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Feminist Double Feature
On this Barbenheimer weekend, I had my own odd-couple double feature, only mine were feminist films on the extreme ends of the spectrum. I can't think of two films more concerned with women and less alike than Barbie and Women Talking.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to the theater to see Barbie, and y'all: the parking lot was full. I have not seen anything like that in at least 15 years. It was wild. I had to park in the overflow parking lot!
It was also the first time I've been in a full theater since...maybe The Force Awakens? (Well, that's not entirely true: I was in a full theater a couple of times in grad school, but that was a campus theater, it was very small, and it was a bunch of people there to watch The Third Man so...not the same thing.) I really did not think I would live to see a full theater like that again--I thought those days were over.
I enjoyed the movie very much. If nothing else, it was worth seeing for the production and costume design: I can't explain why it was so satisfying to see life-size realizations of the toys of my youth but it WAS. The visuals of the film were an endless delight. And isn't it fun to see a movie where everything is well-lit???
I don't know that everyone in the theater was picking up on what was going on in the opening scene, but I thought it was hilariously well-executed.
The acting was also very strong. I keep seeing people talk up Ryan Gosling, and he was great in a role that's the definition of scene-stealer. But I'm actually pissed off that people aren't giving Margot Robbie more attention--I thought she was absolutely wonderful, pulling off the full range of emotions she needed to while also looking...exactly like a stereotypical Barbie. Her early Barbie-plastic emotions were perfect, with just enough warmth to make it not creepy, and then when she encounters human emotions later, she was just as good. It makes me angry that the Guardian's review's title was something like, "Ryan Gosling shines in [whatever they said about the rest of the movie]" HELLO THAT IS SEXISM.
Can we also talk about how good the casting was for Gloria and Sasha? I haven't seen a family look so much like a family in a long time. Whoever cast the film clearly has ties with British TV, because there was Rae from My Mad Fat Diary and there were multiple people from Sex Education and there was Ritu Arya and there was Claire from Derry Girls, etc. The two-second cameo of a certain British television personality was totally unexpected and probably not very funny to most Americans, but I am almost shrieked when he showed up. And I won't say anything about the one older woman in the film except that it was so good to see her. Will Ferrell was too OTT, but that's Will Ferrell for you.
As for the ideology of the movie: it is absolutely not anti-male, but it is very anti-patriarchy. It wasn't...entirely consistent and/or coherent in its feminism beyond, like, "Women are in an impossible bind in patriarchy and that sucks!" But frankly there aren't many movies that even go that far. I need to think a whole lot more about what it was actually saying--maybe it was more consistent than I thought? It's definitely a film I'll rewatch at some point.
And the final scene???? I will say no more, but that's going to go down in history as one of film's great endings.
So yes, very enjoyable, glad I saw it in a full theater, and refreshingly different than anything else we've seen from Big Budget Hollywood, so I'm glad it's doing so well.
And then last night I finally watched Women Talking since I recently finished the book. I thought it was, on the whole, a very strong adaptations. The change of narrator worked really well (it was the right choice, even if I kind of missed some of August's backstory, especially regarding his mother), though I'm still thinking about how I feel about the change of setting. Having everyone speak English with no reference to Plautdietsch was a loss from the book, imo, but it was an entirely necessary one, so I can't complain. I tend to hate the greyish cinematography that predominates in serious movies/TV, but it actually worked for the subject of this particular film.
The cast was universally strong, and I just have to give a shout-out to Jessie Buckley--she's fast becoming one of my favorite actresses. She's been great in everything I've ever seen her in. And of course I am a passionate Ben Wishaw devotee and think he can do no wrong. I do think I would have cast someone other than Rooney Mara as Ona--she was not bad, by any stretch of the imagination, but I think they could have found someone who seemed more...otherworldly. Ona's whole thing is that she's detached from the rest of the colony's reality, that she's a dreamer and an eccentric, etc. I think another actress could have brought that energy without going off the deep end with it. Mara is a little too...normal.
I felt that the film was much less interested in the religious questions than the book, which did not surprise me at all, but it was a bit of a disappointment to me personally.
It's so so so so interesting to me that in neither the film nor the book do the women ever talk about the practicalities of what life might be like outside the colony. How will they support themselves? Where will they live? How will they interact with the larger culture? That's just...not addressed at all, which is very clearly an explicit, thoughtful choice, and probably the right one, because the story could easily have gotten bogged down by that question. Keeping everything about it focused on, "Can we possibly stay here?" was the right way to do it, and the book and movie both end where they need to end, but man, I have a ton of questions about what happens next.
Honestly, I feel like people should watch the movie AND read the book, because I think they do different things well.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to the theater to see Barbie, and y'all: the parking lot was full. I have not seen anything like that in at least 15 years. It was wild. I had to park in the overflow parking lot!
It was also the first time I've been in a full theater since...maybe The Force Awakens? (Well, that's not entirely true: I was in a full theater a couple of times in grad school, but that was a campus theater, it was very small, and it was a bunch of people there to watch The Third Man so...not the same thing.) I really did not think I would live to see a full theater like that again--I thought those days were over.
