Barbie (movie review)

I at first had problems relating to the target tween, the reputedly sharp-witted and worldly young woman whom I also consider the movie's core target demographic.  

I also saw Hollywood (a proxy funhouse mirror reflection of Corporate America aka USSA) turning itself inside out to meet this protagonist half way. 

"Young LA woman of hispanic heritage (meaning native American, Spanish-colonized) we love you and want to reach out to you, let us be your mother / father / friend" (big brother).

Then it turned out the Boomer dad in me was supposed to find the young woman's mom more relatable, as she is (a) closer in age and (b) more likely to have played with Barbie in the golden age of same.  

It turns out the mom has been playing with stereotypical Barbie while having dark thoughts, not the least of which stem from having an ostensibly unloving daughter (the one I started out having problems with).

I realized part of my issue with the daughter tween was she had the reputation among her peers for being the razor sharp class forensics champion i.e. she was the leader of the debating team, so to speak, and Barbie didn't have a chance against her. 

She was competition in other words. I wanted her to debate me. I'd show her I wasn't defenseless.

Barbie, on the other hand, walked right into a knife fight not knowing she was in way over her head, and was emotionally injured. The tween was able to identify her target complex and aim directly, by calling Barbie a fascist. That really hurt, causing ripples in the space-time continuum.  Even Mattel could feel it, like a punch in the gut.

Ken, in the meantime, has been deprived of fatherhood opportunities all this time. What critics don't remark on much is that Barbie World is devoid of children and babies, and of grandparents. That would entail a Pregnant Barbie, pointedly discontinued. 

Barbie Land is a world wherein inter-generational communication no longer has to take place.  Shades of Logan's Run. 

Stereotypical Barbie starts to get more of the culture's oral tradition at least, when encountering Weird Barbie. Her immersion in the real world is getting more edgy, more adult.

Ken discovers patriarchy in LA, which in this day and age is likewise gay culture, with what looks like a lot of Village People singing macho, macho man. Around the ticklish conundrum "it's gay to be manly" is where this movie most enjoys goofing off.

The movie is satirizing the glamorized Chippendales male figure that women might hope to find in strip clubs. Except these Barbies are not into that. Their lust switch is turned off (by design). 

They're into power and administration (ironically) and, up to the end of the film, we see Barbie has yet to be a fully adequate partner for Ken. She doesn't find Ken attractive hormonally. 

What's a guy to do, when the babes don't wanna be wowed or wooed?  

The all-Ken Kendom is still pent-up and gay, without a mature connection with the Barbies. She's not yet a real mom either. Barbie is a puppet Pinocchio at first, lying if she says she's fully human. She's a bot, a phony.

Later, a wiser Barbie gets a talking to by the Ruth Bader Ginsberg like character, but somewhat off camera.  From a spectator angle, we're not privy to any complete "working out" of life. There's no grand resolution, more just a framing of the problems (which is half the battle).

We learn more respect for elders, meaning empathy for them as earlier versions of ourselves. The daughter realizes her mother is on the same side, fighting the same fight, against the unrealistic expectations and demands associated with stereotypical beauty and unattainable cultural idealizations.  

An everyday human, trying too hard to be a perfect Barbie and/or Ken doll, might do some ego-damage, thereby subverting the very self-esteem objectives this product line seeks to achieve.  

Why not just do an "ordinary girl" Barbie, less statuesque? The movie plays with these options, reflecting its audience more directly, giving glimpses.

I know working class hero Krystal Ball hated this film (Saager found it more entertaining) for being little kid inappropriate. Maybe so. However tweens are very worldly these days, watching the adults fight over whether they should get to be around adult fairies (mostly harmless) or whatever. 

If Freud taught us anything, it's that children self-sexualize without much need of adult help i.e. the idea that adults are in charge of some on and off button is a bit self aggrandizing.

Many children develop an early aversion to being "treated like children" whereas others adore such treatment and hope it continues indefinitely. Our target tween is in the former category. She sees her mom as babying her, being condescending, versus having an adult need for friendship and affection.

Barbie is for mature PG-13 year olds in the same way the Joss Whedon stuff is, with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even more appropriately, Dollhouse on the family television.

