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Last month hate preacher Kent Christmas kicked off a crusade against the upcoming Barbie movie, calling for God to “loose a Holy judgment” on the film because it’s “full of transsexual and transgender and homosexuality.”
Now, with the release of the film imminent, a number of other right-wing culture warriors have joined the crusade against something they haven’t even seen, simply because it features trans actress Hari Nef as Doctor Barbie.
“WARNING: DON’T TAKE YOUR DAUGHTER TO BARBIE,” the right-wing Christian Movieguide site declared in a recent post.
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.
Furthermore, the movie was poorly made with multiple premises, losing even the most die-hard fans.
As Movieguide sees it, no one should go to a movie that doesn’t cater enough to what Movieguide sees as its “core audience.”
To make an appealing movie, executives must define their audience. For Barbie, there was a built-in audience of little girls and merchandise for the movie.
“They had a built-in market and audience for this franchise that they completely ignored,” said a Movieguide® staff member. “Millions of families would have turned out to the theaters and purchased tickets, but instead, Mattel chose to cater to a small percentage of the population who has proven over and over to abandon the box office. …”
Families need to know how bad this is. Not only is it a missed business opportunity for a beloved brand, the movie itself is badly made.
The review offers no evidence or argument to back this up, because no one has yet seen the film. Nor do they seem aware that trans folks and gay people, in general, might also consider themselves as part of a “core audience” for a live-action Barbie film directed by Greta Gerwig.
Writers at right-wing “news” sites are piling on the film, with LifeSite grousing about the “gender-confused man portraying a female doctor” and the film’s alleged “overarching themes that belittle men in the name of gender equality.” Meanwhile, Mary Margaret Olohan of the Daily Signal rehearsed the same complaint on Twitter:
Self-hating gay reactionary Dave Rubin, meanwhile, complained that Nef was stealing a role from cis actresses who apparently have dibs on the whole Barbie thing.
“I don’t have a problem with the trans person being an actor,” he began.
[But] there’s a gajillion girls out there who would love to be in the ‘Barbie’ movie as a girl, so why do they go out of their way to have a biological boy play a girl who’s supposed to be completely a girl in the ‘Barbie’ movie unless they’re trying to confuse kids?
It’s not clear why Rubin thinks Barbie dolls are supposed to be girls rather than women. Nef, for her part, is 30 years old, and Doctor Barbie is obviously an adult character. As is the alpha Barbie, played by 33-year-old Margot Robbie.
The right-wing Western Journal is mad that the film will satirize traditional gender roles a bit. The publication explains that
transgender actor Hari Nef (a man who claims to be a woman) seemingly said the quiet part out loud in an interview with Out magazine.
“[He] says while the movie is a celebration of femininity, it’s also a loving sendup of it and how far it can be taken,” the glowing article notes. …
That’s when he muttered the most alarming bit: “It’s candy with a little poison, and that’s what I like.”
Look, whether you think child sex trafficking and pedophilia are real-world problems or are some conservative boogeyman, we can all agree that poisoning children with candy is wrong, no?
The Western Journal apparently doesn’t understand what a metaphor is.
And yet, Nef’s offhand remarks illustrate the very thing that has so many everyday Americans concerned.
Namely, most Americans don’t care about whatever perversion is going on behind closed doors. But once those doors are flung open and targeting children? That’s where many parents draw the line, and Nef’s remarks could be a death knell for the “Barbie” movie just weeks before its grand debut.
You wish.
Weirdo right-wing entertainment site Bounding Into Comics also took issue with Nef’s Out interview, describing her as “a man who pretends to be a woman and who mockingly plays Doctor Barbie” and complaining that she is using Gerwig’s Barbie to “[try] to normalize ‘transgenderism.’”
Meanwhile, the always irritating TV bloviator Piers Morgan thinks Barbie will be terrible because there’s not enough Ken in it. As the Mary Sue notes, Morgan
takes issue with the fact that the film’s many Barbies range in talent and occupation from President to Nobel Prize-winning physicist, while all the male characters are “simply called Ken.” This, Morgan says, “is an assault on not just Ken, but all men.”
Has Morgan just made himself into the world’s first Ken’s Rights Activist?
