativity isn't just about sex, but also any indulgence in sensory pleasure. Anyway, I have yet to see barbie, but if one thing will force me back to the theaters, its barbie, if only for the discourse I crave.

Frankie Andrien

i’m especially interested in the marginalization of the queercoded barbies (given weird barbie was hanging out with magic earring ken, and allen is also thoroughly queercoded and denied a real place in society). in some ways, i think that’s another attempted inoculation— the whole feminist critique of barbie is that the “you can be anything” mantra only applies if you first meet the impossible standard of being barbie, and it’s a standard that queer women in particular can’t even get close to. given the movie marks something of a shift in barbieland’s perception of what makes a woman worthy of a role in society (they needed to overcome the horrors of cellulite), it makes sense that they would then hint at including queer women in the new, reformed barbieland: i’m sorry we called you weird barbie behind your back and also to your face. you’re one of us now… even though you can’t embody femininity as well as the rest of us. we’ll let you hang out with the cool kids since you helped us end the patriarchy. hooray, barbie is queer-inclusive now! no, we didn’t mention the obvious fact that those ones are gay. i feel like that resolution didn’t make for quite the same sort of defense from an advertising standpoint, but it didn’t need to, because it’s not like queer women were actually expecting to be included in barbie feminism. ultimately, it was quite realistic about the position of the queer community in feminist discourse: weird barbie and allen sided with the barbies, knowing full well they would not truly reap the rewards of barbie liberation. branding itself as feminist was enough for mattel to get the gays on board. it still does interest me that a movie SO blunt and direct about everything from being corporate propaganda to barbie’s lack of a vagina would shy away from queerness on the level that it did. but hey, i maybe am getting a bit too caught up in The Discourse. like i said earlier, i wasn’t exactly expecting revolutionary, queer-inclusive feminist takes from the fucking barbie movie and i’m not going to complain about not getting them; it was a good movie.

Miriam Aberdeen

I'm one of the too-cool-for-Barbie idiots spouting the "feminism 101" rhetoric. I guess the movie popped my bubble in the realisation that this is where we're at with womanhood. I also know of other women who cried while listening to Gloria's speech… but this felt like stuff I'd already heard in mainstream media 10+ years ago. How is it only getting through now? Oh well, I'm glad that if it is where we are at that it's getting such traction. That's cool.

Zindagigi

Loved the tangent, loved Barbie, too (for what it was) but also a little bit of me is sad that peto bismal/rani/electric fushcia pink got blown up by this because I love this color and use it as an accent a lot and now I just come off as a weirdo geriatric millennial who is too in to Barbie. That's a me problem, though. Segue: when did Bean-o Shapir-o start sporting a Willbo Dad beard? Late 2010's hipster, much?

Gordon Ian Williams

I had a slightly different take on the Ken arc. I thought it was all about getting him TO the point where he realizes he has some shit to work out. And the movie isn’t going to do that work for him (maybe in the sequel? *shudder*). Kind of like it isn’t black people’s job to do the emotional labor of helping white people process the realization that they are the beneficiaries of white privilege. I felt like we leave Ken at the beginning of his growth arc, not the end. Ken gives the dufus boyfriend who went to the movie with his girlfriend an entry point into empathizing with and starting to work on some feminism 101. While this is all pretty basic to people who are followers of this channel, I’m confident there are a lot of men who went to this movie and had some uncomfortable moments, because they weren’t sure how to take the joke. So like Ken, they end the movie with the realization that they need to figure out what a positive (albeit, in Ken’s case, plastic) model of masculinity is, and they have some unpacking to do before they can hope to engage with someone romantically in a constructive way. I mean, a thing I *liked* a lot about this movie was its invitation to feminism *for men* as a potentially joyous thing. I think part of the problem the Shapiro’s of the world have is that (1) they can’t admit their precious feefees are tied up in unearned respect and (2) they have been trained to perceive feminism as anti-men and scoldy and un-fun. A movie that gives these people permission to laugh at themselves a little bit and empathize… seems like a pretty good start. And given the discourse about how many women are dumping their boyfriends after seeing this movie… maybe some of them will get the message the hard way?

Emerson Whittaker

This is similar to a different comment, but I feel like Ken is an accidental transmasc icon in that his main struggle is to find a way to be recognized as a person at all. First he thinks if a woman really recognizes him then he will matter. Then he thinks that if he can just do masculinity to the max and look as tough as the real world men then he will matter. He has to learn that he has been "Kenough" this whole time, outside of any gender framework. I guess it's the having to unlearn objectifying yourself and trying to reinvent masculinity in your own way which I find relatable. Then there is poor Allan, the truly invisible one who has no place and is just trying to stay out of the drama, relatable nonbinary content, lmao. Overall I loved the movie for the campy fun that it is and I will absolutely be dressing as Ken for Halloween.

Touchmyhooha

Hey, videos don't need to be crazy long. I'm more interested in some sizzling ass takes. Glad you're putting something out there either way!

Olivia Rollins

This was in fact the perfect amount of effort and exactly what I needed. (And I'm always comforted by any sign of life from you.)

Gabriel

Honestly I can only imagine how hard it is to make long vids, so I appreciate the tension between quantity and quality. And I’ll support whichever place on that continuum that is sustainable to you!

Crys Bowie

Mom, this is what the tangents are supposed to be. Sometimes a Barbie hot take is just a Barbie hot take and thank fucking goodness for that. We all need to live in the zeitgeist from time to time, or we lose touch with it completely.

Weaver Bird

Some Ken thoughts: While I agree that Ken's dilemma of developing his identity outside of his relationship to Barbie isn't part of *the crisis of masculine identity* in a cultural sense, and is likely, as you say, meant to be read as a reversal of gender roles, and a funny commentary on the status of the Ken doll – I think that this might still also be intended to be relatable to straight women as a kind of guy. I've had conversations with straight female friends, and consumed media by straight women, about boyfriends who are largely dependent on women in their life to diagnose their feelings and lay out their life path for them, and who become directionless without a girlfriend – who essentially don't fully function as independent individuals. This seems to be common enough of an experience to have become a sort of stereotype about straight men that straight women joke about. This sort of ties into a thing about the movie which, to me, feels like a regressive type of not-quite-feminism – which is the useless man-competent woman dynamic. While this is probably something (straight) women can relate to, and can feel some validation and empowerment from seeing reflected, it also reinforces this cultural image of the hypercompetent, hypersocialized woman and the helpless man child, who is at the same time liberated from social expectations – see, any Seth Rogen movie.

Christopher Knoll

Tangents are not meant to be even remotely comparable to regular videos, and I think your supporters totally get this. You yourself mentioned Jenny when you started tangents, and her monthly rambles are aptly named. And we love them! Just like we love tangents. Personality and parasociality are a big part of it; these keep the focus on a topic like a proper video, but I at least treat them like a mix between a video and a "just chatting" twitch stream. Id gladly pay for exactly that and nothing more.

Prutt

I think you’ve found the sweet spot! I thoroughly enjoyed it; the tangents don’t need to be more elaborate than this if you ask me. (I enjoyed the previous ones too, but I was a bit concerned over the amount of effort you seemed to put in them)

Marion Goller

Great Video, as usual. I have only read one of the "It's not feminist, actually" think pieces and that one was written by a man and quite condescending. Apparently he's worried that the movie will confuse women. Right... To me, it adds a new meta-layer of "women can't to anything right". During "THE SPEECH" Gloria is exasperated how all the expectations that apply to women now also apply to "a doll". And this goes for the movie itself, too. You could rewrite that speech to say "as a feminist movie, you have to be X, but also Y...". And if any of the requirements that follow are "successful" as in "seen by a lot of people" then that will eat into the anti-capitalist message you are allowed get away with. Because no studio would make that movie. That's why that vector of criticism is so boring. About the anti-romance-thing: Wasn't there a scene at the end where one of the Kens says he DOES want to be the boyfriend to "his" Barbie and she's actually into that? I think it's Emma Mackey and Ncuti Gatwa (Yay Sex Education!!!). It's really short, like, blink and you miss it. But I took it to mean "If you want to have a romantic relationship, that's fine, too." Did anyone else interpret it in this way?

June Kuhn

Thanks for analyzing this as an ad as well, and how well it performs as an ad and what narratives of propoganda it uses

Chazzaroo

Yeah I took it more as "romance is an option but not the definitive one", which makes sense for the film.

Chazzaroo

I think I'd disagree with the romance take, as we do see romance is the human world and we see a few examples. We just see Barbie rejecting the idea that romance is her "ending", because she wants to become her own self rather than be defined than the projection of others. Which has lots of things to examine too, but I don't think it's surprising that the idea of romance is more fleshed out in the flesh world rather than the toy world.

