2023 in review: Right-wing pundits slam box office hit 'Barbie'

Amid the massive marketing campaign and the record-breaking success of 'Barbie' in the summer of 2023, right-wing pundits began warning viewers of the potential ideological dangers of the film. Many accused it of promoting man-hating feminism, while others said it’s pandering to communism, promoting trans issues and deriving it for being slickly packaged “woke” propaganda. Here’s an overview.

Image: 'Barbie,' Warner Bros. Pictures

Even if you haven’t seen the film, you might know the basic plot of director Greta Gerwig’s take on the complexities of the iconic doll. It involves Barbie having something of an existential crisis and leaving ‘Barbieland’ into the ‘real world’ with Ken. On that journey of self-discovery, they face some hard truths about societal oppression, what it means to be human and conforming to expectations.

Image: 'Barbie,' Warner Bros. Pictures

Radical conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s 43-minute review of the film went viral, reaching nearly 2 million views. “The basic sort of premise of the film, politically speaking, is that men and women are on two sides and they hate each other. And literally, the only way you can have a happy world is if the women ignore the men and the men ignore the women,” he said.

Image: Ben Shapiro DESTROYS The Barbie Movie For 43 Minutes/ Ben Shapiro /Youtube

Angry about how Barbie is “woke” and “one of the worst movies” ever, Shapiro set fire to a set of Barbie and Ken dolls in a trash can. Later, he compared the backlash he’s gotten for having burned the dolls with “the reaction of the Islamic world when someone burns a Quran.”

Image: Ben Shapiro DESTROYS The Barbie Movie For 43 Minutes/ Ben Shapiro /Youtube

Billionaire CEO of X (formerly known as Twitter) also couldn’t help but add his sarcastic take on the latest culture-war conversation. “If you take a shot every time Barbie says the word ‘Patriarchy,’ you will pass out before the movie ends,” he tweeted, echoing Shapiro, who slammed the film’s “unironic” use of the term patriarchy.

“Hollywood is doubling down on its bait-and-switch tactics, as Barbie is the latest film to deceive audiences into going to see its insidious man-hating message,” wrote Lauren Chen, host of right-wing outlet Blaze TV on Twitter, also insinuating that Barbie was trying to promote being “trans.”

Image: @TheLaurenChen/Twitter

“If I made a movie mocking women as useless dunderheads, constantly attacking the matriarchy, and depicting all things feminist as toxic bulls–, I wouldn’t just be canceled, I’d be executed,” wrote conservative commentator Piers Morgan in the New York Times. “The movie achieves exactly what it wanted to achieve and that is to establish the matriarchy as the perfect antidote to the patriarchy when in fact it’s just the same concept that they asked us all to detest in the first place.”

Popular right-wing podcaster and documentarian Matt Walsh called ‘Barbie’ a “preachy feminist screed about taking down the patriarchy,” saying its box office success was only because it was about a barbie doll, a brand Americans love. “[It’s] the most aggressively anti-man, feminist propaganda fest ever put to film,” he said.

Image: Barbie Bombs Innocent Families With Feminist Propaganda/ Matt Walsh

The self-described “wifey” of Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, attended a premiere with her husband, dressed in pink. However, she is now calling for a boycott of the film, slamming it for its “unfortunate portrayal of big dreams causing anxiety instead of inspiration,” the “dissapointingly low T [testosterone] from Ken” and its “unfair treatment of pregnant Barbie Midge.”

Image: The couple at a viewing @LuckeyGinger/Twitter

"A certain subset of Barbie's audience seems to be confusing growth with weakness," writes Evan Romano in Men's Health, arguing that conservative pundits misunderstood the message. He says that the point of the satiric film isn't to say that Kens (men) are worthless, but to "mirror the path that many men go on when they, themselves, become cognizant of the idea of a male-dominated society."

Image: 'Barbie,' Warner Bros. Pictures

In an interview with Time magazine, Robbie Brenner, Mattel Films’ executive producer, explicitly said the summer smash-hit is “not a feminist movie,” a sentiment that other Mettel executives shared.

Image: 'Barbie Trailer,' Warner Bros. Pictures

“Who said that?” Margot Robbie asked the Time reporter when she was told some people believed it wasn’t a feminist movie. She then continued: “It’s not that it is or it isn’t. It’s a movie. It’s a movie that’s got so much in it.” The bigger point, she said is “we’re in on the joke. This isn’t a Barbie puff piece.”

The Guardian’s four-star review of the film is headlined “A riotous, candy-coloured feminist fable.” Feminist magazine Jezebel also hails it as “clever and feminist,” saying: “Barbie packs in a lot of plot and more feminist theory than most were probably expecting.”

Image: 'Barbie Trailer,' Warner Bros. Pictures

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and feminist Susan Faludi has shared her opinion that might be the next thing to trigger the right wing. In a piece in the New York Times, she theorizes that ‘Barbie’ is a movie about abortion because, for one, it starts with Barbie’s origin story: she was the first adult (not child-like) doll marketed to girls, showing that life is about more than motherhood. Then, the film ends with a visit to the gynecologist.

Meanwhile, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has been pushing the theory that Barbie includes a map that shows “a nine-dash line” signifying China’s territorial claims to the South China Sea, accusing the film of “kissing up to the Chinese communist party." However, he also admits he hasn’t seen the film.

While the controversial map did get the Barbie movie banned in Vietnam, experts and producers alike say it is totally make-believe. “The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing,” a spokesperson for the Warner Bros. Film Group told Variety. “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the ‘real world.’ It was not intended to make any type of statement.”

Image: 'Barbie,' Warner Bros. Pictures

With the radical right up in arms over ‘Barbie,’ some left-wing pundits are accusing the right of becoming the “snowflakes” they have long mocked. “Many noted “anti-woke” right-wingers had become what they used to hate, perfectly mirroring the cultural commentary of “social justice warriors” that was popular online a few years ago; pearl-clutching reviews based on shallow media analysis, focused only on the potentially problematic,” wrote an article on Forbes.

Despite some right-wing pundits trying to make Barbie the latest frontline of the culture wars and calling for boycotts, the audience and box office figures show that audiences are above it. On Rotten Tomatoes, 87% of the audience has liked it so far. It also made $162 million in its opening weekend — the most of any movie this year and the highest-ever for a female-directed film debut.

At the same time, Fox News revealed a map showing that ‘Barbie’ was overtaking the other popular premier ‘Oppenheimer’ most strongly in Republican-dominated states like Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi.

Image: Fox News

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