One bit of good news in all this nonsense is that the crusade against Barbie doesn’t seem to have caught on amongst the usual MAGA/Fox News crowd, at least not yet. Could it be that they are feeling a little bit of outrage fatigue? Or maybe it’s just that Fox News hasn’t yet made a big deal of it. We’ll see how it goes after the movie opens next weekend.
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FFS. Is transphobia so mainstream now that they expect people to be shocked by a trans actor just *being* in this movie? And Dave Rubin’s appropriation argument is weak – as far as I know, there’s no reason why the doctor character (Barbie’s friend?) couldn’t be trans. Plus, it’s not like cis actors haven’t played trans people before.
Off-topic nostalgia: when I had Barbies as a little kid I never really paid attention to who they were supposed to be. I had four dolls that were the Barbie brand and one that was a different brand but a similar size. I thought of them all as “Barbies” but gave them different names.
Then, when I went to Toys-R-Us as an older kid (10-12), I saw the Barbie aisle and was fascinated by her family – by how many characters there were. I spent maybe half an hour there and my mom was wondering why I was so curious when I didn’t play with those dolls anymore. The writer in me was imagining their backstory, trying to figure out exactly how many siblings Barbie had and how old each of them were supposed to be.
@.45:
Considering that the Republican House Majority Leader, Steve Scalise, was one of the people shot during the Congressional Baseball Shooting in 2017, and his response has been mostly both-siderism regarding violet rhetoric (while studiously ignoring how much of the rhetoric from his side is couched in dog whistles) and saying that the January 6th attacks on the Capitol were only the same sort of badness… I don’t hold out much hope of even a shootout within the house chambers having much of an effect on positions. If personally being shot didn’t make him question the easy access to guns, I doubt anything will.
I agree with Jenora Feuer. Nothing, even bloodshed, is going to knock these Fox News Fascists out of fantasyland.
@Nequam: With the old Star Trek fighting music.
It would be the highest ratings ever for C-SPAN.
@Tabby Lavalamp
I think that this is exactly what the transphobes are afraid of.
They’re terrified that kids will see a transwoman and just accept her as who she is, rather than desperately try to assess her chromosomes so that they know whether to hate her or not.
@GSS ex-noob:
With the old Star Trek fighting music.
It would be the highest ratings ever for C-SPAN.
And the day after that, a bill is proposed barring women from holding public office, because just look what happens! Out-of-control emotions and all that.
Off-topic, I know, but apparently our friends across the pond at The Telegraph are having a meltdown over Nigel Farage’s bank account being closed.
The de-banking of Nigel Farage was unacceptable (telegraph.co.uk)
@epitome of incomprehensibility:
There’s a deeper problem with that argument, which is that “appropriation” as part of systemic oppression can’t be from the outgroup to the ingroup, only the other way around. A bit like the distinction between punching up and punching down.
AFAICT the underlying logic is basically “does this thing narrow or widen the wealth and power inequality between group A and group B?” It’s a form of punching up if it narrows the gap, and a form of punching down if it widens the gap. A trans actor playing a cis character can’t widen the gap, unlike the reverse.
Put another way: would there be any basis for objecting to a dark skinned actor wearing “whiteface” and portraying a white character? It doesn’t seem like it would be problematic the way blackface is. It’s not like white people lack for opportunities to represent themselves in media or anything.
@Jenora Feuer:
It is difficult for someone to understand a thing when their salary depends on their not understanding it.
@Chris: Ginning up outrage ignores the fact that he no longer has enough money to qualify for that bank. He’s boo-hooing and scamming to divert attention away from that fact. He’s still got an account at their more petit bourgeoise branch.
Everyone but the Tories are like “we’ve all gotten poorer lately, Nige, cry me a river”.
@Surplus: Exactly. That was a whole comedy subgenre with Eddie Murphy and the Wayans brothers for a while. People didn’t mind.
@FM Ox: Maybe mud-wrestling on PPV, introduced by Cheeto Benito (who has form with fake rasslin’), to support his many lawyers.
@ chris and gss ex-noob
Unfortunately, after Coutts stated that was the reason, Farage made a subject data access request.
