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 featured-length 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, uh"
"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, have no real idea of what patriarchy really means"
That is a truly staggering level of defensiveness
especially coming from people who
don't really seem to understand what the word even means
While there are many legitimate criticisms of the Barbie movie's feminism or lack thereof
this video essay is not going to address those questions
Instead, we're going to use the movie as a sort of primary
to help explain what patriarchy actually is
what it isn't and how it ends up harming everyone including men
"Watch your flank"
To have any kind of productive conversation
we have to get over that defensiveness
that so many mem feel whenever they come across the word patriarchy
"This is a real hornets nest in here"
Contrary to popular belief, patriarchy is not a synonym for men
nor is it a code word for masculinity
and it certainly has nothing to do with hating men
"Yeah, I'm, I... confused about that"
General confusion about what patriarchy means
is perhaps not surprising
given that the word very rarely appears in popular media
When the term has been used it's traditionally been as a joke
to mock feminists or feminism
"Let's take off our brows and burn them in defiance of the misogynistic patriarchy"
"you know what I think I have to meet Harvey, but um"
"maybe we can burn our underwear together later"
"When the last time we had a conversation over 3 minutes it was about"
"the patriarchal bias of the Mr. Roger's show"
"Well, with King Friday lording it over all the Lesser puppets"
"What did I miss?"
"The oppressive patriarchal values that dictate our education"
"good"
It's only after the rise of the me too movement
that we begin to see a shift in this pattern
"Stay out of it Courtney"
"You stay out of it. I'm dismantling the patriarchy this year"
"and I'm not afraid to start with you"
These days the word is most often written for snarky teenage characters
"So you were Guided by Lon chivalry"
"a tool of the patriarchy to extract my undying gratitude?"
"Mhm, you know most people just say thank you"
It's meant to identify them as brash, rebellious or naively idealistic
though not necessarily wrong in their observations
"I think marriage is just a patriarchal system designed to make women less autonomous"
"You become your husband's property, you have to bear his children"
"You even have to take his name"
"Hey, didn't you say that prom was a postcolonial..." "A postcolonial patriarchal construct"
"It is"
"But we would go as a group as a form of protest"
"Hey hey, ho ho, patriarchy has got to go"
Even in this new limited context, the word is still delivered as a punch line
"I'm jus... I mean is that it?"
and its meaning is left intentionally vague
"It's called Little Women and it's about four sisters"
"who overcome poverty and the patriarchy..."
"Nope, dolls"
The lack of specificity guarantees that
only those who are already in the know will get the joke
"Down with the patriarchy!"
"Idiot, ah"
Everyone else is left either bewildered or extremely threatened
"Why didn't Barbie tell me about patriarchy?"
"which to my understanding is where men and horses run everything?"
"I'll silver away!"
Sorry, Ken, but there are no horses involved
Although, it does kind of make sense why he might think that
"That's not fair is it? You know is it the fault of the patriarchy?"
"Also, what is a patriarchy?"
In its modern usage, patriarchy refers to a type of society
that's constructed to promote male power and authority
In sociological terms, it's what's called a social system
rooted in four distinct principles
"a society is patriarchal to the degree that it's male-dominated"
"male centered, male identified and organized around an obsession with control"
We're going to go over what all of that means in detail
but the important thing to remember about social systems
is that we are not those systems and those systems are not us
"Because Barbie land is now Kenland"
So, in the Barbie movie The Kens have a coup and Implement patriarchy
But the Kens as a group are not patriarchy itself
"Here I'm just a dude"
The Kens make patriarchy happen by doing it
When they stop participating the social system effectively ceases to exist
In the same way that we can describe a board game and its rules
without saying anything about the personality of the individual players
so, too, can we talk about the system of patriarchy and how it works
without condemning every individual man
Now keep in mind that the Barbie movie focuses mostly on straight white characters
but patriarchy impacts people in different ways based on their sexuality
and race, class or geographical location
"Is there a problem officers?"
