Patriarchy According to The Barbie Movie

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 diatribe 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 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"

"including 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 bras 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 latent 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"

"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?"

"Hi-ho, 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"

"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 it, 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"

[Kens play "Push"]
"I wanna push you around. Well, I will"

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"

[Barbie chuckles]

"Who are you texting?"

"Huh?"
"Who are you texting?"

"No one"

"Hmm, let me just"

[Ken giggles]

"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"

[Ken groans]

"Hi, Ken"

"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

[Ken bursts out of 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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I have a whole bunch
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