Ren

This ace did indeed super love seeing an entire society in which asexuality was the default! Barbie is ace culture—and how many other things do we get?

Konni

2007's Enchanted did basically the same thing. It started as Disney's critique of their own brand/the Disney princess brand, but the movie only looks at a surface level and the status quo remains unchanged(mostly because the criticism they address in that film are mostly bad faith digs in the sense of "Arielle gave up her voice for a MAN, how unfeminist!")

Tasha J

About the lack of romance... as an aromantic allosexual, I'm thrilled. I want lots more stories where there's no romance with the women.

Mobius Scarf

I was overjoyed every time you said you didn't watch a video or read a lengthy text in order to more rigorously back up your points for this. I love that you only took 4 days to make this. Save the big brain energy for the main channel videos. The entire point of the Tangents is that you can just shoot from the hip, and this one was a great example of that. Sometimes, cutting corners is good, actually.

Sander, Anna-Lisa

Great video! In the beginning I was a bit sceptical and frankly surprised you didn't just give Barbie a pass for its problematic stuff, but even on the whole praise it as feminist. Then I listened through all the different topics, you bring up, very importantly the stuff about Sasha (Lisa) having to be integrated in plastic feminity, the brand thereby inoculating itself against criticism (!) and the whole issue of the Kens and the absence of romance. I guess, I took all these points a lot harder than you - a two-hour commercial inviting us all to embrace barbie-feminsm without sexuality, without the need for real otherness, heterosexuality is too hard so just no more pleasure for the poorly afflicted heterosexuals, whaaaat?!? (And Gerwig is married to Baumbach, also working with him and she just gave birth to their second child; so she is still engaging in romance, no? Care to share insights?) Still, I think what you say about how to read and consider art and pop culture is interesting and I can also relate to that more sarcastic, lighter but in some ways also darker tone even though I have a tendency to go off the rails and just full-on attack barbie as Sasha did in that scene they meet – but kind of different, since no gen z here, hmmm... time to have another think ;)

Austin F

not a woman myself, but about the sexual harassment, one thing i thought this movie did well was that it made it super clear that it's 100% not barbie's responsibility that those men were creeps towards her. nothing about her clothes being 'skimpy', or that she was 'out too late', or whatever. it sounds like the bare minimum but i think a ton of media fails at that (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and i think teenage girls watching it can benefit from being told that. edit: something i forgot to articulate is that i don't just mean piggish male-dominated narratives have this problem. there's a lot of well-meaning stuff for women that still implies that the woman got harassed because of a 'mistake' she made (like going out really late at night), and while it might work as /advice/, i think it still advances the idea that sexual harassment is something women can avoid if they just 'make the right choices'

Austin F

it's so crazy too because if a character in nerd media is black or gay or etc, suddenly it's the writers "forcing diversity", and the idea that the character could be independent of the creators is totally gone for them. how convenient.

Sunbeam

Nice! I pretty much don't watch movies, but watching film reviews and essays online is a guilty pleasure, and it's great to see your takes. Hearing you talk about Ken, and how his arc isn't really reflective of the male experience of patriarchy and his resolution is a bit limp, reminded me of your video on Men, and how resolving crises of male identity on a societal level require some level of internal discovery and introspection beyond the observations and diagnoses of women and feminism. Like, the film leans heavily into female perspectives, so even though it's not man-hating, male identity just wouldn't be a big part of it (to be clear, I haven't watched the film, though). What I'm trying to say is, I love it when your videos reference or just gel with your earlier work. I'm also a total sucker for callbacks, so thumbs up for those. Personally, I don't mind these Tangents being rougher; I think you've reached a level of ability in your delivery and essay construction that the Tangents have a style and feel that's distinct from your main channel videos, rather than looking sloppy or basic. I've also liked the streams, even if I can't catch them live, and seeing you be more intuitive and reserved and conversational in the Tangents is a great contrast to your more poised and professional main channel videos. It's great! :)

Najeeb Khadim

I agree Ken is the least clear cut part of the film. I guess part of the crisis of masculinity is the feeling of a loss of social role and and the meaning-making that comes with it. In a sense that imagined traditional role does require women - to see men as dominating does require a group to be dominated. That's the best link I can think between Ken's situation and the issue some men at least think is true

Jessika Janene

Amazing work Natalie. Your genius is showing. Keep it up sis!

Jussi Eskelinen

Loved this tangent, thank you! Incels could maybe be thought of as men who think their self-worth depends on women finding them desirable, and who (mistakenly) believe that they're not Chad-like enough for that. So maybe the Barbie movie has a point, after all? A lot of straight men spend a lot of time and energy trying to be what women desire (and getting it all horribly wrong in the process) instead of doing things "for themselves".

Ali Flanagan

Wrt your concerns abt quality - I thought this was great!! It doesn't necessarily go all out on production value, but that's not what tangents are rly about to me. I just like hearing your thoughts

AutumnCorvidae

I am still laughing at the discovery of 'other lesbians' mentioned at the end. Thanks for this tangent!

Edgar Allan‘s Hoe

Same, seeing that explicit rejection of romance as Barbie‘s (and Ken’s) happy ending made me really happy. I actually loved that there was no further discussion of romance in Barbieland, I disagree that that is a point that needed to be resolved

Duck

I think "Barbie is a glorified commercial" and "it had themes that resonated with people" are two truths can be same at once. Even if Mattel is cynically"inoculating" itself against critique, people can find meaning in anything. The idea that "there is no right way to be a women" (because just existing as a women was the mistake) would be very meaningful to me had it not come from Barbie's mouth. I agree that there is something flimsy with this type of feminism equates no romance and/or sex. There's a hollowness in there that sort of misses the point. I can't explain, but maybe it goes back to being "no right way to be a woman"? Like aro and ace and aroace women exist, and it's not empowering-- it just is. It just is a way people can be. And framing what is essentially another marginalized identity as the "correct" way to be is almost fetishistic I don't know. I have already felt the push back against aroace people because of weird takes like this.

Blue Roseam

I really liked your takes (per usual) especially about the questions about what role romance has to play in the develop and journey of woman characters in media, I think that the a aromantic trend is good in terms of being a counter narrative to comphet which is still pervasive in media, but I think there definitely should be more effort to making women characters have romantic needs and wants alongside their other goals, as this is usually the role it has in media about male protagonist characters, not that they need to mirror each other. But it would be nice to see more positive depictions of romance with independence, as romance does not necessitate codependency which I think is the way gerwig is viewing the idea of it

tazershockman

Honestly, I just saw Barbie's disinterest in Ken that she just didn't love him and wasn't interested in him, not that she wasn't interested in love or romanticism at all. It was nice to watch a movie where a woman's sex or love life wasn't her primary motivation.

Asking for a friend

Perhaps this is so obvious that it goes without saying, but here goes: Barbie famously has no genitals. Neither does Ken. Consequently, the dolls are assigned gender by the user, entirely based on their presentation, which is culturally coded. There is a feminist critique embedded in the very dolls, as they are made to conform to a social role that isn’t inherent to their gender. There is also a trans moment here, as presentation determines the gender performance attached to each doll.

Emma Stephenson

Thanks so much for this Natalie! FWIW I didn't feel like this video wasn't worth my money or feel snubbed re: content. The format felt fun/casual, like grabbing a drink with a very smart thoughtful person after the movie for a debrief.

Andrei

One scene that I found particularly compelling was when Gloria came to the conclusion that maybe an Ordinary Barbie was what women needed. It addressed the notion that Barbie, in its attempt to help women strive for prestigious jobs, actually added pressure on women to exceed expectations—but then it cut to a Mattel exec running numbers on the Ordinary Barbie idea, highlighting the cynicism of a company selling solutions to problems it created *if* doing so is profitable. I think the movie strives for self-awareness about being an ad, but enough people cared about the vision behind it to infuse the most acceptable amount of discourse into it given the circumstances.

Raoul (just me)

I loved that you brought this back to this early simpsons episode.. memories! Such a great era within the Simpsons series.

LGAR 2

yeah - dont die!