I found Ken's journey into patriarchy ("I wasn't so into it once I found out it wasn't really about horses") truly hilarious. I had a good time with this film. I don't usually go for musicals, but I'll make this an exception.

The mother-daughter tension in this movie reminded me of what was going on in Everything Everywhere All at Once (EEAO).

Device Stories

Speaking of personal devices, e.g. guns, I think the qualities of high desert water, mineral rich, shampoo conditioner and whatever, conspired to send my Apple Watch to the graveyard this morning. It put up a good fight, sputtering on, showing logos, but ultimately the casement disengaged, revealing guts.

What guns come with apps I wonder?  I’m not even gonna bother to check right now. Telescopes and cameras do. Anywhere precision aiming, and recording, comes in…

Today Judy upgraded her phone, from an ancient flip model, to an entry level Samsung that’s none too shabby. They shrink the price of the phone while piling on with necessary add-ons, like a charger, technically not needed if you have USB in your power strip. The shock case. We opted for not using protective glass. They were out of the low end version. Maybe later?

Will I purchase and AW replacement, now that I’m accustomed to “closing my rings” (or not), or using the heartbeat app to track my bradycardia? My heart thumps along at a low rate but I’ve been adapting, and so present as asymptomatic for the most part. The blood thinner I get after the pulmonary embolism episode some years back, is also the accepted remedy for my kind of heart beat (with flutter not fib).

Probably I’ll get one, costing some weeks at work (part time gig), but counting as a health expense for my one employee, me. If you wanna find new ways to do tax cuts, get more people seeing professional development, including tourism through conferences etc., as business expenses. Everyone is by default a sole proprietor of whatever they own, starting with a body (check) and a few devices (check). Capitalize on that!

I’ve tended to crack jokes about butt cheeks containing ample room for implanted devices, provided they’re properly encased in squishy bio-safe materials. You’d have apps on your watch and phone for these butt apps, some of which could be health monitors. I leave it to science fiction writers with medical and/or bioengineering degrees to let their imaginations run wild. A bun-based Theranos…

Sydney the dog has been a pleasure to work with.  Another business expense if you ask me, if not a full partner and/or sidekick proprietor. Tomorrow we’ll take our business over the Cascades in the company car.

The AW was a family hand-me-down from my youngest, Dawn’s last, a Christmas present some years back. She’d already learned the lifestyle so coached me expertly in how to integrate it into my routines.  Judy, a musician, agrees learning to use her new smartphone has “learning an instrument” similarities (muscle memory plays a role).

Gun Talk

Given my programming, in Quakerism, you might assume I'm "anti-gun" right out of the gate, and you'd be right in a way, except that being "anti-gun" doesn't mean anything super obvious. The guns don't just disappear.  Quakers are against outward violence i.e. knives and maces, bombs and catapults, bows and arrows, all fall into the same category as guns, when used as anti-student / anti-faculty devices.

However, these same tools may have other uses, obvious in the case of dynamite and cutlery, the sports of archery and target practice. The devices themselves are less relevant than the mindset with which they're taken up.  What's the psychology? Are we hunting humans again?

George Fox talked more about swords as carrying firearms in his day and age was not as customary.  "Wear it as long as thou canst" is how it comes down to us, in archaic language.  He was betting that those convinced of Quakerism would eventually likely cease wearing weapons as a part of their costume. They would become persuaded that the real battles were more hidden (in the sense of occult), more invisible.  Outward weapons are of limited utility when what needs to be countered is more intelligent, a programmed pattern, a meme virus of some kind.

When President Eisenhower warned Americans about the MIC (military-industrial complex), a rather egghead thing to do (but generals are eggheads by and large, and presidents always), he was talking about a form of bureaucratic legalese, laced with whatever values.  Bucky came along and called it LAWCAP, which morphed into Grunch in his writings.  Everyone matures and distills their own lingo, paradoxically expressing meanings more clearly when idiosyncratic. Bucky's language is nothing if not idiosyncratic even while treating of the "generalized principles".