I enjoyed the movie very much. If nothing else, it was worth seeing for the production and costume design: I can't explain why it was so satisfying to see life-size realizations of the toys of my youth but it WAS. The visuals of the film were an endless delight. And isn't it fun to see a movie where everything is well-lit???
I don't know that everyone in the theater was picking up on what was going on in the opening scene, but I thought it was hilariously well-executed.
The acting was also very strong. I keep seeing people talk up Ryan Gosling, and he was great in a role that's the definition of scene-stealer. But I'm actually pissed off that people aren't giving Margot Robbie more attention--I thought she was absolutely wonderful, pulling off the full range of emotions she needed to while also looking...exactly like a stereotypical Barbie. Her early Barbie-plastic emotions were perfect, with just enough warmth to make it not creepy, and then when she encounters human emotions later, she was just as good. It makes me angry that the Guardian's review's title was something like, "Ryan Gosling shines in [whatever they said about the rest of the movie]" HELLO THAT IS SEXISM.
Can we also talk about how good the casting was for Gloria and Sasha? I haven't seen a family look so much like a family in a long time. Whoever cast the film clearly has ties with British TV, because there was Rae from My Mad Fat Diary and there were multiple people from Sex Education and there was Ritu Arya and there was Claire from Derry Girls, etc. The two-second cameo of a certain British television personality was totally unexpected and probably not very funny to most Americans, but I am almost shrieked when he showed up. And I won't say anything about the one older woman in the film except that it was so good to see her. Will Ferrell was too OTT, but that's Will Ferrell for you.
As for the ideology of the movie: it is absolutely not anti-male, but it is very anti-patriarchy. It wasn't...entirely consistent and/or coherent in its feminism beyond, like, "Women are in an impossible bind in patriarchy and that sucks!" But frankly there aren't many movies that even go that far. I need to think a whole lot more about what it was actually saying--maybe it was more consistent than I thought? It's definitely a film I'll rewatch at some point.
And the final scene???? I will say no more, but that's going to go down in history as one of film's great endings.
So yes, very enjoyable, glad I saw it in a full theater, and refreshingly different than anything else we've seen from Big Budget Hollywood, so I'm glad it's doing so well.
And then last night I finally watched Women Talking since I recently finished the book. I thought it was, on the whole, a very strong adaptations. The change of narrator worked really well (it was the right choice, even if I kind of missed some of August's backstory, especially regarding his mother), though I'm still thinking about how I feel about the change of setting. Having everyone speak English with no reference to Plautdietsch was a loss from the book, imo, but it was an entirely necessary one, so I can't complain. I tend to hate the greyish cinematography that predominates in serious movies/TV, but it actually worked for the subject of this particular film.
The cast was universally strong, and I just have to give a shout-out to Jessie Buckley--she's fast becoming one of my favorite actresses. She's been great in everything I've ever seen her in. And of course I am a passionate Ben Wishaw devotee and think he can do no wrong. I do think I would have cast someone other than Rooney Mara as Ona--she was not bad, by any stretch of the imagination, but I think they could have found someone who seemed more...otherworldly. Ona's whole thing is that she's detached from the rest of the colony's reality, that she's a dreamer and an eccentric, etc. I think another actress could have brought that energy without going off the deep end with it. Mara is a little too...normal.
I felt that the film was much less interested in the religious questions than the book, which did not surprise me at all, but it was a bit of a disappointment to me personally.
It's so so so so interesting to me that in neither the film nor the book do the women ever talk about the practicalities of what life might be like outside the colony. How will they support themselves? Where will they live? How will they interact with the larger culture? That's just...not addressed at all, which is very clearly an explicit, thoughtful choice, and probably the right one, because the story could easily have gotten bogged down by that question. Keeping everything about it focused on, "Can we possibly stay here?" was the right way to do it, and the book and movie both end where they need to end, but man, I have a ton of questions about what happens next.
Honestly, I feel like people should watch the movie AND read the book, because I think they do different things well.
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The acting was good. It became a bit soapbox-y towards the end but otherwise I enjoyed the movie for the most part.
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I've only seen (not read) Women Talking, and I don't know that I want to soldier through a whole book on the subject material, so I'm really glad the movie exists. The one element I did find weird was the grounding - I thought it would have been a U.S. or Canadian Mennonite community because of internal references (English language, the Census taker) but then they use the Southern Cross instead of the Northern Star for navigation and I was *completely* thrown. I gather it was based on a South American Mennonite colony but the other world references completely threw me. That's a small detail though, but tied to the questions of "where will they live" and "how will they support themselves" - which I agree are important questions but not as important in this context of "should we stay".
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Fwiw, the book is very short and easy to read and not all explicit. But I can understand not wanting to.
I thought it would have been a U.S. or Canadian Mennonite community because of internal references (English language, the Census taker) but then they use the Southern Cross instead of the Northern Star for navigation and I was *completely* thrown.