That meant the bank had to turn over all their internal correspondence about him.
It transpired that Farage did have enough money, but they’d dropped him because of his political views.
Ironically, it’s an EU law (which is still in force) says banks can’t do that*.
So Coutts are now in grovelling ‘please don’t sue us’ mode.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jul/20/farage-affair-is-a-monumental-pr-disaster-for-exclusive-bank-coutts
(* The law says that a bank must offer a basic account to anyone. They can however deny access to special services. Coutts tried to comply with this by offering a standard Nat West account instead; as it’s effectively the same bank)
Barbie is also an icon the baby boomers cherished. One thing I have noticed that people are getting tired of the right wing pissing on everyone’s parade. In addition to being perennially outraged, they’re just plain perennially unfun
Hello friends,
We’re attempting to drown our sorrows with a few beers.
Hope you all don’t mind some off topic comments –
The first is –
Looking for some help for our friend T.
Or, maybe just venting –
(Are looking for opinions on this because – Self and The Other Z found it odd, anyway.)
So right, T’s about to be evicted from her apartment. A process server served her with papers, and said (the court date is) “the 24th”. So she’s going to go and see what happens.
But – just now we looked at this paperwork and there is no date, no time, no case number, no courtroom number.
Don’t you think that’s kind of – odd?
She only knows the date because the process server *told her*.
There is literally no specific info on the paperwork.
We said she should just go there and see.
Which she is going to do.
This is – rather weird though.
Another odd thing, which might just be an oversight –
(Thinking of possibly – maybe it’s just sloppy paperwork? And times and courtroom numbers may change? But wouldn’t they at least put *the date*?)
According to online info, the land lord / mgmt. co. is supposed to *first* send a letter stating you have “5 days to pay back rent” and *the next step* is to proceed to eviction.
She never got that. Did get some emails, but no letter like this.
So we’re thinking –
Is this – “fake”? Not exactly the right word I’m looking for, but –
Something seems off about this. Why is there no specific info? It all looks official, but is it?
Is it some kind of a scare tactic? It was fast too, rather quick after threatening emails – supposedly this process takes time, she never got the required letter, the more we looked at it – it seems weird.
Any thoughts appreciated, T says “thanks” in advance.
The second off topic thought –
Which we thought we’d throw in to give you all something (hopefully) interesting to read, let’s throw in a “fun” (?) thought too –
And since someone mentioned Star Trek, and wasn’t Barbie once an astronaut too?
So tangentially related, maybe.
Also might scare the hell out of some people, might even cause world wide upheaval ~
Start with this –
Space and sci fi fans. Anyone following the recent UFO / UAP (US Gov) “disclosure”?
And that’s the general idea, the idea of disclosure of NHI, Non Human Intelligence, or “Aliens”.
And all the reasons why it doesn’t happen.
Which of course includes – causing mass panic, disruption of religion, and disruption of Big Biz / should these visitors have advanced energy concepts that put Big Oil out of business.
Anyone following this, either recently or in the past / in general, has probably seen these various arguments against “disclosure”. As well as all the people involved, all the pro and con arguments –
Oh, that guy is full of shit. No, he actually worked for the gov. No he didn’t, he faked his records / the gov has no record of him. Etc. etc. On and on they argue about various people involved, from those who might be connected to the gov to journalists.
On the idea of any of this info “causing panic among the populace” –
OK, let’s think about that. IIRC even the Pope said that aliens would be “children of god” too, or something like that.
So does the existence of aliens really negate religion?
And those that truly believe – will probably continue to do so.
Big Biz? Oil? Various energy concerns?
Think of tobacco. Once issues with that came out – tobacco companies were given time to diversify. So would that really be an issue? Hell, they’re doing it already – plenty of these energy co’s are going into solar and wind power.
But something came to me, something that would really disrupt people / societies, the world over.
This idea would cause much panic and outrage, and topple religions too.
This is the idea –
What if – the aliens come and say that women should be ruling the world, not men.
THAT would really upset people, wouldn’t it?
Another odd thing on this –
None of us has ever seen this idea anywhere. Oh you see everything from religion to big energy – but not this idea.
Are people – that blind? That this hasn’t occurred to them?
