There’s something to be said about an era where media wants to be as Whedonesque and inauthentic as possible that the internet sniffs out inauthenticity and attacks like rabid bloodhounds.
Obsessed with the way that men are saying that the Barbie movie ‘hates men’ when the worst thing that happens to a man is a girl rejects him. Way to tell on yourself.
Just so we’re clear, the movie we watched this weekend very loudly proclaimed that gender is a made up identity completely separate from “biological sex” and if you accept that narrative then you must also accept the existence of trans people, nb people and anyone else who does not neatly fit into the concept of the gender binary
thing about Barbie that I lovedddd was how much all her raw moments were with older women that society often considers beyond their prime
her watching how humanity lives and loves, and immediately being struck by the beauty that comes with aging as she did with the woman at the bus stand– and saying it out loud, as a person who has been hailed as the standard of beauty and its adjacence with youth for so long
getting comfort and sanctuary and a moment of calm in the middle from another older woman, and her guidance at the end from the same lady who helps her understand what she is going through
there is something there about making the heart of the film older women, when the very thing that sets Barbie off on her adventure was the fear of cellulite and aging
It’s important to recognise that Barbie (2023) criticises both the patriarchy AND the matriarchy. Yes, the Ken’s are just accessories to the Barbies. Yes, they don’t have any say in the government they live under. That’s the point, you’re supposed to feel awful, you’re supposed to want the Kens to have their own agency, you’re supposed to want equality. The Barbie movie explicitly states that the way Barbie treats Ken is wrong, so much so that once he finds a safe space for his masculinity and individual identity he’s so excited to share it with the other Kens.
But they go overboard and replace a matriarchy with a patriarchy and now the same issue exists but in reverse. That’s the POINT!! THATS THE POINT!!! Barbie is not anti-men it’s pro equality PLEASE understand this
I’m sorry but it is very funny to me that conservatives choose Barbie to do culture war bullshit on when Oppenheimer is about the depravity of the US government/military and is incredibly sympathetic to the plight of American communists lololol
I hope that they feel good about themselves watching it. Like I don’t know, I feel like there’s some sort of relief in this movie in that the message ultimately is you’re good. You’re good as you are. You are enough just as you are. You’re crushing it. - Margot Robbie
I really liked Oppenheimer. I know it’s not for everyone, but as someone who is interested in STEM and STEM history, especially pertaining to physics, this movie pushed all of the right buttons for me. I think it did a good job at showing just how flawed and utterly human many of these mythologized historical figures were in real life, and how the Manhattan Project was riddled with internal and external political factors from even before its conception.
I also appreciated just how utterly fucking powerful and eldritch they made the bomb. Obviously a significant portion of the movie is dedicated to the creation of the bomb, but it’s often sort of a looming figure in the background. It’s the increasing number of marbles in the jar, it’s the steady theoretical and experimental progress, it’s the dropping of dates for those who know the historical timeline of events. And when it’s finally revealed, it’s Fucking Terrifying. You pretty much never see the full mushroom cloud in frame; it’s always a small portion of it or the flash of light shining on our characters. And the sinking feeling you get when the screen is lit up and you just know, you’re anticipating that deafening blast from the shockwave because sound travels slower than light. And you feel guilty in a way because you have the privilege of knowing what’s coming, while in your mind you know the victims of such devices had no idea before they were either vaporized on the spot or severly traumatized. It conveys so well the perspective of the scientists on the project, that you’ve challenged god and, although maybe not surpassing it, made something equally as terrifying.
Character-wise, I don’t really have much to say. I do like that the latter third of the movie slowed down a lot to focus on the accusations made against Oppenheimer, which helped to flesh out a range of characters who were sort of just set pieces to Oppenheimer himself before the interviews. And despite my previous statement about breaking down the idolization of historical figures, I was indeed excited like a Marvel fan whenever one of my physics blorbos showed up on screen. “Holy shit it’s Niels Bohr!!” “omg Edward Lorentz my scrunkly wunkly!!!” “ITS BONGO GUY OMG BONGO GUY I KNOW HIM” like yeah a lot of them turned out to be Not Great People in their personal lives but I can acknowledge that while also geeking out at their recognition in mainstream media.
All in all, very good movie. I intend to watch it with my mom when I get the chance.
“Authors should not be ALLOWED to write about–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot
“I only read YA fantasy books because every classic novel or work of literary fiction is problematic and features–” you are an anti-intellectual and you are robbing yourself of the full richness of the human experience.
“you are functionally a conservative” is such a good and clarifying insult
Literally right after I saw this post, I saw another post in a discord chat for BOOK EDITORS in which an outspokenly liberal editor talked about how Nabokov should have never been published because he wrote about p*dophiles and described women’s bodies in ways that made her uncomfortable. She described his writing as “objectively terrible” and said she wanted to burn his books. And other editors were bringing up classics they didn’t like and talking about how they wanted to throw them in the trash. This wasn’t like a light “unpopular opinion!” conversation. This was actual book editors talking about how books should be destroyed and censored.
There is something so scary and toxic in global culture right now. The revival of fascism is influencing everyone’s mindset and approach to art, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.
I see far more books being censored today than when I was a kid. Librarians handed me The Catcher in the Rye, The Sexual Politics of Meat, and Animal Farm when I was literally 8-11. My mom would never have taken a book away from me. I read everything from the Tao Te Ching to the Qur'an to atheist texts under my desk at school. Teachers thought nothing of it or encouraged it. Books seemed universally acknowledged as sacrosanct to me.
Now I can’t find any adults who don’t hesitate or want to make exceptions when it comes to censorship. Even the most liberal social activist librarians I know go, “well except for book X…”
Functionally conservative. It’s so important to have the language to express that.
Thank you for this addition!
And, following up on the previous post …
“This makes me uncomfortable” is NOT a valid reason for censorship
These fucking book editors should remove themselves from the profession ASAP 😡
The only reason a book should be removed, the ONLY reason, is “we are keeping it in the restricted section for research because its only intended function is to cause harm.”
And to be clear, when I say this, I’m talking about shit like To Train Up A Child and The Protocols of Zion. One is a text responsible for the deaths of multiple children because it’s an abuse how-to, and the other is entirely fabricated “protocols” from a group that never actually existed but is claimed to represent all Jews, and it’s basically one long antisemitic screed.
And even these should be available. Just. Not where they’re gonna be used to start a white supremacist cult.
ALT
