Based Camp - September 18, 2023The Barbie Movie is the Most Based Movie Ever Made
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the anti-feminist message of the new movie "Barbie and Ken" and whether or not it was written by a feminist or edited by a male co-worker, or if it was actually written by someone else.
Transcript
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Obviously big spoilers in this, in this talk through,
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I think structurally every part of the movie was literally as based as
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This is seen as a world created from the aspirations of women in our
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society. Second part of the world, they go to the real world.
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It turns out the patriarchy doesn't exist except in high school
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bookstores. Keep in mind, they could have gone to any bookstore,
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could have been a public library. It could have been a college.
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Then they come back to this world can convince everyone voluntarily to join
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When they run into people who have beliefs that are different from them or
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way of structuring their lives that is different from them.
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They immediately say, these people must have been brainwashed.
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she brainwashes them all by making them sad because they were happy in
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They are now sad outside of patriarchy land, right?
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And then they take power again by taking advantage of men's good nature and
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genuine care for them while they have the genuinely no care for men.
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Then it ends with them taking complete control again,
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very clearly said MGTOW is the only real pathway for men.
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And it's having kids playing with kids and being a part of kids life.
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I couldn't see anything more men's rights than this movie scene per scene.
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But then why is it then that progressive audiences apparently think that it's a
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what the hell was going on with the Barbie movie?
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we just watched it yesterday and unironically it may be one of the most
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the person who wrote it did not intend for it to be,
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I don't think it's intentionally anti-feminist.
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My read is that either somebody in the editing process or somebody that had
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the ability to influence the scenes that were shown and like dialogue lines
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which is that feminism as it is today is so inherently anti-feminist that any
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true depiction of feminist stances and views and worldviews is going to show
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how toxic it is that I think that's what it is.
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we can talk through the movie and obviously big spoilers in this,
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and the audience can decide and add in the comments whether they think there
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was any like saboteur on the team trying to make the movie have.
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it had a really cohesive anti-feminist message.
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It was like really sort of clever in the way it was done.
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so we'll just go through the various stages of the movie.
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With everyone sort of telling its own anti-feminist message.
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And it's sort of made clear throughout the movie that this original
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iteration of Barbie world is the female utopia that both women dream of,
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Like every night's girl's night and it's Barbie's dream house,
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every night's girl's night was funny because it's,
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but there's many bars where every night is actually girl's night.
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almost never guys nights at any of these places.
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a specific thing where girls drink free at a bar.
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yet it's reflected in the real world where every night is also girl's night.
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we mean real world and like actually not in the movie.
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And what it shows is our world is already so comically feminist that it
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But I'm really telling part of this fever dream is that the men in it are
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they are only relevant on a day where Barbie recognizes them.
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which is interesting because I think if you look at the,
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obviously there's the most extreme red pill fever dreams and stuff like
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But I think what we're seeing here is the fantasy of the actual ideal
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that some women in our current society and like the woke companies strive
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do you have any more thoughts on this part of the movie?
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but it's also super clear from the very beginning that Barbie is
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Like there's one scene where Barbie has a big blow up party at her
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And I just feel like the asexuality of both of them also kind of
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points to the plummeting sex rates of people right now.
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we are looking at a more sexless society right now where people are
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they may pretend to have boyfriends and girlfriends or have
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Barbie wakes up and she's in her dream house and she's just,
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just the way people interact very shallowly online,
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just liking each other's posts and kind of seeing each other
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everywhere and feeling kind of surrounded by people,
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but never having any form of deep conversation or engagement.
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It is the ideal that many women strive for or wish existed,
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Like that is why they're playing out this world.
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And I think something that you captured in what you were seeing there are two
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She has with a guy is one in which she is not committed to him in any
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and basically she keeps her primary guy as a permanent side piece.
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Or what in the real world would be a permanent side piece.
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I think I thought side pieces were people you still kind of sleep with
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The ideal perfect side piece is somebody who's just always there for you
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The point here being that's their relationship that he is just this
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permanent attachment to her that she needs to invest in nothing in and
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It's pretty clear that Ken's in this world are kind of existentially
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It's not that they're existentially depressed is that they existentially
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So then Barbie for plot contrivances goes to the real world.
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this is sort of stage two of the movie where they're contrasting her in
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And the most interesting thing that you're sort of supposed to be tracking
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is what's going on with both her and Ken in the real world.