Kathleen Grimes

Not much for me to add in terms of takes that wouldn’t be said better by someone else. But just wanted to say that while very basic in terms of commentary on feminism and capitalism and patriarchy, it was kind of heart warming to be sitting next to and behind huge groups of high schoolers. The boys were engaged, not disruptive as they had been during the previews. And the girls laughed at jokes that made me feel like they are way more conscious than millennials were when they were in high school. That moment in the movie where Barbie is extending a little too much empathy toward Ken and it’s pointed out to her that he literally stole her house.. got a huge laugh from the teenage girls beside me. And I just felt like, hell yeah. These girls already recognize that scenario for what it is. And all those teenagers are going to end up having conversations about gender expectations later. That’s so rad. The only thing I did not appreciate about the teens in the audience is that they did not laugh at any of the 90’s music references and it made me feel old in a new way.

CableKnitWit

Gloria isn’t the one playing with barbie, her mom is… And barbieland isn’t a feminist utopia, it’s no better than the kenderland that replaces it. That is why the weird Barbies are relegated to the edge of town- they cannot exist within the Barbie ideological framework because they are unconventional and unattractive. This is the dissonance that causes Barbie to start Shining with Gloria’s mom and ultimately leads her to leave barbieland altogether… it’s not supposed to be perfect, unless you thought stepford was perfect…. That’s the criticism of lib/girlboss feminism that’s explicit in the text…….. Helen mirren is being sarcastic………… Did nobody get this film? lol nvm I was mixing their names up. Also it’s sexless because it’s Barbie, a toy aimed at five year olds. Their universe operates within the limitations of a child’s ability to comprehend mature topics. It’s why they’re so vulnerable to new ideas/indoctrination. World building is being mistaken for messaging here I think.

Jon Stewart

So pleased my favourite youtubers are giving the full Barbie-down. I can't be arsed to watch it - looks shite! But this review is hilarious and enormously entertaining; as always, Natalie, your view on life chimes hard. Keep up the wonderful work.

Anastasia

Thank you for indulging us with this tangent 😂

Darren DM

I very much enjoyed this tangent. It felt a lot more like the way your AMAs would fly off tangentially; that sorta flow, that vibe.

Anastasia

I really appreciate you acknowledging the queer witch situation, too. But you are right. It was made for normal people.

Made of Stardust

No Natalie, I did just want you to gush over the barbie movie for like 30 minutes to an hour. No discourse, just enjoyment.

Made of Stardust

Ps. Yeah yeah neo-lib trash and all, but we are sooooo close to a live action yu-gi-oh style uno movie and honestly I might die if I don't get that.

Loyal Deserter

Ken's story seems more like an incel allegory than an allegory for men generally imo. Incels do define their whole existence by how women perceive them and do need to learn that they are Kenough and can have an identity all their own.

Mac

You truly articulated so much of how I felt walking out of Barbie, down to the Siddartha comparsisons lol. I think a lot of my frustrations come less from the bland feminism of the movie itself, and more with how my fellow college-age feminist friends/peers (many of them queer women) are kind of uncritically examining it as this really cool progressive piece of media. IDK I think I’m just too much of a lefty dyke to resonate with this mainstream feminist narrative of like, overcoming your tomboy, ‘not like other girls’ phase and growing to appreciate and enjoy hyper-femininity again. To me it feels kind of disingenuous because like, yeah of course femininity is gonna feel more comfortable to you in a world where your value is determined by your ability to live up to that standard, and it also frequently gets expressed in a very consumerism centered way, but I can’t tell if that’s an adept analysis or if its just a part of feminine identity that doesn’t really include me.

Mac

also why are people pretending like ‘women can like pink AND be empowered’ is a really powerful new angle on feminism?? are we not living in a post-Legally-Blonde America

Arianna Scavone

love this! So grateful for your content today and always.

Beverly Holtz

I loved the asexual nature of Barbie and Ken’s relationship. As a child playing with the dolls that’s how you feel. I guess it’s fun to go on pretend dates driving together in the Barbie car, but I never figured out anything more interesting for them to do…. I enjoyed the nostalgia, call me simple….

Aderyn Albarelli

The Oppenheimer cellulite joke is staying with me for a while XD. Describing operation margarine as homeopathy is neat, you got your "like cures like" and "less is more" I gotta read that paper. (and I think I see what you did there, with the intro to that section 🤯) Also, justice for tomboy barbies, and we really should make Hollywood into Bollywood

Aderyn Albarelli

Even with the risk averse vibe of big movie, I wasn't expecting Mattel to announce the movie lineup as fast as they did

lipdirt

This movie was an incoherent mess in terms of story, but a brilliant piece of re-branding. $1bn at the box office and who knows how many doll sales. As boring as it is, the reality is indeed grim. I'm surprised however you didn't talk about Barbie's transition into 'real' womanhood concluding with her having not cellulite but a vagina.

Smush face

Thanks for the interesting vid, Natalie.

Ann C

After reading an Ask Aubry tweet about a guy telling his girlfriend she did childbirth wrong (she embarrassed him by screaming and throwing up), I hopped over to this Tangent, so Gloria's feminist 101 speech resonated with me. I haven't seen Barbie yet; initially, the premise didn't appeal to me. I still want to see it, but I might wait until I can stream it.

AARON

Edit: I think my analysis makes the movie one of the most brilliant peaces art ever created. The movie works so well as anti-man content that it's artistic statement supercedes harmful messages. I also think that this is a very cleverly and precisely disguised piece of "propaganda" (although I don't think the artist actually wants to hurt men, she just finds expression in the idea of it). I'm going to see it again, unironically. Edit 2. I think disruptive content important. Contra is Queen Disruption. Which I think this is at the heart of, yeah? I mean they started with eutopia and the mear thought of death lead to the hellish distopia. But in order to disrupt, barbie had to be about hating men, especially happy men, as a backdrop. Otherwise, Barbie's girl power messaging gets lost in the noise of real life. or normal surface dwellers. This was a great movie. Girl power, feminist, fun, funny, blah blah. But for the discussion class of people.. I think this movie has pretty dark aggressively anti-man messaging. The scene that sticks out to me as the most fucked up is when Ken states how happy he was because someone respected him enough to ask him what time it was. This got portrayed as something bad or frivolous. That's kind yikesy. In the Kentriarchy , you see the Kens being happy, forming strong bonds with each other, finding their identities and sense purpose. They also cared about the Barbies more. They shared their dreams, love, songs, movies with the Barbies. This is a much more meaningful relationship with the Barbies than their previous second class place. Lefties have this weird fantasy in their head where rejected men are worst people in society. So much so they use sluts like "incels" to deem a subsection of humans as unworthy of being heard because they don't have sexual approval of women. (Which, hello, is pretty fucking homophobic). The movie (and all the comment sections) wanted to frame Ken as an Intel, therefore justifying his pain and second class status in barbie land. It's like "oh it's an Intel, he deserves the subhuman status". What gets me the most is that it's anti feminist because it's still measuring a woman's with in relation to a man, through the act of rejection. One of barbies main girl power moments was her rejection of ken. But she still needed the man to he there to reject. So her empowerment is still being sorted from men. There is also this weird infantilism of women in media, where in ordered to be empowered they must be sexless and aromantic. Instead of babrbie having a mature moment of realizing she needed and loved Ken too. But. Somehow the feminist message was she doesn't need ken (even though she needed him to be able to reject him and get sense of empowerment out of it). Irl women love being girlfriends and wives of men. Plenty of feminists are girlfriends and wives. Feminism is even part of some of these relationships. But, what is Barbies final arch? A trip to the vag doc. Not building a community IRL with girls and women. Not working with men to make things better. An act of seeing a doctor for the all powerful vag. Ugh. Still a good movie though. Very pretty and fun.

Matthew Aplin

Interesting video. I agree Ken's storyline is a little thin, but the contradictions of the film set this up in advance. In the reverse-patriarchy of Barbie world, Ken can neither be a true portrayal of masculinity (and its myriad failures), nor can he be a reverse-gender equivalent of a woman in the patriarchy. The result is his character ends up being both, yet not quite either of those things. Barbie's encounter with the real world is an encounter with real world patriarchy. Ken visits the same world and yet has a surface level reaction, despite not getting whatever he wants - and not getting that much at all, really. But he learns that men rule the world and takes that basic principle back to Barbie World when he leads his mutiny. But as your video points out, what he creates is not exactly a patriarchy but a cartoon caricature of patriarchy - a reverse-reverse patriarchy. So the despair he faces when Barbie takes back control and rejects his romantic advancements is not true masculine despair; it's simply a return to his previous irrelevance. Whatever it is he has to overcome at this point, it has no bearing on the shortcomings of masculinity in the real world. The only way the film can get around this is to make his redemption a goofy joke ('I am Kenough'). Despite this, he exhibits many traditional masculine scripts: his obnoxious, Andrew Tate-esque frat boy mansion, his domination of the women around him, his tireless complaints about being friend-zoned. Also the Kens mansplaining The Godfather and Stephen Malkmus, serenading the Barbies with mediocre guitar by a beach campfire...cartoonish, yes, but these are real things to which men aspire, real behaviours they exhibit. Yet when Barbie rejects him at the end, he says he only comes to life through the warmth of her eyes. You are right to point out that this is not a recognisable masculine script. However, men still require the validation of women under the patriarchy, and it is still is some sense life-giving. The difference is that feminine validation functions as reward (for living) rather than permission (to live). Men act prior to feminine validation; the attainment of the feminine love object is their reward for doing so, the completion of their storyline. It is life-giving in the sense that it retroactively justifies whatever struggles they have faced, whatever obstacles they have overcome. In the real world, when men do not receive this reward, their storyline has in effect failed completion. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. What was it all for? And then the onset of true masculine despair: self-hatred, ressentiment, hostility, and their destructive effects (and affects). Now, to overcome this, that would be a good commentary on masculinity...but it would be an entirely different film. Ken's not the point. He never was. Barbie's existential feminism is satisfying enough on its own.