Moving forward in this video
I'm going to be heavily borrowing from a book called The Gender Knot
by sociologist Alan G Johnson
Since the devil is in the details, let's use Kenland
"Kendom"
"Kendom Land"
"Land of the..." "Land of the free of the men"
"Right. Well, this place"
Let's use Kendom land to help illustrate how patriarchy works
"I shall seek my fortune there"
"Alright"
The first characteristic of a patriarchal society is that it's male dominated
This is relatively straightforward
All it means is that "positions of authority are generally reserved for men"
Basically, when you look up in the various hierarchies of society
you'll tend to see more and more men
The Barbie movie gives us a vivid illustration of what male dominance looks like
We are presented with a montage of images featuring powerful and important men
It's notable that up until recently
women have largely been excluded from these fields
"I'll take a high level, high paying job with influence, please"
"Okay you'll need at least an NBA"
Ken also learns an important lesson
when he demands to be given a powerful position
he has unceremoniously rejected
"No, I won't let you do just one appendectomy"
"But I'm a man"
"But not a doctor"
"Please"
"No"
This is because male dominance does not mean that every individual man is powerful
"I'm a man with no power does that make me a woman?"
In fact most men living in patriarchy
will never acquire a formal position of power
"This is bad. This is really bad"
"What?"
Instead, they'll spend their entire lives laboring under the boot of
other more powerful men
"Are any women in charge?"
Despite what this Mattel boardroom scene implies
It's not impossible for a woman to ascend to the top in patriarchy
It just means it'll be much much harder for women to gain and maintain power
and she will be tokenized and regarded as a special exception to the rule
"I love you guys"
Unlike in the fantasy world of Barbie land
there has never been a female president of the United States
"How come you're so amazing?"
"No comment. Ah ha ha ha"
But even when a woman eventually does win that position
it will not mean that patriarchy is over
Because patriarchy is a dynamic and resilient system
It has evolved and changed over the decades
and indeed centuries
thanks to countless women who have fought hard for a few seats at the table
but the table is still male-dominated
"You guys are clearly not doing patriarchy very well"
"No. Ha ha. No, we're uh, we're doing it well, yeah"
"We're just uh, hide it better now"
The second aspect of a patriarchal society is that it's male centered
This simply means that "the focus of attention
is primarily on men and boys and what they do"
One of the reasons Barbie land is so visually startling
is because it's a rare vision of a female centered world
It's something we almost never see in Hollywood
outside of cheesy Sci-Fi movies from the 1950s
"Landing on an unknown planet"
"they are captured by long limb beauties"
"When they say take me to your leader
"and they take them to a creature like this"
"you know they're on planet Venus"
"Hi Barbie"
"Yeah, space!"
In Barbie Land the focus of attention is naturally
placed on the Barbies and what they do
but after the coup, the Kens immediately push the Barbies aside
and put themselves and masculinity at the center of absolutely everything
"Everything, basically everything"
"exists to expand and elevate the presence of men"
This is an exaggerated reflection of our own male centered world
All you have to do is turn on the news or go to the movies
and you'll be inundated with endless stories centering men
"A symbol to the nation"
"A hero to the world"
"A beacon of hope, shining up"
Obviously, this doesn't mean that women are never centered under patriarchy
But when they are it's often framed as a woman's story
rather than a human story
The Barbie movie for example
is very specifically a story about the gendered experience
of being a woman in society
"Anxiety, panic attacks and OCD sold separately"
We can contrast that with a movie like Oppenheimer
which is a story about becoming death the destroyer of worlds
Yes this destroyer of worlds happens to be a man
but notice the story isn't focused on the gendered experience
of being a man in society
In fact, all of Christopher Nolan's film center very important men
but none are about their gender
They are built as stories representative of the human experience writ large
Greta Gerwig's movies on the other hand all center women
and are very explicitly about being a woman trying to navigate a man's world
"Very well"
[Inaudible]
That's not a criticism of either director by the way
It's just a stark illustration of what male centered means
In patriarchy men are viewed as the default for human
and therefore, male experiences are framed as an exploration of the human condition
While women's experiences are
first and foremost, framed as being about womanhood
"Okay"
Incidentally this deep-seated cultural expectation of male centrality
helps explain the waves of backlash against any entertainment
that's made for a general audience but doesn't center men or masculinity
Male identification is a little more complicated
but it is a critical piece of the patriarchal puzzle
It means that "core cultural ideas about what is considered good,"
"desirable, preferable or normal are culturally associated"
"with how we think about men, manhood and masculinity"
This is why professions that elevate qualities like toughness, competitiveness
strength, control, rationality and invulnerability are so highly valued
and highly paid in our society
"Monsters"
While occupations that revolve around qualities
thought of as feminine like compassion, sharing or caregiving
tend to be systematically devalued and underfunded
"You know Greg's in medicine too, Larry"
"Oh, really what field?"
