Penna Dexter

They said the movie, Barbie, is ‘subversive.’ Woke. Promotes feminism. But I couldn’t hate it. It was too clever and beautiful. And genuinely funny. A parody of feminism, Barbie, and Mattel itself.

The opening scene takes place on a rocky beach where little girls are playing tea party with baby dolls. Barbie appears — larger than life — in her black and white striped bathing suit. Awestruck, the girls smash their baby dolls on the rocks. A jarring reminder of society’s denigration of women’s motherly role.’

Then we’re introduced to the feminist utopia that is Barbieland. The family simply doesn’t exist there. There is a pregnant Midge. “Didn’t we discontinue her?” wonders the Mattel CEO — played by Will Ferrell.

Each Barbie lives in her own house. The houses have no outer walls. The Barbies can see each other. They greet one another in the morning and affirm, love, and support one another throughout the day. Who needs a family? Who needs men? All Barbies have meaningful jobs: doctors, airline pilots, or astronauts. A Barbie is President, and the Supreme Court is all Barbies. The Kens do something called “Beach.”

Daily Mail columnist, Sarah Vine calls Barbie “a deeply anti-man movie.”

“Every male character is either an idiot, a bigot, or a sad, rather pathetic loser.”

Barbie’s purpose, as she understands it, is to help little girls grow up to run the real world.

Margot Robbie — the perfect Barbie — winks at the little girls surrounded by their broken baby dolls as if to reassure them. ‘Ladies, we’ve got this.’

When Barbie travels to the real world, she realizes she and the other Barbies have failed. “You represent everything wrong with our culture,” a teenager tells her.

Co-writer and producer Greta Gerwig’s previous movies portray men as oppressive authority figures. Her good men are disrespected or demeaned by female characters. Here, the Mattel executives are buffoonishly authoritarian. The Kens — and real-world fathers — are weak and compliant.

Behold: feminism’s rotten fruit.