Matthew Aplin

PS I don't agree that the subtext of the film is asexual or aromantic, nor that Barbie is necessarily either of those things. It simply doesn't feature in this part of her story, which is a reality worth depicting. Plus, one of the Kens at the end says he doesn't care about being Ken, he just wants his Barbie back, at which point, his Barbie returns and they are reunited.

Jacob Michael

I agree, dave & busters outings are always insanely liminal tbh

Kirsty

Not every woman needs to be with a man or even “loves” being in a relationship with men. A lot of culture kind of forces the idea of relationships on women, especially in movies where women are often regulated to “the girlfriend category” the joke of the Ken’s is that they are in that same category. Even if a Ken got into a relationship with a Barbie, he’d still be second class to her due to the reverse patriarchy that the film creates in Barbieland.

For Autumn

I subscribed to your Patreon just to watch this

brandon l. kingston

First of all, the movie doesn't start of in a utopian world. Barbieland is nothing but a mere inversion of patriarchy. The self-referential character of the movie doesn't make it good. In my opinion it's an honest artistic failure to make a feminist movie. The kind of feminism that is being pushed is just girlboss feminism, which isn't even real feminism at all. Misogyny doesn't end if the CEO is a woman, patriarchy hurts men as well. It's really disingenuous from a predatory Toy company and an even more cruel movie studio to make a movie about "feminism". We shouldn't overlook the exploitation. This movie can be as well made as it wants, it's still a glorified ~2h toy commercial. It doesn't question capitalism at all. Edit: Barbieland isn't a full an inversion of patriarchy as Kens still act masculine in a way, i.e. being in the role of pursuer. They are still there to desire and to woo Barbie being stuck in this Sisyphian task of performing as the lover all the while being aware on some level of its futility.

Sydney Smith

Your video is actually the first I've enjoyed of the barbie discourse but there is a little bit that I was actually surprised on your readings of In particular, the bits about Barbie's rejection of Ken and his line about "only existing in the warmth of her gaze." I didn't read Barbie's lack of interest in Ken as an outright rejection of romance at all. I just read it as what it was, disinterest in favor of the greater existential undertaking she was involved in, as well as a disinterest in the predestined life with Ken himself, since she wanted to build a life that was her own, not the ideal product she had been packaged in. I think if they had tried to implement a Barbie Finds Love and Fucks arc, the movie would probably need another hour and not be paced nearly as well as it was. I definitely don't shirk any of the "barbie as asexual" or "barbie as lesbian" reads of it, but reading it as a hard value statement is a little odd to me when there's lots of practical reasons within the story to simply not touch it beyond "Barbie doesn't care." The Ken bit threw me for a loop because while watching the movie, I actually thought of your video on Men, and my experiences with a partner (while I was Still Trying to Be At Least A Little Hetero) who was really struggling with needing female validation. I didn't read it as an inversion of patriarchy at all, but rather the result of patriarchy. Men have no gender identity at the moment beyond what they possess: women, career, khaki, mini fridge. And thus we get manosphere nonsense, where men are hurling the burden of their identity onto women: trying to be pickup artists, defining themselves by the women they are able to sleep with, defining themselves by the women they are UNable to sleep with, obsessing over women's actions, etc, because they see women as a piece of their personality that they should obtain and manipulate. In the case of my former partner and I know many men like him, it came primarily from a place of freud beating their door down because their mothers rejected them so they felt the need to compensate and have their identity validated by having a woman love them in a way that would counteract that rejection. It's not about men not existing without women, or needing to evolve separately from women, but rather their need to figure out what the fuck being a man means, and not leaning solely on their relationships with women, power, and other possessions as a crutch. Idk just my long rambling thoughts !! enjoyed the vid and always happy to see u Post edit: I have made so many shameful typos I will not find them all pls forgive

Timid and Meek

I'm sorry but this comment and your reading of the movie is so ridiculous I have to say something. Like girlll. The wildest point that you have is that the Kens cared about the Barbies more during the Kendom; when they literally made Barbies their Stepword Wives/ servants, even the President 😭😭😭. They don't share their songs and movies with the Barbies, they FORCE it upon the Barbies; hence the comedy in "playing guitar AT you" for over 4 hours, not caring whether the Barbies like it or not. Like... it is so obvious and heavy-handed I don't know how you got it wrong. The "strong bonds" between Kens collapsed at the slightest provocation of romantic jealousy planned by the Barbies; which culminated in an awesome musical number, revealing their insecurity of "just being Ken". Hence why at Ken's lowest moment, he said to Barbie "I only exist in the warmth of your loving gaze". I find it hard to interpret any of this as anti-men when the conclusion of Ken's story is that Barbie helped him realize that he is enough (Kenough) even if he's not with Barbie. Like using the plainest media reading skills, I would interpret this conclusion as "men are enough as their own, even if they don't acquire women". What part of that is anti-men??? What kind of botched understanding of basic feminism leads you to this bizarre conclusion? Huh? Like I'm not saying my media reading skills are the best or Barbie is some kind of virtuosic feminist masterpiece. But your conclusion about Barbie as anti-men is just so farfetched that any of surface-dwellers' readings are probably more accurate than whatever you just typed! Not me getting worked out about the Barbie movie. I'm going to bed 💀💀💀💀💀

Timid and Meek

I loved the gender non conforming Alan and Weird Barbie so much. Especially I resonate with Alan even if he's a comic relief; him not fitting in the Kendriarchy/Kendom and feeling safer & allying with the Barbies instead is some spiritual girls-and-gays unity I'm 100% here for. I loved Dan Savage's post on Instagram relating Alan to The Velvet Rage and jokingly recommending it as a sequel. It's not much but it's something for us gays, u know?! Loved the movie so much, everybody put their whole bussy in it, eloquently speaking. Also I am so shocked at how funny Ryan Gosling can be. Somebody that handsome shouldn't be that funny!!!

KK the queen

It felt decidedly “baby’s first feminism”, so it was also not made for me, but I thought it was ok and did a good job in the purpose it served. I think it might’ve opened my conservative mom up to feminism a bit, she really liked the bit at the end about being a mom

Sophie

My reading on seeing the film wasn’t that Barbieland was a subversion nor that it was inherently sexist. I saw Barbie as a representation of little girls before they’re too exposed to the patriarchy. You have no idea that you can’t do literally anything and the world has all kinds of social constructs and limitations. She has no interest in Ken because she’s busy developing her own identity and it’s normal for a child to be pretty sexless. I think that reading is gently supported by the whole movie starting with the scene establishing that Barbies are ultimately a toy for kids. On the other hand Kens journey I read as that of a little boy who under the way to socialize boys today, is taught that his value lies in the material wealth he can accumulate as well as his conquering of women. He speaks to how we often neglect our young boys and it leaves them vulnerable to radicalization. I was surprised that Natalie didn’t have the same reading as me given that a lot of how I’ve come to understand gender politics and how men become radicalized by J Peterson and the like came from Natalies videos on it a few years ago. Ultimately the kens don’t have anywhere to sleep because they’re a toy for little girls who frankly care more about seeing themselves in Barbie than they do in playing with Ken, and the reason that Barbie dominates the society is because that’s how a little girl would set it up. Not because it’s a good gotcha commentary on “how the real world works”. I think the end of the movie doesn’t do a good job at driving this reading home because it tries to apply adult solutions to what it originally set up as problems of how we socialize and raise kids, but maybe I’m just reading into something that isn’t there and dreaming up the movie I wish it was. Overall a slay (I saw it twice with two friend groups) Greta just tried to do too many things at once 🤷‍♀️