"Uh, nursing"
[Laughter]
In the Barbie movie, The Kens establish an aggressively male identified society
They do this by stripping Barbie land of its feminine identity
and superimposing a version of hyper masculinity that seems to have been
lifted from 1980s action movies
They replace all the pink furniture with black leather recliners
drape everything in obnoxious cowboy motifs
and litter the landscape with gym equipment and sporting gear
"Don't question it just roll with, tiny baby"
"He call me baby?"
But male identification goes much deeper than aesthetics
When Ken decides to embrace patriarchy, his behavior shifts accordingly
as he tries to project male identified values
"You can stay if you want, as my bride wife"
"or my long-term low commitment distant girlfriend"
He buries self-doubt and hides his hurt feelings
behind a layer of false bravado
"Bruski beer me?"
"I will not Bruski beer you"
"Ha ha ha, that's fine"
Under patriarchy the concept of leadership and indeed power itself
is closely identified with masculinity
It follows then that all men are socially elevated by default
while women and feminine things are devalued and seen as inferior
"Oh you got fries with that?"
"If I said you had a hot body would you hold it against me?"
This means that even men who don't hold any institutional power
can still see themselves as superior to women
That point is underscored
when we see that the Kens are generally inept at running society
"Go face day drunk right now" [laughter]
[inaudible]
They spend their time day drinking, playing games, and goofing off
"Every night is boy's night"
And yet they still see themselves as superior
simply by virtue of being men living in a patriarchy
"You're like I can't believe how great this place is!"
In Kendom land, all the Barbies are reduced to servants
"Where are my hungry boys who want snacks"
But in the real world a small number of women can gain power
even inside of male identified systems
However, in order to do so they must prove themselves worthy
by appearing to be just as aggressive, competitive and even less emotional
than any man in that same position
In other words, even though they are women they must adopt and perform
male-identified patriarchal values
The fourth and final feature of patriarchy is "an obsession with control"
"as a core value around which social and personal life are organized"
"Men maintain their privilege by controlling both women and other men"
"who might threaten it"
The Barbie movie downplays it but men's violence against women
and the everpresent threat thereof
"Give us a smile, blondie"
is a critical element in maintaining patriarchal control
"I'm not getting any of that. I feel that can only be described as admired"
"but not ogled and there's no undertone of violence"
"Mine very much has an undertone of violence"
Control can also be achieved in other ways
and since the Kens don't really understand violence
they use coercion and manipulation to control daily life in Barbie land
"What is wrong with them?"
"We just explain to them the immaculate impeccable seamless gaunlet of logic"
"that is patriarchy and they crumbled"
Not the Kens take over every institution
they also take control of the Dream Houses
"This shall henceforth be known as Ken's Mojo Dojo Kasa house"
and they manipulate the Barbies into embracing their new status
as objectified servants
"Anyone need a Bruski beer?"
"What are you doing? You're a doctor"
"I like being a helpful decoration"
The illusion of intellectual and rational superiority
is critical to enforcing the myth that men are in control of every situation
"Let me show you" "Here, let me show you"
"Here, let us show you"
and therefore deserve their privilege status
"Now you listen to me"
This is emblematic of how men in the real world
will often compensate for feelings of personal inadequacy
by exercising extreme control over those closest to them
"You are going to be home at 6 o'clock every night"
"and you are going to have dinner ready on this table"
Especially women and children
"No"
"I don't want to push you around"
Returning to The Gender Knot: "Men are assumed and expected"
"to be in control at all times to be unemotional except for anger and rage"
"to present themselves as invulnerable, autonomous, independent"
"strong, rational, logical, dispassionate, knowledgeable, always right"
"and in command of every situation especially those involving women"
[Laughter]
"Who are you texting?"
"Huh?" "Who are you texting?"
"No one"
"Hmm, let me just"
[giggle]
"Ken!"
This obsession with control is so strong in our culture
that any man who is perceived as not exerting enough control over women
is likely to be ridiculed as pussy whipped, packed
or tethered to the old balling chain
Notice that there are no equivalent derogatory terms for men
who do control women only for men who don't
The obsession with control manifests in countless ways, big and small
"We would love it, if you could just get into that giant box"
But, control over women, their bodies and their sexuality
is a core tenant under patriarchy
"Get in the box! You Jezebel"
Recall that the Kens take control of the government
and use its power to actively exclude the Barbies from civic life
"That's right. In just 48 hours all the Kens will head to the polls"
"and vote to change the constitution to a government for the Kens of the Kens,"
"and by the Kens!"
