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Barbie review: A light-hearted movie that pokes fun at both the Left and the Right.
Don’t be so serious
As part of Barbenheimer, I saw Barbie first. Seeing Oppenheimer in a few hours. There was a definite inclination towards wearing pink to the screening with about half the audience donning the colour.
Barbie, for the most part, is just escapist fun. It has had Left wing feminist pour over it as a symbol of consumerism, unrealistic body shapes and focus on looks etc. It has had right wing commentators pour over it as evidence as being an anti-male film.
One of my favourite films is the movie “Starship Troopers”, a film that few at the time could understand was a political satire making fun of fascism. It has a cult following now as it is appreciated for its art.
The build up to Barbie has much of the same misunderstanding. Twitter exploding about the movie’s endless references to the Iraq war. Did we watch the same movie? Vietnam was outraged about a squigly line on a very poor map of Asia in the background that missed out half the countries of Asia. Piers Morgan is having a hissy fit about…*checks notes…no friggin idea. And so on.
The movie message is rather simple, it is a more adult version of Toy Story, except live action. It has some subtle innuendo and clever play on…