Sophie

ok upon reading some other comments I see some folks referencing trans experiences. I feel like the notion of a “delayed adolescence” as many trans folks describe it is the exact crossover with the reading of Barbie as a story about gender and growing up 👀

Aristana Scourtas

"Men have no gender identity at the moment beyond what they possess: women, career, khaki, mini fridge" -- great point, I know Natalie said this too but this concise wording really hit it home for me

Aristana Scourtas

it's funny, as a transmasc-of-center person I also found myself yearning for a lot of Ken things in this movie

Rachel Muir

These conversations are what I believe I can fairly characterize as among a "thinking crowd" but in this case it seems to be more of an "overthinking crowd". One example; the reason that there is no romance in the film is simply a response to the fact that 99 times out of 100 in popular movies, romance is the end point, particularly for the women characters. Barbie is not one of those movies. Yeah! And, at the basic level, the characters are still toys. Toys for children who have no realized understanding of romance and sex.End of story. Commandeering these toys to tell tales about romance and sex, I think, would be a kind of betrayal. Another example: analysing Kenworld need go no deeper than to say it is the inverse of sterotypical Barbie world, nothing more, nothing less. Natalie, there are times in this tangent I can detect your inner Tabby, sneering at the fact that there are heartfelt conversations going on about feminism and masculinity based on a plastic toy. Honestly, not everybody can be a brilliant ex-philosopher in real world. I am uplifted by the fact that there is a conversation at all. And I am a climate scientist, for gosh's sake; if I can get a lift out of Barbie the movie, well, then everyone has permission to do the same. Oh, I am intrigued that you didn't have much to say about the sets and staging given your interests and skills is the same.

Rachel Muir

Anyway, great stuff --now on to harpsichords, please.

Rachel Muir

BTW, a stellar example of margarine propaganda is Charles Homan's lengthy article in Sunday's New York Times magazine about the ugly events in Loudoun County surrounding a sexual assault in one of their high schools. It had nothing to do with transgender protections in the school system, but he never comes out and says that, now does he? (Note; I grew up in Loudoun County -- and Homan has a painfully shallow understanding of its history). He humanizes the antagonists in this tale, and says nothing about those who suffer when trans issues are weaponized. He gives air time to bottom dwellers like Ian Prior, now one of Steven Miller's lackeys, including a photo of him in heroic pose. Homan is too skilled a writer to not know what he was doing and he uses all the propagandist's tricks. It is pure trash disguised as investigative reporting. Margarine journalism is an appropriately hued variety of yellow journalism and this is a textbook example. A JK redux. Your reference to Murdock's book made me connect the dots. Sorry folks if I verred off-topic but the match was too perfect for me to ignore.

Samantha Kim

Thank you, I read this comment earlier and needed to close the tab because I was so aghast at the utter lack of media literacy on display and I didn't want to let myself get sucked into a spiral. Like the Kens aren't "sharing" their film and music interests as an act of loving care, it's arrogance and self-importance and mansplaining 😭😭 I have to believe this person hasn't ever internalized a single thing they've ever heard about a woman's experience because that was so clearly the lens the movie was written through...baffling.

Ethan Good

I came here to say pretty much exactly this. I was also reminded of Natalie's "Men" video while watching the film. Ken's realization that he is "Kenough" is reminiscent of what Natalie argued in that video -- that a good faith Men's Movement may in fact be necessary to give men a positive vision of modern masculinity. I was also reminded of Jacques Lacan's proposition that Masculinity in itself, is a false identity, insofar as it only exists in its relation to the fetishized idea of The Feminine. What is a man? A man is *not* a woman. Most traditional signifiers of masculinity are only meaningful when contrasted with their opposites. If men must be strong, then women must be weak. If men must be providers, then women must be provided for. If men must be leaders, then women must be followers. The inverse is also true, i.e., masculinity rejects anything coded feminine (crying, emotional vulnerability, domesticity, etc. . .) Without an opposite to define itself against, masculinity unravels; hence, the male fixation on sex, girlfriends, and wives as both status symbols under patriarchy and means by which male life is given meaning. Returning to the film, Ken's identity throughout is built around his relationship to Barbie. As Helen Mirren tells us in the opening, "Ken only has a good day when Barbie notices him." In the first act, Ken engages in machismo competition with the other Kens just to try to get her attention. This male-on-male performance of masculinity is only meaningful as it relates to Barbie. Even when he institutes patriarchy, he remains unfulfilled. All his newfound power only matters to him if it lets him get the girl. Only upon declaring, "I am Ken!" and defining himself independent of Barbie does he achieve happiness. "I am Ken!" rejects the idea that a man is "not a woman." Ken is Ken by virtue of being Ken, and a man is a Man by virtue of being a man. In the same way Barbie can be anything, Ken can be anything, and, just like women can be anything, men, too, can be anything. Speaking as a 30 year old man who spent his 20s fruitlessly searching for a woman to build his life around and who viewed each life milestone (college graduation, first apartment, first job, etc. . .) as the thing that would finally make him good enough for a girlfriend, I think this film has an incredibly positive message for young men.

Ethan Good

Very interesting reading regarding the socialization of children. I hadn't considered that.

Matthew Aplin

My friends will routinely say things like this to me when I'm analysing/over-analysing the subtext of a film. It's not that deep, it's just a bit of fun, etc. - and fair enough. Maybe there's truth in that. But I think examining the wheels within wheels, death-of-the-author style, at the implications of a film, where it sits in the history of its genre, what happens if we pretentiously apply Barthes' metholodiges to Barbie, and so on...is, for me, another type of fun. Not for everyone, granted. Nathalie talking in-depth about sets, staging and choreography would make for a great video IMO.

Andrew May

Okay, I know you said this was peak-dumb, but I really enjoyed this. You’re grand, Natalie. I guffawed loudly many times while enjoying this Tangent. And I particularly appreciated the call-backs to previous Tangents (good to know seeing everything through liminality and psychedelia lenses for a while isn’t only happening to me).

Andrew May

“in the interest of being philosophically rigorous about the Barbie movie” is my August mantra.

Andrew May

Re: margarine theory: I wonder if this is an extension of a “Citizens United/corporations (and their products) are individual entities with rights” kind of thinking. That’s some powerful shit right there. Yikes on bikes.

AARON

If you don't hate men, my take would be so confusing to you. I think you should try some perspective/empathy first before you dismiss a very well thought out analysis of the movie. Its probably one of the best pieces of analysis that you will read. I think it would be helpful if switched the roles. Imagine if women or non-binary people having power was the main antagonist of the movie. No amount of cherry picked throw-away lines could make up for how hateful and problematic that theme would be. The Barbies came up with a well coordinated high effort, personalized, plan to hurt the kens because they were happy men. It wasn't like "hey lets work together", its "hey they are the enemy and their happiness is evil, lets come up with a complex plan and manipulate them". The Ken's didn't force or manipulate anyone. The movie framed women doing anything for men as evil. Get a beer for your man? Must because you are under the dark oppression of the almighty patriarchy... Women showing interest in Men's taste in songs/movies?? The horror. I highly suggest zooming about a bit, and not focusing on a cherry picked line or two. Try to unlearn some of your biases towards men. That will allow you to have some clarity. I would very much appreciate reading your response after doing so.

Misael Munoz

This was, as always, amazing, maybe consider making a tangent about the "girl dinner" trend on tiktok, it has spewed some very interesting conversations about adulthood, ED's and of course, womanhood.

fae

Don't be sorry for anything, this was awesome and there's no way to tell that corners were cut just from watching :) as always, thank you for the yummy content!!!

Nikola

is there any update on main channel blockbusters thanks love you always

Kristen Gish

Love the video! I think your points about the lack of romance/sexuality are really interesting. I used to make my Barbie’s kiss all the time, and I don’t know, I can’t be the only queer woman who’s first exploration into wlw relationships was by playing with Barbies. My straight sister also joked about how she and her friends definitely made the Barbies have sex with the one GI Joe doll that we had. But I get why they didn’t want to touch that. I liked the Barbie movie a lot, but it’s also an advertisement urging children to play with Barbies. There’s been a huge push in our culture against discussing sexuality with children. We’ve taken a huge step backwards in terms of sex education, not that it was ever very good to begin with. Q Anon has created a new Satanic Panic for the 21st century, and it’s not lost on me that another popular movie in theaters right now is The Sound of Freedom. I honestly don’t think the Barbie movie needed to include sexuality/romance, it’s one movie. But if more and more movies are going to be based on brands, and more and more brands are going to be fearful of a BudLight style backlash… yeah, that does concern me.

