it's hard to overstate the massive

cultural impact of the Barbie movie

Hi Barbie

Hi Ken

the film Enchanted audiences wowed critics

sparked heated debates

and made a truly obscene amount of money

at the box office

Barbie continues breaking records

with over 1 billion dollars

at the global box office

it's an impressive cultural achievement

especially considering that the film

doubles as a feature-length commercial

for a line of plastic dolls

there was however one group

who were decidedly unenthusiastic

Despite all the bubbly pink fun

the movie's become a target

of some right-wing personalities

they are preaching empowerment

by making men look weak and dumb

feminist diet tribe about the evils of

the modern patriarchy

It's a trojan horse to to teach girls

daddy is really a dummy or

domineering idiots

It's feminist garbage and

it's really about hating men

And Ken is like stupid and unlikable

This is an assault on not just Ken

but all men

If you've seen the movie

you might be confused

Because the Barbie script goes out of

it's way to show Ken

in a sympathetic light

If anything the movie might be

a little too sympathetic to Ken

"I think I owe you an apology"

"Huh?"
Now it's tempting to dismiss this

clearly performative outrage

as just another attempt to fan the flame

of the culture war

But there is something really poisonous

under-pinning this backlash

that I do think is worth taking seriously

One word in particular

seem to touch a nerve

"Well I haven't seen Barbie yet,

but I've seen people talking about

the number of times they use

the word patriarchy in it"

"Feminism and the patriarchy

and fighting it, and all that"

"And actually to call it the patriarchy

in the film that phrase is used many times"

"If you take a shot every time

Barbie says the word 'patriarchy',

you will pass out before the movie ends"

"As we learned that the use of word

'patriarchy' no less than ten times

in this film"

"The patriarchy is a big part of this

Barbie film"

"The word is used endlessly in the movie

even though most people

even me actually has no idea that

what 'patriarchy' really means"

That is a truly staggering

level of defensiveness