From reading pro- and con-Barbie movie reviews, I’ve learned that Barbie Land is great to look at, the movie is a woke celebration or nightmare, depending on your viewpoint, and men are the last bastion of true femininity, and fairy tales have reverted to their ancient place as adult entertainment,

Having grown up playing with Barbies, I watched some of the promos for the movie. Visually, they were great. Barbie Land’s buildings, interior design, beaches, and bright clothes really did look like Barbie’s world brought to life. Closer viewing revealed that these Barbies were irritatingly shrill (my Barbies never were) and the Kens vapid.

Even worse, it became increasingly clear that Barbie, rather than being a charming nostalgic flick that used movie magic to bring life to a classic American toy, was going to be another extended leftist lecture, celebrating all things woke and attacking every vestige of pre-2023 America.

Image: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, stars of Barbie (edited). YouTube screen grab.

This Rolling Stones’ rave review is representative of all the positive reviews:

Once in our world, Barbie will encounter sexual harassment, gender inequity, the benefits of crying, the CEO of Mattel (Will Ferrell) and the mother (America Ferrara) and daughter (Ariana Greenblatt) who’ve introduced such morbid thoughts into her brain. Ken will discover horses, Hummer SUVs, and toxic masculinity. She returns with her new human friends to Barbieland in a state of dazed enlightenment.

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When the subtext occasionally becomes text — there’s a speech about the impossible paradoxes of being a woman that America Ferrera sells with sound and fury, and still comes off like an op-ed — it’s hard to not feel like you should be receiving college credits for watching even as you nod along.

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And the victory that is Gerwig, Robbie, and Gosling — along with a supporting cast and crew that revel in the idea of joining a benefic Barbie party — slipping in heady notions about sexualization, capitalism, social devolution, human rights and self-empowerment, under the guise of a lucrative, brand-extending trip down memory lane? That’s enough to make you giddy.

So, the movie is a mostly well-disguised college course in postmodern, anti-American, woke drivel. The movie also gets leftist kudos for being a celebration of LGBTQ-ness. According to Out,  “Barbie Is an LGBTQ+ Party…”

When Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women) set out to direct Barbie — and write the screenplay with her partner, Noah Baumbach — she knew that LGBTQ+ inclusion would be a necessity. While actors Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling give life to the OG Barbie and Ken dolls, the film’s Barbieland is filled with Barbies and Kens that reflect the vibrant diversity of the real world…

The fact that Gerwig cast a guy named Hari Nef, who gets to play out publicly his fantasy of being the Ur-female toy in America, is apparently cause for celebration. Indeed, according to a feminist essay in Fortune, Nef’s casting and Barbie’s feminist empowerment are a potential road back from Femmephobia—that is, the modern feminist disgust with all things traditionally feminine. That leads to explaining that “transgender women” are the last gasp of true femininity in America:

The trans feminist author Julia Serano argues that much of the discrimination faced by trans women has less to do with their being trans and more to do with their being willing to brazenly perform femininity.

The problem, in other words, is less about trans women transgressing conventional gender norms than about their picking the losing team.

“The fact that we identify and live as women, despite being born male and having inherited male privilege,” she writes, “challenges those in our society who wish to glorify maleness and masculinity.”

I can’t even…

Meanwhile, on the sane side of America, Movieguide argues that Barbie’s obsession with the LGBTQ agenda means that, despite Barbie’s past as a girl’s toy, it’s not a family-friendly movie:

The new BARBIE movie forgets its core audience of families and children while catering to nostalgic adults and pushing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories.

Movieguide correctly identified Barbie’s real audience: Adults. This is the same audience to which Disney now caters. Its theme parks and movies aren’t making money from families; they’re making money from adults who refuse to grow up, with the LGBTQ+ crowd being one of the largest single blocks of money-spending nostalgics.

That fairy tales are adult fare is a reversion to the historic normal. The original Grimm’s Fairy Tales are grim, indeed, being rife with assault, murder, cannibalism, sex, and rape. The same is true for Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, which were written for the sophisticated adults in Louis XIV’s court. It was a combination of Victorian sentimentality and Walt Disney that turned these raunchy, disturbing tales into children’s fare. Now, the adults—raunchy, disturbing adults—are taking them back.

If you want standard leftist fare in a brightly-colored package, Barbie may be for you. Otherwise, save your money and your child’s innocence.