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 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 men feel whenever
they 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 am 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 Rogers 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
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
hey hey ho ho
patriarchy has got to go"
even in this new limited context
the word is still delivered as a punch
"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"
"Idiots 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 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?"
"It's 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
race, class or geographical location
"Is there a problem offices?"
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"
"Kendomland"
"Land of the" "Land of the free of the men"
"Right. Well, this place"
Let's use Kendomland 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 highlight 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"
"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" "Yay 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
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"
"The 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 (rit?) 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 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 Ken 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 distance 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 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 seethat the Kens
are generally inept at running Society
"Go face day drunk right now" [Laughter]
"(?)"
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 (?) 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 for 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 6:00 every night"
"and you are going to have dinner ready on this table"
Especially women and children
"No"
"[Singing] 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
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"
"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