The MIC is a "complex" in the sense a psychology or mindset is a complex.  We can call it groupthink, i.e. these complexes are not confined to the brains of single individuals.  Which is why guns are ineffective in countering complexes. 

Shooting the patient, the one with symptoms, only feeds the paranoia of those targeted, which stimulates genetic searches for antidotes, ways of coping.  A system under attack learns to defend.  Telling all the gun owners that Big Brother has plans to take all their guns away, is a way of scaring up a reaction, such as more funding for the NRA.

I prefer a more anthropological approach.  How do guns play a role in coming of age narratives, and in rites of initiation?  How does one ascend the hierarchy in some gang, company, or priesthood?

I'm suggesting that Quakers tend to get snobby, thinking those resorting to outward war have yet to grapple with root causes.  But rampant malign neglect of one's duty, to deep think instead of group think, may result in atrophy within an intelligence community overall.  Lights grow dim at 1501 Cherry Street (Philadelphia), if / when the AFSC stops analyzing the MIC.

God Talk

Let’s talk about “God talk”, and here I picture a congregation, hats off, heads bent, eyes closed in some cases, giving thanks to God for a lot of important stuff in their lives, and asking for greater wisdom and attentiveness. What’s good about this attitude is that it’s in principle the opposite of authoritarian, a fact which many critics have a hard time seeing.  

“God talk” is often characterized as authoritarian by definition and usually highly patriarchal in practice, given the Roman experience (pervasive even today). Certainly subcultures (cults) may be heavy-handed, and sometimes escaping them and their influence is the best course.

However, in thanking God, one is pronouncedly not thanking the Emperor for one’s daily bread. It’s not the party, the company, the boss, leaders, visionaries, scientists, or my betters, to whom I am beholden.  

If we don’t have our daily bread, some humans are in the way from a systems point of view, maybe the very humans who decided to hike up this unforgiving mountain or dare whatever odds, given physics.  

God represents the idea that humans are not the be all end all and that sensibility is vital to keeping the humans-playing-God syndrome from becoming a pandemic.  

God represents synergy at a very high level, meaning intelligence flows “above our heads”, “among the angels” say, or “unconsciously” if you’re more a Freudian, or “in demonic realms” (the trope of an “underground,” the chthonic).  

There’s Ouija Inc. and its many board rooms. Monster U. Wisdom plumbs the deeper depths. It’s not anti-science to say so.

The prayer of thanks comes from a cybernetician who understands Nature is automated to provide, and humans are a part of that automation. Using the term “automation” comes across as derogatory perhaps, too mechanical.  But then humans exult about being in the flow, in the zone, where everything “just goes” without a lot of overthinking and ego involvement.  

That feels like God’s will (Thy will) being done, and it’s a Kingdom of Heaven type experience. The cybernetician is nodding along with all that, likewise prayerful and grateful.

The fork comes with “divine right”.  

Some revolutionaries talk as if we finally closed the door on “divine” period full stop, in depriving even kings of this status.

Others say our notion of “divine” was extended in Democracy, to all, from King to Beggar. That’s where the Quakers came down, around the 1600s.  

The idea is our equality, the sense in which we’re equals, is built in to our sense of God’s love.  When we apply the idea of unconditional love to all humans equally what viewpoint do we get back?  One that beacons away from putting peers on pedestals, as idols, as God’s competitors.

Enshrining other humans as the source of all that’s good in our lives, including life itself, is a first step down a wrong path.  Yes, thank your peeps, and be grateful for them.  But don’t confuse that thankfulness with a growing debt.  Think of the Sun’s energy.  Enough of that was meant for you, that you shouldn’t have gone wanting without a scholarship.  The Sun doesn’t charge a debt to its students.

Thank the Sun for your being adequately energized, as a teacher and student in the Global U, not other students or faculty.  The Sun and the plants impound carbon dioxide and other nutrients, providing the raw ingredients for your cafeteria plan.

“Oh so you’re justifying monarchism by using God in a purely political sense, irrespective of His existence”. First, I’m not “justifying monarchism” or at least not for free.  You’d need to pay me. Next, I don’t think the political sense would have such staying power if it weren’t also people’s experience that whom they owe for life itself is not the landlord, but the same Lord to whom the landlord owes his own life. That’s more democratic.  