Woody Sims

Natalie. Darling. Sweetheart. Behbey. I like hearing you talk. You are a very talented writer and communicator. Your background and personality are so fundamentally different from my own that even your most mundane and boring insights are things I never would’ve thought of. It is something you’re making, and that means I probably want to see it. Great work as always

Tangiweto

C'mon Barbie, let's go fucking party! I told myself I wouldn't click on any more Barbie related videos after watching a bunch of people talk about it on Youtube... But we're pigs, Natalie. Contrapigs. You could give us slop production on topics we've never heard of and we'll still want to hear from you. You have high standards which is great ofc, but cutting corners is no big deal sometimes, especially on Tangents. Glad you're still alive <3

Lisa

"With full gaze the animal sees the open / Only our eyes, as if reversed, are like snares / set around it, block the freedom of its going. / Only from the face of the beast do we know / what *is* outside; for even little children / we turn around and force them to look backward / at the world of forms, and they do not see the open / so deep in the animal's eyes. Free from death. / Only we see *that* . . . " Rilke, 8th Elegy. –– But I am confused about Ken. He (Gosling) is the only resident of Barbieland introduced in the first sequence in the pre-lapsian paradise that knows lack, or knows himself as lacking (bracketing Allen who also recognizes himself as a subject, or at least is suspicious). When Barbie starts to see (as she experiences intrusive thoughts) her journey is rooted in a desire to know, i.e. to know how the "snares" are set around her vision (i.e. her subjectivity is bound up with her knowledge of death). But how does Ken know he is a (thwarted, diminished) subject in the very first scene, when all other Barbies and Kens only "see the open"?? He *knows* Barbie doesn't love him. How???

Bara

I loved it! I vote for Oppenheimer next!

Kelsey

Excellent. One of your best.

Noah Carlin

Dark mother has blessed us and we may now feed on her content

Mark A. Maness

You: "Dumbest tangent ever" = me: "I can actually understand most of it!" :-D

Kat

I just realized that we actually have a single Barbenheimer movie, and it's Mulholland Falls. With Nick Nolte, Melanie Griffith, Jennifer Connelly, John Malkovich, and just, like, so many other great actors in it. And it fully is Barbenheimer. It rotates around the Manhattan Project, but it's really about what it is to be human, the toughness and the frailty of that. Also, there's plenty of sex in it, so lots for the sexuals to enjoy.

Bara

Tangent idea tangentially based off this tangent - Weird Barbie and her queer coding and witch in the woods status compared with the recent spate of memes about “change your ways or you’ll end up as a crazy old cat lady, living alone with nothing but books, cats, and wine” being countered with, “um yeah, that sounds really nice, much better than being emotionally and physically exploited in an abusive marriage.” And how the concept of lonely spinster, with all its queer coded connotations of unworthiness, unfemineinity, and social unacceptability being pushed back against and reclaimed. But still reinforced as an ill in places like the Barbie movie.

Bara

Also, my favourite part was the Roland Barthes margarine story illustration and how Barbie is presented as a victim of mean girls by conflating the doll with a person played by Margot Robbie.

Johanna Lill-Inger

I am obsessed with the concept of the lonely spinster, this sounds incredible and I would watch it immediately

KL

The comparison between Barbie's final speech to Ken and Fight Club was mindblowing, but I feel an opportunity was missed to describe his ending as KGTOW, "Ken Going Their Own Way"

Erin Laura

You always just say what I think about it all this discourse in a coherent and witty way and I appreciate that!!

Hellström

Gloria's monologue sounds quite a bit akin to the Cool Girl rant from GONE GIRL. Not that I care about people "stealing" ideas, just thought it was noteable. If you haven't read GONE GIRL, then go read GONE GIRL. It's good! The movie sucked, though, don't watch that. But I sort of feel the movie monologue missed the opportunity to use doll as the metaphor for the idealized idea of woman, the same way as GONE GIRL used the "Cool Girl", or I maybe that was sorta implied and saying it would be too much on the nose? Haven't watched the movie, so what do I know. (And now I'm reminded of the insane comic book DOLL by Rip-off Press, where an ultra-realistic Lolita doll makes all men go crazy for her, because she is the perfect woman; she cannot speak and have no agency whatsoever. The doll was designed solely for a man whose hideous facial anormality he claim makes him unable to get a real girl---very much akin to todays Incel movement. And like in the comic, we also have realistic sex dolls today, curiously.) I watched this tangent after having rewatched Contrapoints 'Degeneracy', so it was sort of a revelation hearing her describe how certain guys fear that their masculinity might be degenerated by girly stuff much the same way racists fear degeneration from the lower races.

Seth Lawson

thanks fierce diva hunty slay yasss

Lexa

May I recommend the podcast series “Witch, Please”, which is in a new iteration called Material Girls? From your request for a tangent topic, I think you would love it!

Jess

It was very inclusive to include trans Barbie but then they literally end the film in real world gender essentialist euphoria. Perfect end to a woke washed summer fun flick. Go Greta I guess.

Khanh Nghiem

Yes! This is the kind of content we want for tangents. Hearing that you made it in 3 days is reassuring that you have time for your main projects haha!

Johanna Lill-Inger

I feel like it's a little bit disingenuous to criticize the twitter posts you used for being "boring takes". Maybe they aren't saying anything new or interesting, but I don't think these posts should be viewed as media criticism as much as awareness-raising or activism. I think activism is almost the opposite of intellectual work because in activism you're basically saying the same thing over and over and that's the point. And I get that it's annoying and not particularly intellectually stimulating to hear that the world is burning up every five minutes, but it is true. On the other hand I think there's a more interesting materialist critique to be made of the Barbie movie. It's coming out at a time of growing anxieties about climate change, mass destruction of eosystems and plastic waste in the oceans. There is a growing resentment against corporations that contribute to this. At the same time, there's a massive 90's wave. Barbie was essential to the redeeming of plastic (and in extension, petroleum and oil) in the eye of the public in the 90s and this was part of a coordinated effort by companies like Exxon-Mobile and Procter and Gamble. There's a Material Girls (former Witch Please) episode about this that I highly recommend. Both Marshall McLuhan and our friend Roland Barthes make an appearance (To quote Hannah; "Barthes would have loved Totally hair Barbie").

Lily Yousefi

I agree with this a lot. I think a lot of leftist discourse about the Barbie movie on twitter might sound a bit cringe (the more sincere or didactic they are, the "cringier" I guess), but at the same time, are they wrong? Unfortunately no. The Barbie movie IS a very artistically made toy commercial, and one that is making its parent studio billions of dollars at the time of the biggest mass strike in the industry, while pretty much everyone is focused on "omg piiink!" and running out to buy the limited edition Margot Robbie barbie. It IS grim, and people pointing that out don't deserve to be ridiculed just cause some leftists care less about the materialism of it all than "feminism 101".

Marichelle Weill

Just joined your Patreon and loving the Tangents!

johanna

thank you for saying this. I was a little scared posting. 😅 I feel like I’ve been overtaken with Barbie stuff. Like it’s a barrage. And I’m nothing if not a contrarian killjoy who would rather die a painful death than let people enjoy things so that sets me off. Actually those tweets were one of the few critiques I’ve even even seen on social media. And I follow a looot of leftists! So it’s uncomfy. Your comment also made me think about how the reason Greta Thunberg is such a good activist is that she doesn’t give a shIt about how people perceive her. She doesn’t care about pretention, or being cringe or cool, she’s just committed. And I love that. But yeah the Barbie producers were really smart in choosing to focus on mainly countering the feminist part of the critique. It distracts from the fact that a product that is predicated on the oil industry, with it’s horrible environmental impact and displacement of indigenous people, cannot be liberating or radical in any meaningful way.

Pige Desprez

I like the aromantic undertone but I agree that aromanticism isn’t a feminist pillar

Bouncing Fiji Water

That was for the message of well here we are. How would you have ended it to achieve the same messaging?

Bouncing Fiji Water

Media can't be everything at once. The people who needed to "get it" most with this movie, still didn't understand what they needed to. It seems exhausting to in"fight" (ironically?)about how the women who made this failed you in that way. Ironic because imo women never being enough or providing enough was one takeaway.

Jess

I think the ending supports my argument that it’s a story about cis white exceptionalism and fragility but one about fragile white people who have achieved a modicum of self awareness and for that and all the efforts of providing POC, fat, queer and disabled people some screen time (tokenization at its finest) in the story about the fragile cis white people coming of age in our new woke world they should not only be forgiven but celebrated for their self awareness. And the end of the film recenters the protagonist so just in case you didn’t know who the hero is, now it wraps it up in a pretty pink (but subdued and slightly messy) bow. If I were to change the ending I’d have to change the whole film or not write the film at all and that wouldn’t be fun for anyone.