Yup, it seemed pretty clear to me that it wasn't set in South America like the book was, but the Southern Cross made no sense for that.... I was confused!
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I think the overall message of "Patrairchy is bad for everyone" is easy to understand, even for potetial children in the audience. But it's possible to get more out of it. Ken can be seen as a play on teenage boys that are looking for direction in life and get on the wrong path by being dragged into the incel/MRA culture that acts as if it understands them so well and turns them into misogynistic assholes. As the Barbies and Kens are basically stand-ins for people in the real world (people they're connected to) they can reflect what's going wrong in the real world, teenagers who get into all this shit online and lose themselves in it, thinking they've found a purpose but it's something that's doing harm to other people.
And Barbie herself of course gets the speech by Gloria about what women have to be, how they're supposed to behave, and it's still never enough. It's very true and very real, and that Barbie still chooses life as a human woman afterwards is a strong development. Life will be hard, there will be obstacles in her way, but she's still confident she can find joy in this life and perhaps change a few things for the better, and in the end be that old, beautiful woman on the bench with a fully lived life.
I also saw a post on tumblr where someone mentioned they happened to sit next to a local football player, a black mountain of a man of around 20, who said after Gloria's speech, "I feel that". Because it's not just women. It's every person that for some reason doesn't fit in perfectly, it's PoCs, and queer people, and disabled people - they always have to be better at things than everyone else but still should not be too good etc. I think that's why the movie is so successful and resonates so much with people. Almost everyone can find themselves in it.
I've heard good things about Women talking and want to watch it at some point. Glad you enjoyed it, especially considering it's an adaptation.
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Agreed! I'm glad the movie really gave you all the feelings and the thoughts!
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So it sounded like there was some kind of Ken subplot of "what if men were second-class citizens in a matriarchy and wanted equal rights in Barbie world har har" was treated with this kind of inherent absurdity, like it’s inherently unbelievable that any man would ever be trapped in a situation where he’s second-class on the basis of his gender when transgender men find themselves here all the time after already being sequestered into “female only” spaces since birth, kind of like all of those thought experiments of "What if men could get pregnant har har" when the reality is that the real men who get pregnant have even worse ability to access prenatal care and have worse pregnancy outcomes than women. I can see how trans guys seeing this movie would feel especially hit-in-the-face with this due to the both in- and out-of-community comments about transmascs having "Ken-doll anatomy"-- while he's not a trans icon per se there's a not insignificant connection to Ken having transmasculine coding in real life. However I did see at least one transmasc seem to be happy that the Ken subplot articulated any of this at all so it's possibly that there's more subtlety to it than some have analyzed or perhaps we are just starving for crumbs of representation.
I hope that helped, lol. I probably over-explained, and keep coming back and rereading this getting nervous… explaining this to women is very difficult, in my experience they tend to reject it because I guess it’s so contrary to their worldview.
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I appreciate your explaining it! It's very different than my own experience (as a person who's inherently agender but identifies as a woman because of my life experiences), but I understand that it's yours, and I'm always honored when people explain their own experiences to me. So thank you!
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Like I remember early on in the chatter on Twitter on how Kens were "Just Ken" and how women were talking about how Kens were not important to their play and just kind of there and discarded as uninteresting and unimportant as in a space dominated by women they were only found "useful" as much as they could be relegated to extreme stereotypes of their gender roles, as reverse-gendered tools more than people, me and some transmascs were talking about how much we related to that and honestly I was getting kind of excited to see that portrayed. Could Ken in Barbieland become a usable metaphor for our early lives, or would it just be another mockery of our experiences? I can imagine depending on the portrayal that it would leave some transmascs who were originally totally into the Barbie movie from previews very cold -- and how any of their analysis on this would be forcibly construed as 'anti-feminist' for 'paying too much attention to Ken' or whatever. It may not be the point of the movie, but to them it’s an obvious connection and they’re starving for media crumbs.
I'm still on the fence about seeing the movie in theaters but have been extremely busy and have a lot of expenses right now anyway and may not even get to it until it's on TV when I can turn it off if I get too annoyed.
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It is too bad I think that the film wasn't interested in exploring it as a Mennonite response to what happened; I gather the film was going for a more allegorical story experience rather than trying to ground it in a particular time and place and people, but Toews's oeuvre is (as much as I don't actually love her writing lol) very much specifically interrogating Mennonite life and culture and theology and so forth. And that's worth exploring, in both the ways that it is and isn't the same as broader western culture, and even western christianity more specifically.
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The movie wasn't not interested in the religious and specifically Mennonite aspects--they were there, they just weren't as present or as centered as they were in the book. Which, considering that Sarah Polley is an atheist, isn't exactly surprising. But I do really wish I could see what the film was like if it was made by people who have at least some religious understanding--ideally Anabaptist, but I guess that might be difficult to find.
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Thankfully, Women Talking is a short read. Intense (though not graphic), but short. Well worth reading, imo!