Since these are children's toys, the Barbies can't reproduce
Well, aside from Midge that one time
But, the rest of the Barbies can't have babies
but if they could the Kens would have no doubt
curtailed their reproductive rights just like in the real world
The social system I've just described is very obviously oppressive to women
But while patriarchy definitely benefits men
it's paradoxically a poison chalice because it robs men of their full humanity
"Okay, here's the deal. It's not just about how they see us"
"it's about how they see themselves"
We only have time to scratch the surface on this topic
but embedded in Ken's story, we can find a few hints
as to how patriarchy ends up harming men
Even though Hollywood loves to play on themes of a war between the genders
that framing misses a critical point
because patriarchy is not a competition between men and women
Rather, it's an endless competition for dominance
wherein men are pitted against each other for a place in what R. W. Connell calls:
"the hierarchy of masculinities"
The white heterosexual hyper masculine ideal
is at the top of the hierarchy
All other forms of manhood especially those in any way associated with
homosexuality or femininity are pushed further down on the hierarchy
"When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it"
Recall that when the Kens go to war it isn't against the Barbies
it's against the other Kens
"We go to war"
"Against the Barbies?"
"No, against the Kens"
"But we are the Kens"
"The other Kens"
Up until this point, I've been mining the Barbies movie to help illustrate
how patriarchy works
But the usefulness of the film's narrative is limited
especially when it comes to male competition
"Looks this beach is a little too much beach for you, Ken"
"If I wasn't severely injured, I would beach you off right now, Ken"
" I'll beach you up with you any day, Ken"
You may remember for example
that long before they ever discover what patriarchy even is
Ken and Ken are engaged in a bitter competition
over control of Barbie's time and attention
"Bet you can't do a flip like that, Ken"
This is where the Barbies script is perhaps
a little too clever for its own good
Because it's many overlapping metaphors and allegories
leave us with some mixed messages about the Kens
The rivalry between the Kens may work as a sort of gender flipped
commentary on how women are taught to seek validation through male attention
"I only exist within the warmth of your gaze"
It is less successful however, as part of the film's larger critique of patriarchy
because the Ken's competitive rivalry carries with it some uncomfortable
echoes of male entitle
"I bet you're scared and I bet she doesn't even wanted to go"
And that behavior is not attributed to patriarchy in the first half of the movie
which is confusing because it definitely should be
"Hi, Barbie"
[grunt]
"Hi, Ken"
The thing about being obsessed with control
is that it traps men in a cycle of fear
"Hi, Barbie"
"Hi, Ken"
The more men value control, the more they're afraid of losing it
This leaves men riddled with anxiety about not measuring up to other men
which means they can never truly feel secure in their own masculinity
"I made a double bet with Ken and you can't make me look uncool in front of Ken"
"Ken's not cool!"
"He is to me"
In the movie the patriarchal battle for dominance
culminates in an absurdest dream ballet
but in reality the consequences can be deadly serious
Most violence in the real world is perpetrated by men against other men
This Grim reality is part of why the Barbie's plan to overthrow patriarchy
by tricking the Kens into fighting each other is so wildly misguided
"You play on their egos and their petty jealousies"
"and you turn them against each other"
While the scene is undoubtedly funny and the song choice, absolutely perfect
aggressive competitive male behavior is a core feature of patriarchy
not a bug that can be exploited
"And now they destroy themselves"
And for the record, men's violence is definitely not something
that women manipulate men into doing
Something else the movie doesn't show
is how the enormous pressures patriarchy places on men can lead to self harm
either directly or indirectly through addiction and other risky behaviors
The prohibition on expressing vulnerability compounds the problem
by making it difficult, if not impossible, for men to ask for help
or build emotional support networks
"Ken?"
"Oh hey, Barbie"
"Hi"
"How much of that did you see?"
Of course all people need love, intimacy and nurture
But since patriarchy devalues caregiving and labels it as feminine
many men feel compelled to sacrifice their emotional sides
in order to preserve their identity as real men
As a result, many guys, especially straight guys
falsely believe that women are somehow responsible
"Oh, but I don't want you here"
"Is it Ken?"
