America Ferrera and the ‘Barbie’ Monologue We All Talked About

www.nytimes.com

13 comments

Capitalism commodifies dissent. It turns protest movements that argue against the unfairness of the current system into a product or marketing campaign to sell their imaginary solutions. The Barbie is a prime example of this.
I liked the I'm Just Ken song though, and it was a fun movie, but still.
- Well, that's a pretty reductive way of looking at the message.
  I'll give you a hint, why do you think it is that Barbie ultimately refused to participate in the hypercommodified world after the status quo has been restored with even slight improvements being made?
  
  Why do you think Mattel, a company that's been accused of profiting of child labour and whose dolls have been shown to be damaging to young girls body image, made a Barbie movie?
  
  Heh. If only...
- "Tell me you're a male without telling me you're a male" ... ?
  Snarky reply I know ... but seriously, to you and everyone inclined to downvote this ... what are the probabilities?
  From what I've gathered, generally speaking ... women got and appreciated the message and men struggled with the fact that it was a big speech in a big movie they otherwise enjoyed to some extent.
  Which, TBH, is perfectly fine ... different people in different walks of life ... it's why we have films, art, conversations etc ... it's not a big deal to not get what other people are going through and to let them talk to each other about it through art etc.
  
  Nah.
  The reality is that this Mattel using feminism to shift product. It's fundamentally no different than when brands pretend to be gay friendly through marketing, to distract from their past and current record. Or when an oil company pretends to be green.
  In the case of Mattel, their dolls have causes young girls body image problems and have been accused of using child labour
  A relevant bit from a guardian article:
  So, what are those bevies of pink-bedecked filmgoing females supposed to make of all this? They will see seductive but dubious stereotypes embellished rather than subverted. Muddled messaging may dispel rather than stimulate any impulse to crusade. What might therefore leave the most residual impact is Sarah Greenwood’s luscious production design. A clear call to action does in the end emerge: go forth and buy the products of the film’s sponsor, Mattel, and its galaxy of commercial partners. If Barbie constitutes a triumph, it’s a triumph not of feminism but of the patriarchy’s so far most unassailable scion – capitalism. Women have been spending millions to watch a giant advertisement more likely to bewilder than inspire them. And now they’re spending millions more on the merch. Mattel’s (male) chairman and CEO, Ynon Kreiz, has plenty of cause to be pleased. But feminists? Perhaps not so much.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Listing some of the many perils of womanhood in a still patriarchal society, the monologue that the actress America Ferrera delivers in “Barbie” with the intensity of a rallying cry, became one of the most talked-about movie moments of 2023.
Relaxed in a cozy beige sweater, Ferrera, 39, was recalling a prerelease press stop in Mexico City where 20,000 frenzied people welcomed the filmmaker Greta Gerwig and the cast of her pink-soaked comedy.
The performer, who broke through in “Real Women Have Curves” (2002) and went on to win an Emmy for her turn as the title character in “Ugly Betty” (2006-10), deeply admires how Gerwig dared to infuse a seemingly vacuous concept with plenty of meaning.
“It’s huge for something that is both so commercially successful and culturally dominant to also be about many things at the same time, which is not easy to execute in the biggest movie of the year,” Ferrera noted.
While I would love to think that things are different today than they were 22 years ago when “Real Women Have Curves” was made, the data shows that in large part, it hasn’t changed.
That makes me think of Lupe Ontiveros, who played your mother in “Real Women Have Curves,” and who made a career out of tiny roles she managed to turn into screen gold.
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- Screw, tin man.

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