Jess

What do you think about the ending when real world Barbie goes to her gynecologist?

Jordan T

“I am not an easy man” is one of my favorite French films that has a very similar message but in a less shove-it-down-your-throat kind of way. Amazing video as always!

Diamond Coal

I think they opted for inconsistencies again and again to get the plot moving along

Johanna Lill-Inger

"Fighting about how women failed us"...? I hope you stretched earlier because those mental gymnastics are astounding. But your comment really illustrates the point Natalie makes in the video, that framing every and all critique against Barbie as "anti-feminist" is a very effective marketing strategy.

frogsmore (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-14 12:00 We have to move on from and ignore BS. He is certainly not worthy of you good deep thoughts Natalie... and all of ours &lt;3
2023-08-18 13:29 We have to move on from and ignore BS. He is certainly not worthy of you good deep thoughts Natalie... and all of ours <3

We have to move on from and ignore BS. He is certainly not worthy of you good deep thoughts Natalie... and all of ours <3

Bara

I’m going to check that out - thanks!

June

hi Mother, mommy, madre, I am finally a member of the contrapoints patreon, excited to be here 🥰

Tom Homunculus

The Kenclusion is that Ken is just a himbo and thats okay too

Hannah Peterson

One population of men I've noticed who seem to strongly identify with Ken's arc are men in sexless relationships — I participate in a couple of subreddits about this and found it really interesting. Basically, these are men who are in very unhappy romantic relationships with women but are unwilling to leave them. It seems like many of them resonated with the arc of "learning to detach my feelings of self-worth from whether a specific woman wants to have sex with me." I also think that that mentality of "not knowing how to exist outside of the female gaze" is pretty prominent in incels, which then makes the idea that Ken gets "red-pilled" when he goes to Santa Monica fit pretty well.

Chrombus

It’s always such a trip when someone is beating themselves up over making something you really enjoy.

June

Awesome video! Also, would you ever do ASMR? You have a very relaxing voice. 💕

Bara

OMG - I LOVE Material Girls - thanks so much for the recommendation!

Anonymous

Todd Haynes (director of Carol) made a low budget film of Karen Carpenter's death from anorexia using Barbies. It's an interesting experiment. I don't think it quite works but interesting critique of attitudes to women's bodies. It's available on YouTube.

Lauren Greenspan

Tangent, tangent: what do you think of polyamory, moon mama?

Anna the Smiling Cat

Finally watched it, after watching the Barbie movie. Interesting points. I like shorter videos and the tangent format. Myself I didn't mind the lack of romance as I usually prefer it that way. I can also understand the dolls being ace - they don't even have genitalia (whether that's being ace or something else I'll leave for others to argue, I think it's asexual but under another meaning). If it's no-sex because they are ace - yay. If it's because they are dolls - fine. If it comes from sex negativity - not that good. The women suck approach is something I encounter and have some weird feelings about as a woman-by-choice (I mean, it's that or being miserable but still). I see cis-women complaining and I understand why, but I'm in a way still struggling to get to a point where I can complain... When Barbie chose to become human I had some happy trans feelings. As for Ken... I think there are anxieties both of the incel type and of what exactly men do in a feminist utopia (well, plastic feminist utopia that's upside-down patriarchy), But the movie leaves him to figure it out as Barbie is leaving.

Colton Royle

I have been thinking of our sexless generation ever since I saw that Atlantic article about how we are in a "sex recession." I happen to think we are in some kind of Neo-Victorian age: inequality, tightening moral codes, etc. Not sure if this is accurate, as there are a lot of other factors that made that era specifically a Victorian one, but it's something I bring up to my friends because I want so much to talk about it.

Daniel Broening

I know true love waits for me... if only I could find the right onyx ring

Oona Eisenstadt

This is far from mid content. It's brilliant

Narcissa Deville

I'm just gonna say, I felt like Barbie and Gloria should have gotten together.

Hannah

I really loved the Barbie movie and I loved listening to your musings about it! It helps me think about it more deeply. I wouldn't describe this video as mid at all, it's amazing.

sunlit_music

Thanks for the great video! I really enjoyed your commentary and thoughts. I haven't seen the whole movie yet, but I plan to. I've only seen some scenes from the movie online. You made really good points about how older Barbie dolls taught harmful and inaccurate opinions about eating and weight (like the Barbie that came with a scale and the book that says Don't Eat). I think Ken just learns that he needs to be less emotionally dependent on Barbie - and you're right, women are seen as not existing without a man in the real world, whereas men are unlikely to be seen as unimportant without a woman's approval.

Errrika

Until those lesbian separatists found out there was an other group of women calling themselves lesbians who were actually fucking each other. omfg ded

Cat Earley

To quote a friend, "I might not have liked everything about Barbie, but I also acknowledge that it was never supposed to be For Me. It's for the young women and girls in the audience who might only now be realising these things about themselves and about world" and - I would argue - maybe even for older women in the much the same way. It might inspire some kind of feminist awakening in women who never had a chance to identify that silent feminine frustration within themselves until it was so blatantly articulated by America Ferrera's speech. I think they're the kind of people I hope this film reaches more than anyone else.

Alexander Moore-

Genuinely absolutely nothing mid about this vid

Kallie Watters

I have no idea if this is what Greta intended, but I think Ken's storyline in the movie does actually reflect the "crisis in masculinity" that has been going on since before we were all born. Masculinity is constructed around the domination of women. Ken's right...without Barbie, he really is nothing, as patriarchy conceives men. It's a little murky in the film because of the three different societies we are presented with, but men in patriarchy do indeed rely on women for their identity.

Diego Reyes

Loved the video, I would have liked to hear something about Alan, as a gay man he was the character I could relate to the most, but I didn't understand his contribution to the movie very well.

Taron Fredenburg

i related to alan too, but as a nonbinary person! i think (beyond just being funny because There's Only One of Him) he's like weird barbie in a way. where weird barbie is marginalized from barbieland because of the movie's discomfort with female queerness, allan finds himself uncomfortable in kenland because he's very aware that it's not serving him and he never adopts the narcissistic perspective of the kens. i think these characters kinda break up the simplicity of the barbie/ken (women/men) binary.

Blu X

More insight on Alan is interesting! Michael Cera has often been cast in characters of non traditional male-ness and many of his roles I've seen have placed him in positions of awkward, or incredibly self conscious protagonist in the movies I've seen. I think many non traditional people could relate to this, as we are conditioned to expect so much media to simply portray more traditional masculine ideals and the 'heroic man' archetype.

Pand9

The "feminist utopia" isn't a representation of an actual male struggle, but it is a representation of how men see their struggle through patriarchal lens. It's the same world view as Manosphere. Greta Gerwig is ambitiously trying to tie their feminist messages to the "inner manosphere" in those of us that are yet to 100% their therapy. (Author's note: there is no such thing as "100%-ing" the therapy.) It worked for me quite well. But it's a compelling take as well that it's actually trying to imagine "what could have been before the patriarchy", like trying to make it more approachable by creating a sequence of events that caused it, as opposed to a real-world situation, where patriarchy was first, and the discussing the "origins" can only be theoretical.

m roth

I think it's interesting that you saw weird Barbie's marginalization as being shown by the movie as good. Personally, I saw it as being a way of showing how Barbie world was not entirely perfect and that there were some problems to work out (i.e. the idea of misandry not being a suitable alternative to misogyny), but that is also just my take on it and honestly I might be completely wrong.

Ale Kenward

The whole story of Ken is that not even when he builds the patriarchal paradise, he's still not happy. Because patriarchy doesn't treat most men as rounded individuals with a complex inner life, but as cogs in a machine. Ken doesn't have a personality, he has things. You can see that with all the alpha male crowd. They are their things and live to resent women, just like Ken in their dream patriarchy.

Nicolaj Nylandsted Zeffner Cedenius

Dear Natalie, On the segment on Ken, you quote "I just don't know who I am without you [Barbie]", and it makes me think of your video essay "Men" where a strong take-home message is that the abolishment of the traditional gender roles leave men without a purpose, not being required to be breadwinners in a family anymore. To me, there is quite the similarity in these two situations - just thought that was interesting!

Ale Kenward

I've been thinking a lot about that lately. Those MRAs, the Matt Walshes and Andrew Tate's need women, because their whole identity is based on presenting as "superior". I also think a lot of their frustration and anger comes from having to perform comp-het, because they do not seem to find women or sex with women remotely appealing.

chloe

I think it makes sense that weird Barbie is outcasted. This causes her to know they're in a kind of "matrix". She's basically Morpheus.