There’s no King as Ultimate Landlord model. We each have our private “image i nation” (private sky). That of God in each of us. Quaker jargon.

The main debates hinge around laws or rules. Where do “rights” come from? Again, I see the reason behind having inalienable rights come from God, and then maybe affirmed or codified in some widely agreed upon document, such as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

There’s no problem enshrining these rights, just with thinking we owe specific people thanks for providing them in principle.  Defending them is again different.  However to what extent is one’s effectiveness, as a defender, dependent on having the right attitude?  When too much ego gets into the mix, effectiveness may be at risk. So we’re back to Transcendentalism, not as a hindrance to American democracy, but at its foundation. 

Dialing In More Indiana Jones

Leela liked this one, Dial of Destiny, a lot.  We'd done our homework, catching up by watching the Crystal Skull prequel the previous night.

She arrived by bicycle around 6 PM PDT, ate some of my Trucks Not Bombs inventory, and then we walked up to The Bagdad, getting to our seats before 7 PM and in time for the McMenamins history slides.  I'm a fan.  

I returned to Portland in 1985 as an adult, and grew up in parallel with this brewpub business, starting up around the same time, weaving it together with so many memories.  

Then came previews e.g. of Mission Impossible on IMAX -- although The Bagdad ain't IMAX.

I felt like a smarty pants (somewhat Wombat like -- what he calls her) because I'd included the Antikythera in a "history of math" timeline I did for McGraw-Hill in the 1980s (Rockefeller Center, 28th floor, Nola Hague my super).  

Good luck finding it. Big publishers do low circulation prototype textbooks kind of like big car companies make concept cars, ones that are drivable and everything.  I'm forgetting the title, but did at one time have a copy.  That's when I worked with Ray Simon, having met Ray and Bonnie in my Jersey City chapter.

Anyway, big deal right?  Of course that device should and would be included in any such timeline.  In the real world, the Antikythera has been X-rayed and recreated.  The movie may have embellished here and there, but didn't make up everything.

I've read or watched lot of the criticism of this movie, and know how some take exception to its way of taking the bull by the horns, the bull being aging.  

Unlike some of these god-like superheros, which get passed generation to generation (e.g. The Flash), Indiana Jones is an ordinary mortal and mortality is inevitably a theme.  He won't live much beyond the 1960s.  The Bond franchise went there too, with lots of overlap in the action between these two (jumping from a bridge etc.).

People take exception to the grandfatherly wisdom versus upstart young woman dynamic, even though she wises up, and he gets to meet Archimedes.  Of course he wanted to study the past up close, that was his profession after all.  Just getting to visit was certainly a privilege, though the circumstances were chaotic. However Wombat needed a more stable family matrix in the present.  Archimedes got to keep the watch and have airplanes remembered on his sarcophagus.

I'd recently been immersed in Phoenician studies i.e. watching a long documentary reviewing what we know about the rise and fall of Carthage in particular.  I felt like a smarty pants again, in recognizing the phenomenon of naval warfare, as Romans waged it, well before the Christian Era.

Leela liked it because she's pried open the lid on Astrology, not surprising given her background in religious studies (OSU), and base of operations in Nepal.  Ancient cultures up to almost the present time are somewhat impenetrable if you can't decode what they believed about stars and planets, which doesn't mean believing it all yourself. But you sort of have to half belief it just to get into it enough to see how it all works.  The anthropologist in me, such as I have one, has a well-developed sense of make-believe.

The real Antikythera is of course not a time machine so much as a predictive pocket astrolabe.  Its geared mechanism, oft attributed to Archimedes himself, replicates the movements of the heavenly bodies relative to one another.  

I'm not such a smarty pants when it comes to the details.  You wouldn't want to hire me as your Antikythera reader.  I confess I'm no Indiana Jones, fluent in several tongues.  My Stetson is way more beat up than his hat is.  I should get mine to the shop.

The Bagdad proved a rich atmosphere for an Indiana Jones film, given its What the Bleep decor.