I’ve even seen everything from “secret underground civilizations” to parallel dimensions to simulations to Bigfoot popping in and out of dimensions ~
But never once have I seen *this* idea.
Consider this also –
(Abrahamic) religions are really a reverse of the “natural order”. Start with this idea –
There isn’t a man alive that wasn’t born from a woman.
Now consider their “creation stories” – that “god made man in his own image”.
And “Adam and Eve”, and this god made man first?
With external genitalia? This is a serious design flaw.
And why would you make a person that way, without the counterpart in mind, or the counterpart made at the same time?
You wouldn’t. It makes no sense. If anything, you’d make women first.
From things read, about religion, these stories were concocted to give men precedence over women. Again, the reality of – there isn’t a man alive that wasn’t born from a woman.
Religion attempted to reverse this idea and put men first.
And we can guess why. Appeal to ego, make men feel like a god too, tell them they too control things (the environment, women, animals) and the goal was probably to get them to work for their kings, overlords (ordained by the “gods”). It’s an appeal to vanity / ego.
And still in use to this day, in the form of sales tactics.
And it’s really the opposite of how things go. M And F are equal, both are needed for reproduction, and if anything, if anyone’s “In charge” – it’s the children.
Both must work and care for the children.
And the environment too –
Chop down all the trees, kill all the animals, and you won’t have wood to burn or food to eat.
JesusThe Aliens are coming and they are pissed!Wouldn’t it be something if this is what they want to tell us?
Many do think they’re here to tell us to stop ruining the environment.
And we very well might be some experiment of theirs.
But wouldn’t it be something if they said –
Women should be in charge here, not men.
THAT would cause all kinds of societal upheaval.
@ z&t
I’m not family with possession proceedings in your jurisdiction. Over here though a court date wouldn’t be set until after service of the papers. The landlord first serves a notice then lets the court know and the court sets a date for the hearing.
What I would suggest though is that you call the court to find out exactly what is going on and what stage the proceedings are at. You don’t want any nasty surprises. It might be though that they can’t search just on names without a case number. But definitely go on the day. You need to know what’s going on, and also explain to the court that you need time to respond properly.
Usually here the first hearing is where the judge tries to figure out what needs doing and sets directions, if there’s a challenge, for stuff like filing evidence. But even if your friend does have to move out then by being there you can argue for time and things like that.
(A judge here is quite open “You get 28 days just for turning up”)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In other news, I have MRAs after me. I’m not bothered. But what I find amusing is, I assumed this guy was some teenage edgelord. Turns out he’s an elected politician.
I’m kind of hoping he reports me to our regulator. Charlotte holds the record for most complained about barrister so I feel I need to edge my game up.
@ Alan R,
Thanks for your input, it’s much appreciated.
T def plans to go and because she’s nervous – we’re going too.
Yes we are nice friends!
We’re also rather astonished at the – confusion? involved in this. Not sure what the right word is here. Sloppiness? Bureaucracy?
On the other side of the coin – on this paperwork with next to no info – there’s also more non info in both Spanish and Polish.
It’s bureaucracy. You try to find info online – it either keeps looping you back around or goes no where. A couple years ago, I was trying to find info on getting an extension on my car’s emissions test. That should be simple, right? Car’s in the shop, can I get a week’s extension?
Spent a lot of time looking online, eventually wound up on a page about disabled farm equipment.
Sigh.
Well, we’ll see what happens ~
T is rather upset, but we said we’d go too, for support.
And curiosity, – we might be next, too.
For what it’s worth, for others in a sim spot –
T was able to get a bit of gov aid (not much, not enough for rent), and she mentioned to the worker there that she thought the economy is a lot worse than is being reported.
The worker agreed and said that they’ve got “so many” people on aid right now, a huge uptick from in the past.
Yeah, that’s – not good. The economy is – not good.
For others struggling – well maybe this info might make you feel a bit better.
Or – It’s not you. There are a lot of people struggling right now.
Well, we’ll see what happens.
Alan, again, T wishes to thank you for your thoughts! 🙂
I would like a Christian to explain to me why I want to desire a “relationship” with someone who obviously needs anger management classes…