Honoria Valemon

A number of people have pointed out the feminism in America’s speech is kind of old hat, but I think that’s the point, in a way. The reason so many women cried at this speech isn’t because they were hearing this information for the first time, but because they were remembering when they first realized this information and how much it hurt to find out that they were not all going to be doctors or veterinarians and theoretically a woman could become president, but no one ever has and, even if one did, why would it be you? Even the wearing pretty clothes and heels and having a boyfriend was so fraught with all those other things that no one would ever want. And then you’ve got a later transition into being a true adult, where you let the lie of the Barbie idealized existence continue to your child because crushing their dreams that young is needlessly cruel.

Lisa M

I LOVE the no Romance thing. I do find it refreshing, in like a petty way, sure, but still, refreshing. I also think that the final line indicates that Barbie could have romance/sexual attraction as a #RealGirl. It just doesn’t happen with Ken and it doesn’t happen in the movie. Also, the very brief snippets of Gloria’s husband are so loving and attractive? He’s Hot Pixar Dad coded. A cute loving husband. Well meaning himbo/sitcom dad? I like that Gloria has already had her romance, she got her guy, it’s in the bag, maybe in the way many of the women watching this movie have long-term partners? So the movie doesn’t have to focus on that. Idk. I really like it, and I don’t know how you would add romance into the movie in a way that would improve it.

TheLovingAvoidant (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-14 12:00 I guess my impression of the no-romance aspect was simply that it wasn't a part of the story. There didn't seem to be any sort of underlying message that it *shouldn't* be a part of the story, or that romance *mustn't* come into play where feminism prevails. The simple omission did feel refreshing to me. One thing came to mind as you expressed not seeing the Ken dilemma as necessarily reflective of Men's dilemma, that of being subsumed into Woman's identity and not knowing himself outside of her. I agree with you that in many ways it's kind of the opposite of how a lot of men feel, being kind of closed to the influence of women and avoiding their shadows like the plague. However, I will say that in kind of stereotypical, heterosexual, long-term relationships and marriages at least, there's a couple grains of truth to this idea that men don't exist outside of their relationship to their partner/spouse. Men very often stop developing and maintaining friendships outside the relationship or only do so very minimally or in a surface way. Women tend to facilitate social life for both of them entirely. She also tends to facilitate domestic life entirely. The man doesn't know where anything is in the house, what's on his calendar, what time it is, or what's for dinner. He doesn't have to know, she knows. Of course, this is actually itself a form of dominance and incredibly oppressive to women, but viewed in another sense, who is the man and what is his life without his wife at that point? Statistically, men fare FAR worse after divorce and long-term breakups than women. They live in smaller apartments, with less money, fewer friends, worse physical health, and more numerous and intense mental health problems. Divorced women, meanwhile, are happier than married women, married men, and the least happy group, divorced men. It seems to me that women, in many ways and with today's financial and professional choices and resources available to them, don't seem to need men very much, while men seem to need women intensely because they still lack the emotional and social choices and resources that women have. And, they didn't point to any of this in the movie, either, which perhaps was a bit of a missed opportunity but maybe not. Just a thought.
2024-04-12 18:05

D Muthulingam

Hello i am not sure what the proper channels are to do this but i would like to proffer for consideration tangent topic "discourse"

nyx m.

So behind the times, but I literally just watched Barbie. I wanted to add on to your comments about romance and sex that I actually found their absence really jarring because there is ALSO a strong emphasis on reproduction. That scene in the white voide where Barbie learns what being human will be like is literally just a montage of babies and children. We know she's become human because she acquires sex organs; while "I'm here to see my gynaecologist" is a great closing line, the message it conveys gets kind of weird when you consider it in context with everything else. I assume it's not intentional, but when you combine asexuality and aromanticim with a heavy focus on producing and rearing children (and that weird line you pointed out about the role of mothers), it kind of suggests that a) the most important thing for a woman to do, perhaps even the thing that makes her a woman, is to reproduce (absoLUTEly not) but b) she's not supposed to enjoy it? Or perhaps that sex is purely for reproduction? Which is a weird thing for a feminist movie to suggest (unless it really was supposed to be separatist). Thanks for the video!

Tasha

May I ask where you got your data from that statistically men fare far worse than women, post-divorce? Specifically, the money aspect. The rest you mentioned all makes plenty sense to me/seems obvious. But the money part was surprising/I am skeptical on that.

Seneca Schneyeroff

I think it’s not so much that men have no identity without women recognizing them as subjects, but that men have no identity without being able to use the objectification of women to signify that they are subjects.

DJ Jaylex

While I agree that the character of Ken was a bit over the place at times, I want to point out that some of his arc felt somewhat incel to me. Why might it be he's instantly loving the patriarchy so much? Obviously, it might just be the reversal of the power dynamic of Barbieland, but I feel like you could also see it as "He feels powerless because he's in love with Barbie but she's not interested in him", which makes him turn against Barbie. Some of what happens when Ken has reformed Barbieland has the vibe of "You always turned me down, you hurt me, now I have the power to hurt you, how does that feel?" In that respect, I do think one could link Ken to questions of male identity and certain ideas about men in relation to women.

Anna

Ken's defined masculinity problems are in line with the statements of "feminine energy" online feminism, so his experience didn't seem weird to me at all. The presumptions are: 1. Males are biologically wired to do absolutely everything they do in their lives just to get laid. (They also project this on women, who do not in fact function in the same way) 2. Men take on a childish role in relationships and marriage and see their partner as their mommy who they both worship and hate and secretly follow the lead of. (This is countered with all the "men provide, protect and lead BS they talk about and try to embody) 3. The "awakened man" learns to be a person when he gets out of the mindset of chasing **ssy (alpha male BS) and appeasing mommy (nice guy syndrome). He becomes himself separately from women, with or without the help of other men. That's modern men's actual hero's journey and road to adulthood.

depress.io

natalie saying "tangent" at the beginning of each of these videos is the best part of my day i'm obsessed

Alexander Moore-

Screenshotting this caption to study authorial voice. How can you possibly not love yourself?

Asocksual

"Your pink crop top won't mean shit on an ashen planet" is one of those, like, genuinely super badass yet utterly insufferable things to say that super far-left people always post. Sounds like one of those things I would angrily text to my parents when I'm having a normal one at 1:00 am when I'm sublimating some other stuff into a general anger at the world. It's technically correct and honestly goes super hard, yet it's packed with such melodrama. I dunno how to explain it but I recognize it, quite clearly. Also, I do kind of wish that you wouldn't use the word "asexuality" as shorthand for chastity/sex negativity and "aromantic" for stories that seem oddly empty of romance, because, as someone who is both aromantic and asexual, as in someone who genuinely doesn't experience sexual or romantic attraction, it hurts a bit hearing the words for my identity used to describe these states of uneasy denial. I don't really give a shit about Disney movies or Barbie (just watching this vid cause I love your insights), but there are people like me in the world for whom life without romantic or sexual desire is our reality, and I wish you were more understanding of that. We almost never get seen or respected in culture. To be honest I kind of felt that way about a some of your Twilight video too, I rewatch it all the time but always skip the early part about that supposedly universal desire and yearning because, to be honest, it is tiring hearing about this magical incredible yet also horrible and devastating and all-consuming experience that is so fundamental to humanity and yet so utterly unlike anything I have ever felt towards another human being. I'm not saying you shouldn't talk about that stuff- it's your channel, and you should talk about your experiences! I just wish that you would make more room for acknowledging that some of us don't experience that stuff and maybe try to understand how we feel more.

DaniloDaSelva

Thanks for this interesting and highly illuminating comment from which I've learnt a few things I wasn't all too aware of. I'm not affected myself but would like to read more often from aromantic and/or asexual people. We don't know whether Natalie has seen this comment, but at least one person has and appreciated it. :)

Skillz McToots

OMG I would LOVE for Natalie to cover Amatonormativity!

心妤 蒋

I love your insight into this one. As an aro-ace person myself, I’ve commented similar things on the Twilight video. I think the concept of longing and yearning is deeply presnet in my life, like nostalgia.etc. But it’s just not directed towards people as romantic or sexual people does.

firelizard

ending this tangent like that and cutting to the nuke always gets me lmao

TransientDynamic

Why doesn't Barbie ever get pregnant? Because Ken comes in his own box. Love the video, I just wanted to share some additional information ...

Archer Jons

I need a Thomas and Friends movie