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because Ken doesn't matter to her throughout the entire world.
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She treats him genuinely horrendously throughout the entire movie.
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a joke that is consistently seen is Ken and her see a patriarchy,
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And yet the joke is the patriarchy does not exist insofar as like Ken goes to a
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And then he runs off after a random man thinking that he must be the doctor.
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The point being is that the patriarchy doesn't exist in this world,
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The only place that women don't have equality in the real world,
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as seen through the eyes of Barbie and Ken is within this fictionalized corporation,
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what are supposed to be a different supernatural location in,
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I would say it's the most sort of Zoolander eyes.
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but it's definitely on its way to being Barbie world.
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So it can sort of be discounted as like a meaningful thing outside of like a
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but Ken learns about the real world through books.
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I believe it's on a college campus or it's on a high school campus.
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Basically he like sees first off that like men have jobs and it kind of blows
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And then he sees within some corporate offices,
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men like actually being important and actually kind of shutting women down.
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people indicate that they respect him and we'll ask him questions.
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And then he goes to the library after seeing like billboards and the dollar bill and like
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pictures of presidents and pictures of men playing golf.
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He like gets a bunch of books on like horses and the patriarchy and he develops this caricature
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understanding of what patriarchy is and just assumes that real world is patriarchy.
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So I would disagree with your assessment of story.
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he is coming from this fever dream that women would create if they could.
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like the scene is like this one end state of the feminist movement.
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I think like the most delusional version of the feminist movement.
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And he is shocked that men are allowed to do things like drive cars.
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He is like his big win is somebody thought to ask him what the time was.
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So he goes at the center of indoctrination in our society,
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And he reads about the concept of the patriarchy because this is what he's trying to learn.
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what's really important is this knowledge he's getting about the patriarchy is one.
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This is what's being taught to young kids in our society.
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But it is not from the actual experiences he has in the world.
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So then he goes back to Barbie world and he tries to set up the patriarchy as he has read about it from the perspective of progressives.
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this is what we fear or the way that we perceive the world as actually being.
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Ken world within this Barbie world is the world that little girls are taught exists when they become adults.
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It's the world that they are taught exists in boardrooms.
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It's the world they are taught exists in companies when they are in high school,
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but it is just as much of a fever dream as this.
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What would happen if feminists won fever dream?
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I think he more got a caricature of patriarchy and just saw what he wanted to see and saw an aesthetic.
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he feels to me very representative of the like bronze age pervert facet of the internet where like their vision of masculinity and the patriarchy doesn't actually represent very accurately.
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He learned nothing about the patriarchy from conservatives.
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but what I'm saying is I think that present like masculinity conservatives who also haven't learned anything about the patriarchy from conservatives have a caricature of masculinity that they hold to be the patriarchy.
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And it's all about men and horses ruling the world together.
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but still it felt to me much more like the caricature.
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It was developed entirely by progressive like gender study academics.
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And that is the books he used to create this world.
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He got a book on horses and he got a book on the patriarchy.
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I will say that this is a really interesting and telling part of the plot point.
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the one that he tries to create in Barbie world as being a feminine understanding of
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this fever dream that was created by gender studies academics in the actual world of men's
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you correctly point out that a lot of them live for this aesthetic,
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you've talked about like raw egg nationalists or whatever,
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none of them that I'm aware of are actually into horses.
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Like this is not something that any actual men's rights group has picked up,
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but what's really interesting is when feminist organizations end up trying to appeal to men's
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So remember when Bud Light had that massive fuck up and,
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And then that ad they wrote to try to make it better was like horses running in a field and
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like talking about how they're still connected.
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I thought they were trying to harken back to their old Clydesdale.
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But the point being is that when feminists try to idiotically communicate with masculine men,
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which is really interesting because almost no men's group actually uses horses to intercommunicate
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but horses are a key part of it as you pointed out.
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he goes back to the Barbie world and he creates this kin utopia.
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what's really notable about the kin utopia is a few things.
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They like what they're doing and they have roles within this world.
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Hanging out with the guys and like serving them beer and stuff,
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The kin's want to live in the same houses with the Barbies.
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which is what is fascinating is that even from the perspective of the,
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the feminist fever dream of what the patriarchy is,
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the patriarchy is both better than what they would create if they won for,
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if you're talking about like an equity perspective,
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and it's better than what people have in the real world.
