My favorite lines From the Barbie Movie (2023), What I liked and also what I really disliked

  1. Since Barbie can be anything, so can women…

  2. I can be both logical and emotional at the same time. And it doesn't diminish my powers. It develops them.

  3. It is the best day ever. So was yesterday, and so is tomorrow, and every day from now until forever!

  4. I’m Weird Barbie. I have a funky haircut. and I smell like basement.

  5. I'm at a loss for words, it's...like I'm conscious but…consciousness of myself.

  6. The Supreme Court [points at billboard of Miss Universe pageant]. They are very smart.

  7. Why didn't Barbie tell me about the patriarchy? That is, if I understood correctly, that the horsemen have power.

  8. She thinks I’m a fascist?! I don’t control the railways or the flow of commerce!

  9. I have to find somewhere to start patriarchy all over again.

  10. Women hate women. And men hate women. It’s the one thing we can agree on.

  11. Then I realized that horses are extensions of men.

  12. Either you’re brainwashed or you’re ugly and weird. There is no in-between.

  13. She's not dead she's just having an existential crisis.

  14. I’m not beautiful now. I’m not smart enough to be interesting. I can’t do brain surgery. I’ve never flown a plane. I’m not the president. No one on the Supreme Court is me. I’m not good enough for anything.

  15. To tell you the truth, when I learned that the patriarchy has nothing to do with horses, I lost interest.

  16. Ken is me!

  17. I'm not sure where I belong anymore. I don't think I have an end.

    -That was always the goal. I made you to have no end.

  18. Ideas live forever. People, not so much.

  19. I want to imagine. I don't want to be the idea.

  20. You give me permission to... to become human?

    -You don't need my permission.

    - But you made me. Don't you control me?

    -I have as much control as I have over my daughter.

    What I liked:

    —The set design
    —The pantomiming
    —When Sasha made Barbie cry showing just how brutal teenagers area


    What I hated:

    —America Ferrara’s stupid pedantic heavy-handed monologue. I read a couple Greta Gerwig interviews about the movie and the concept sounded great: A religious search for meaning in a perfect plastic world, mother daughter relationships with a Gen X specific tint (just like how The Graduate was about baby boomers but the blase ennui is still relevant today), the irony of Barbieland being a funhouse mirror matriarchy version of the real world patriarchy with the point being that both promote inequality. The mediocrity that 99% of citizens of modern society feel. But what came out at the end was this bland contrived half-baked mishmash of stale girl power with a dig at white people. It could’ve been so much more enduring and timeless without the self-indulgent 3rd wave feminist propaganda. The feminism would inherently exist if it was a good movie with a good message and witty commentary on what it means to be human. Like Bridesmaids, I guess.

    __Bill Maher’s tweet sums it up:

    “OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true. "Barbie" is this kind of #ZombieLie. Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women. OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word "patriarchy." Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain - but this movie is so 2000-LATE. At one point the Barbies have to win over the Kens, and they are told to do it by pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back. Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw "Barbie" with a woman in her 30s who said, "I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today." I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I'm not the one who's out of step - I'm living in the year we're living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it - but it IS a #ZombieLie. And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill - just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!! #BarbieMovie
    —-Portraying America’s husband as impotent, was it worth the Duolingo joke? Do you think it’s likable to think your husband’s stupid because he doesn’t speak Spanish? I highly doubt she even speaks Spanish very well herself.

    —The throwaway gynecologist joke to end the movie on

    —I wish there was a way to acknowledge more the irony that it is considered girly & cheesy to like Barbie and pick-me & cynical to dislike her. America’s speech should have been about that.

Kristy Lin