‘Kenough’: Is Barbie more revolutionary for men than women?
Top image: Warner Bros. Pictures
PhD student’s paper argues that the hit film exemplifies ‘masculinity without patriarchy’ in media
M.G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Dolland co-host of the podcast LA Made: The Barbie Tapes, describes Greta Gerwig’s Oscar Award-winning, box-office behemoth as “incredibly feminist” and widely perceived as “anti-male.”
Meanwhile, conservative critics rail that the movie is “anti-man” and full of “beta males” in need of a testosterone booster. Conservative British commentator Piers Morgan called it “an assault on not just Ken, but on all men.”
PhD student Julie Estlick argues that Greta Gerwig's award-winning film Barbie is "a really good film for Ken."
But women and gender studies doctoral studentJulie Estlick sees things differently. In her recent paper, “,” published inFeminist Theory, she argues that the movie is “a really good film for Ken.”
On first viewing, Estlick noticed a woman nearby having a “very visceral, emotional response” to the now iconic monolog by actor America Ferrera, which begins, “It is literally impossible to be a woman.”
She wasn’t particularly moved by the speech, and walking out of the theater, she realized she didn’t see the movie as a clear-cut icon of feminism.
“I really questioned whether the film was actually about Barbie, and by extension, women, at least in the way people were claiming,” she says.
Once Barbie was available for streaming, Estlick took a closer look and arrived at a heterodox conclusion:
“Barbie is not anti-man; it is pro-man and is not necessarily a revolutionary film for women, at least not as much as it is for men,” she writes in the paper’s abstract. “This is because Barbie espouses non-hegemonic masculinity through cultural critiques that are rare to see in popular media.”
Hegemonic vs. toxic masculinity
For Estlick, “hegemonic masculinity” is a kind of stand-in for the “toxic masculinity” so often featured in media: superheroes, gangsters, vigilantes, killing machines who are also “lady killers.” Always strong, rarely emotional, such men are absurdly impermeable to harm, and sport chiseled features and perfectly sculpted abs, she says. Yet many are also “man children” whose “ultimate prize” is to have sex with a woman.
“That kind of media comes at the expense of women, works against women, and often oppresses women by sexualizing and objectifying them,” Estlick says.
In the film Barbie, the patriarchy ultimately doesn't serve the Kens any more than it does the Barbies, argues PhD student Julie Estlick. (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Non-hegemonic masculinity is strong without being oppressive, and supportive and protective of women without regard to any quid pro quo. It allows for men to openly express emotions and vulnerability and to seek help for their mental-health struggles and emotional needs without shame, while retaining their strength, vitality and masculinity.
“It does the opposite of hegemonic masculinity,” Estlick says. “It works alongside women and doesn’t harm them in any way.”
The Kens are first represented in the movie as clueless accessories to the ruling Barbies of Barbie Land. But after Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) and Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) find a portal to our world, Beach Ken returns and establishes a patriarchal society in which women become mindless accessories to hyper-competitive men in the thrall of hegemonic masculinity.
But ultimately, the patriarchy doesn’t serve the Kens any more than the Barbies.
“As people always say, men’s worst enemy under patriarchy isn’t women. It’s other men and their expectations, who are constantly stuffing men into boxes,” Estlick says.
Which isn’t to say that women don’t also enforce strictures of hegemonic masculinity.
“When little boys are taught to suppress emotions, little girls are watching. They are watching their fathers, and fathers onscreen, acting in certain ways,” Estlick says. “Girls internalize toxic ideologies the same ways boys do.”
Allan the exception
In Barbie, there is just one male who stands apart from Kendom: Allan, played by Michael Cera.
“Allan is positioned as queer in the film in that he is othered but not less masculine in the traditional understanding of the word,” Estlick writes. He “deviates from the conventional canon of masculinity” and “uses his masculinity for feminism and to liberate women while also protesting patriarchy.”
Allan doesn’t fit into Kendom, with or without patriarchy. As the narrator (voiced by Helen Mirren) notes, “There are no multiples of Allan; he’s just Allan.”
The character is based on a discontinued Mattel doll released in 1964, intended to be a friend to Ken. Fearing the friendship might be perceived as gay, the company swiftly removed Allan from store shelves, later replacing him with a “family pack” featuring Barbie’s best friend Midge as his wife, and a backstory that the couple had twins.
In the film, non-toxic Allan is immune to patriarchal brainwashing and sides with the Barbies in re-taking Barbie Land.
“(T)he film can be understood as a vital framework for masculinity that allows for vulnerability, emotion and heterosexual intimacy among men,” says researcher Julie Estlick. (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)
“Right off the bat we see (Allan) as queered from the rest of the Kens and Barbies,” Estlick says.
But Beach Ken, too, eventually senses that he’s not happy in the patriarchal society has created. In one of the movie’s final scenes, a tearfully confused Beach Ken converses with Stereotypical Barbie from a literal ledge:
“You have to figure out who you are without me,” Barbie tells him kindly. “You’re not your girlfriend. You’re not your house, you’re not your mink … You’re not even beach. Maybe all the things that you thought made you aren’t … really you. Maybe it’s Barbie and … it’s Ken.”
In other words, Barbie is rooting for Ken to claim his individuality.
“Beach Ken’s house, clothes, job and girlfriend all represent boxes that society expects men to tick, but this scene illustrates that it is okay to deviate from normative behaviors of masculinity and that manhood is not solely defined through heteronormative bonds and behaviors,” Estlick writes. And “it is acceptable for men to admit to a woman that they need help.”
Barbie is pure, candy-colored fantasy. But in our world, Estlick believes it points the way toward further non-toxic media representations of masculinity and ultimately contribute to better mental health for men trapped in a “man box” — as well as women who have borne the burden of men’s self- and societally imposed strictures on their own humanity.
“(T)he film can be understood as a vital framework for masculinity that allows for vulnerability, emotion and heterosexual intimacy among men,” she concludes. It “(opens) the door to the creation of more media that subverts societal expectations of toxic masculinity.”
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