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It's even better than what women have in the real world.
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And this gets to a really interesting scene in the movie where Barbie comes back,
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And the other Barbies tell her logically why they're doing these things.
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Her interpretation is that they have been brainwashed.
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it's such a great interpretation because it's so the way progressives are.
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When they run into people who have beliefs that are different from them,
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or a way of structuring their lives that is different from them,
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moment is she gets in this car where they all dress like they're in a cult.
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They all dress like they're in a cult and they send other women out there to
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distract the guys and then kidnap the women and unbrainwash them.
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And what's fascinating about this is it is the way that progressives so often do things like
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Antifa calling themselves an anti-fascist organization when what they fight for is like
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so often the left will just like take a concept and then name,
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name something the exact opposite of what it actually means or what it actually does.
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But there's another really interesting thing that happens in these scenes where the way that the
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Barbies engage the kins to distract them is by asking the kins for genuine help.
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I'm having problems like understanding how to use Photoshop or I'm having some problems with my
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And it's not like stupidly obvious problems either.
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It's not obvious that the kins are condescending them or anything like that.
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It's just the kins are excited to genuinely help them and genuinely try to share information with
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like I think someone hearing this and having not watched the movie would be like,
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really like what I think the filmmakers were trying to do is demonstrate,
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that men simply cannot resist an opportunity to mansplain and that the trap was to mansplain.
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Another thing I'd note about the quote unquote brainwashing of the Barbies is that actually they
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come across as just as Stepford wifey and brainwashed at the beginning,
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like when they're all just in happy Barbie world.
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there is no evidence there was any malpractice or manipulation when Ken returned to Barbie world
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what Ken probably did was just return so excited about a world in which men have rights
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and like men rule the world and it's so cool and look at this and then just told everyone about it.
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while the main characters think that there's been brainwashing,
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there's no actual like hard evidence that there has been any,
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We'll get to the actual brainwashing scenes in a second,
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you'd have to be so brainwashed to not see what's happening in this scene within our society.
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So if they had wanted it to look like just generic mansplaining,
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I think Ken would have been like the Kens would have been helping the Barbies do stupidly easy things,
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not like manage different layers within Photoshop or like manage a complex investment portfolio.
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that is the way people are accused of mansplaining.
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It's the way people are accused of mansplaining when they transparently shouldn't be accused of mansplaining.
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And that's why I think the movie is anti-feminist in those moments is because in every one of these moments that it's very clear they're thinking or somebody on the set is probably thinking mansplaining.
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What is actually happening is the men are just trying to help after being asked to help.
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Which is different and also keep in mind and we'll mention this now because this is the scene that happens near the end of the movie is it's pointed out by sort of the God of this world.
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This character Ruth that the creator of Barbie that both Barbie and the patriarchy are imaginary concepts that do not exist in the real world that people make up because life is hard that people make up because life is hard,
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but it is pointed out point blank spelled out in the dialogue of the movement.
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but we're going to come back to because this is also really interesting when the women come from the real world to Ken world the way that they brainwash the women into thinking that the men are horrible is basically just by going over a bunch of feminist talking points about how unhappy they are and how hard it is to be a woman.
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But what's really interesting in this transformation is these women who this happens to were not unhappy in patriarchy world.
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They were not unhappy before they were told that they should be unhappy until they were brainwashed to be unsatisfied with the world as it is structured under this patriarchy.
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So it's interesting to see what Ken world ends up being this caricature that as you put it Malcolm is feminists picture of what men fully living out the patriarchy looks like.
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So the themes and basically the Ken's take over the Barbie dream houses and trick them out Ken style, which apparently mostly means putting TVs everywhere on TVs or just images of horses.
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They they they add a lot of like complicated remotes and there's beer everywhere so they get foot massages and they have beer and there are horses everywhere and big cars and that's that's kind of it aside from like big like pimp jackets Ken starts to wear this giant furry pimp jacket which he seems to love.
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So it's interesting but they still they do more parties they drink more beer no I mean there's drinking there's beer for the first time because beer is this symbol of masculinity but there is no less partying than pre Ken world it just happens to be that they're like more masculine style parties.