"Ken's just a really good friend"
"Goodnight"
That being rejected is tantamount to women holding emotional intimacy hostage
when in reality it's not women but patriarchy
that's blocking men's access to emotional and physical intimacy
So when Barbie refuses Ken's advances he becomes resentful
He lashes out
"No you failed me!"
And he ends up harming everyone, including himself
[Cry]
"Don't look at me"
In her excellent book: The Will to Change
Bell Hooks doesn't mince words when describing what happens to men
inside of patriarchy
"Teaching boys to despise their vulnerability is one way to socialize them"
"to engage in self-inflicted soul murder"
It's no wonder then that Ken isn't really happy living in patriarchy
In fact, in Kendom land he was even further alienated from Barbie
From his own feelings and from the other Kens
Part of this interview with Julia Fox
where she's hooked up to a polygraph machine
became a viral meme on Tik Tok
"I hate the patriarchy. There's a lot of really good men"
"Answer the question"
"Do I hate men? No"
"That's a lie"
The viral audio snippet stopped there
But when we play the rest of it her answer is Illuminating and nuanced
"There's a lot of men that benefit from the systemic oppression of women"
"in our culture and society and religions. And I do wish that"
"more men could stand up for us"
She explains that she obviously does not hate all individual men
What she hates is the fact that most men do absolutely nothing
to help end the oppression of women
So what can men do to make a difference in ending this system?
"The Kens. They found us"
Let's use Allan as our proxy for this part of the discussion
since he's the only guy who joins the Barbies' revolution
Well, aside from these two brief cameos
"Sugar daddy?"
"No no no no, I'm not a sugar daddy. This is sugar and I'm her daddy"
"And I have an earring, a magic earring"
Notice that all three of these characters are queer coded
and despite being men, they're marginalized
in the hierarchy of masculinities
Allan in particular, embodies a bunch of common mistakes
that men make when trying to disentangle themselves from the system of patriarchy
The first thing Allan does is nothing
He is a bystander who is nonetheless still afforded
a measure of privilege in Kendom Land
that the Barbies are not
"And Alan likes to help me give all the Kens foot massages"
"No, I don't, I don't like that"
"We love it"
Like some men in the real world, Allan might not be actively or consciously
participating in the oppression of women
but he doesn't speak out against it either
The next thing Allan does is try to escape
As soon as he spies a way out for himself, he tries to take it
"How are you?"
"I'm Allan. Don't tell the Ken I'm trying to escape"
"I cannot sit on one more leather couch it's going to break my spirit"
The problem is man can't just opt out of patriarchy
because it's been woven into the very fabric of our whole society
"What, what do we do?"
"Just get in the car and keep it singing"
The next thing Allan tries is to engage in displays of chivalrous violence
After learning the extent of the injustice women face
some men try to distance themselves from the problem
and from any personal culpability by going after particularly bad men
But patriarchy isn't a person
and you can't punch a a social system in the face
as much as you might want to
"Guess what happened?"
"I got into a fight. I'm fine, but I..."
"I think we solved feminism"
"Yeah! once and for all"
"It was just like a a total melee, like on the news"
And most of the time men lashing out in violence isn't helpful
as it simply replicates the core values of patriarchy
Allan fumbles around for a while, but eventually he joins the Barbies' revolution
and figures out how to stand with them in solidarity
Notably though, Allan never tries to confront the Kens
about what they're doing
And that's unfortunate because the most important thing men can do
is challenge other men on their behavior
and encourage them to rebel against patriarchal expectations
Despite all the harm it does to women and to men's well-being
the system of patriarchy remains invisible to most people
And the Barbie movie for all its flaws, makes it visible
This is, I'd argue, at the root of why so many right-wing pundits
were so extremely threatened by this cartoony fantasy land
Not only does the film acknowledge the existence of patriarchy
it dares to suggest that it's not a natural or inevitable institution
And in doing so it lays bare the fundamental truth about all social systems
they can be dismantled
"No Barbie or Ken should be living in the shadows"
"Or Allan"
Choosing to confront such an entrenched system
can be risky for men and extremely dangerous for women
Nonetheless, all over the world women are challenging patriarchy
like never before in modern history
And the reality is that every day more and more men
are choosing to stand with those women to join the struggle for liberation
and to reclaim their full humanity
"Thank you"
Thanks for watching
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