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Okay, okay, okay. I'll buy that. All right, so we get to the the after the scene where the Barbies start brainwashing people and what's really interesting about this scene is it makes really clear that the women in the Barbie world under the patriarchy are happier than even women in the real world.
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And I thought that was really fascinating. It was only by breaking them out of this system that they became systemically unhappy and and that that was part of the brainwashing procedure.
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But anyway, so they break them out and they have this plan to disrupt the kins to distract the kins. Can you talk about this Simone because this was really fascinating.
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Yeah, and it was brutal seeming and it just made the protagonists look really terrible because basically they decided they they needed to distract the kins from changing the constitution of Barbie world to let kins rule forever or something like that.
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So in order to do that, they decided that they would all express romantic interest in all of the kins and watch wrapped as they played the same song on guitars, and then pretend to be distracted by or into a different Ken and then switch places and go to that other Ken to make all the kins jealous of each other and prompt all the kins to fight each other, which is just like so
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There's a few scenes here that are really worse. It is made explicitly clear throughout this that Ken within the patriarchy genuinely cares about Barbie
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Wants her to be happy and wants to be together with her. Well, he also expresses frustration. I mean, he does kick her out of her house and throw all of her clothes out
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So it's not like he's been when she treats him really poorly. Yes, well, she does
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She had that coming, but i'm just saying like one
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I I do want to give two caveats one. This is not the ideal world for women
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This like ken because they took all women out of all positions of power, but
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That doesn't mean that the women hadn't done the same thing. It's just like, okay
00:26:36.420
But hold on so yes, there's the scenery kicks her out of the house, but after that scene
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This is when this beach scene happens. She's like I want to get back together with you
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And he's like that's all i've ever wanted like all i've ever wanted
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And this is after kicking her out of the house is to make you happy is to live a life with you is for this house
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To be the barbie and ken house and not just the barbie dream house
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Had the best intentions for her and had different ways of doing that
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Whereas throughout the movie it is made explicitly clear in the dialogue that she never ever cared what happened to kim
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That she never cared and she was willing to use
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His care and appreciation for her to hurt him and his ambitions
00:27:27.080
Whenever possible and in this scene that you're describing. That's what happens
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convince ken that another one of his friends was making a move on her
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They were not this was a lie. She was one not interested in kin and two other kins were not interested in making a move on her
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I mean, do you want to talk a bit more to this or
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It's just extremely manipulative. Like I don't know how I do suppose that that's a point against this
00:27:58.660
Like feminist movie that ended up just seeming anti-feminist because
00:28:03.060
It's really hard to make that kind of manipulation look good like that in the entire movie
00:28:11.320
Or or to help other people which is not true of kin
00:28:18.240
In fact, I would say that the way that the kins go out of their way to help the barbies when they're distracting them
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Is literally nicer than any single thing that the protagonist does throughout the entire course of the movie
00:28:33.740
The way that they hurt the kins is by manipulating and this is almost like this is almost more of a red pilly message than I would work into a movie
00:28:42.660
The way that in this movie women manipulate men is by utilizing
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Men's genuine care for women because women are incapable of caring for men and it's been the same way that men care for women like that
00:28:54.880
Seems to be the message of this part of the movie. Yeah, not not gonna disagree with you
00:28:59.480
So let's talk about the resolution of the movie because it is equally
00:29:08.040
So so one in this scene where the barbies distract the kins
00:29:11.660
It's only temporarily like the kins never really they just sort of play fight with each other and then realize that they all really
00:29:17.720
Like each other and are happy together and that they don't really have any conflict with each other
00:29:23.240
It's not like some outside force or the barbies come in and help the kins make up with the other kins
00:29:31.440
Which again is very different than what I would expect if this had a
00:29:34.660
Genuine feminist message where the barbies would help the kins resolve things
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So the kins resolve things on their own just not fast enough
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To prevent the barbies from changing the laws so no kin can ever have power again and the extent to which they want no kin
00:29:49.320
So you would think like to me if this was actually a feminist movie at the end
00:29:53.900
The barbies would realize that they were wrong in the way that they treated the kins
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And they would introduce some level of equity into the world
00:30:00.520
Yeah, like maybe let's share because in the beginning for example, it's only barbies on the supreme court and at the end, you know, the
00:30:06.440
The formerly defroned dethroned president barbie then, you know, of course repacks the supreme court with all female barbies
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And then one male barbie comes up to him and it's like, hey, you know, we'd love to have one seat on the supreme court and she's like
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Maybe something really low like a lower circuit court and it's just insane like there's no concession
00:30:27.240
What it shows is that there is no concession in our society
00:30:31.160
There is no conception from the feminist perspective what this movie is
00:30:35.060
This is the feminist of the feminist perspective
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What many women actually want the world to be like re-establishes dominance within this world
00:30:43.880
What they actually want the world to be like is a world in which men have no power
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That is the message of the movie to the extent where the men are then kicked out of the houses again
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The men then become homeless again at the end of the movie
00:31:02.360
They are again treated worse than they treated the women when they had power
00:31:11.800
Yeah, it's like imagine that there was like a feminist movement and then at the end it was like nope you failed
00:31:18.860
Yeah, there's sort of this thing where like ken puts on this t-shirt that says i'm
00:31:26.500
Well, the message they give to men the message they give to ken is he needs to learn to be happy without women
00:31:34.120
It's unironically migtow is the right answer for men
00:31:38.380
That is unironically the resolution the story resolution for ken
00:31:43.800
Whereas the story resolution for barbie is that she becomes human
00:31:49.640
And at the end of the movie it's like let up so you think she's getting a job
00:31:54.360
So it's that she gets a woman and she gets she gets to be a human woman and she gets to have a vagina and indulge in sexuality
00:32:05.460
Yeah when she decides to go to the real world and be a human and there's a scene at the very end where like
00:32:09.720
Other human friends are basically driving her in a car and they're like i'm so proud of you
00:32:13.960
And she gets out and as a viewer you're expecting that she's going to some big job interview
00:32:17.700
And no she goes to a gynecologist and that's the end
00:32:22.880
With with my framing of this do you believe that somebody
00:32:27.880
Sabotageably was on the set trying to make this a men's rights message
00:32:33.280
Because it has almost no part of it that genuinely gets across a feminist message
00:32:38.900
Whereas almost every interaction seems to get across a men's rights message
00:32:50.180
But by depressed feminists having an existential crisis
00:32:56.440
Like this like theme song at the end like in the closing credits is this like sad voice singing
00:33:16.920
And and and so it's showing what she was made for
00:33:21.480
But what is really fascinating about it is through that
00:33:31.240
And what's interesting is what's playing in the background during the song
00:33:34.600
Which is kids playing it's mothers playing with their kids
00:33:47.040
And well, I forgot to even mention the beginning of the movie
00:33:50.560
Where they talk about like how basically up until barbie
00:33:54.440
Girls played with dolls and girls played at being mothers
00:33:58.200
And they show a bunch of little girls in like a space odyssey kind of context
00:34:03.660
Playing with dolls and apparently looking very bored
00:34:06.260
And sort of the message was like, oh, it sucked to only be a mother
00:34:11.080
And then like and then and then you got a new doll
00:34:14.520
Yeah, and like, you know now this doll that was model off of a sex toy is now available
00:34:23.680
And it's kind of interesting because it does sort of show the like curve of a female
00:34:28.820
Desirable attainment or status seeking over time
00:34:33.100
Where like it used to be like the big status thing you do is be like a successful mother
00:34:37.700
And and now it's gone to like being a successful sex symbol
00:34:44.380
Which also leads to a lot of very unfortunate filtering in plastic surgery
00:34:47.460
And trying to make things work when you're never going to compete with a 20 year old, etc
00:34:50.560
So yeah, that was also like a really like already in the beginning of the movie
00:34:55.220
Like this is also talking about like demographic collapse, pronatalism
00:34:59.300
Like why our culture isn't producing families and children anymore
00:35:07.480
Is is the most anthem movie of the men's rights movement
00:35:18.540
Then it starts with the girls playing with like wholesome toys
00:35:22.360
And it is very clearly shown the contrast between the Barbie and the dolls
00:35:30.800
This is when we realized we could sexualize little kids
00:35:33.520
This is when we realized we could sell little children, little girls
00:35:48.600
I kind of love what the movie was, was, was saying at the end of the day
00:35:55.680
Actually this movie is, is, has many based aspects of it
00:35:59.340
But I think structurally every part of the movie
00:36:09.980
This is seen as a world created from the aspirations
00:37:47.600
Apparently think that it's a very feminist film