Art | Philosophy | Movies
‘Barbie’ Analyzed through a Gramscian Lens
‘Barbie’ isn’t a feminist masterpiece. ‘Barbie’ is a multi-million dollar production produced by a labor-exploiting multi-national billion dollar corporation. ‘Barbie’ is a film that grossed a billion dollars at the box office.
This movie distracts us from the status quo. This is what matters when it comes to analyzing ‘Barbie’. In an ideal world this essay would only be a few sentences long:
“This film is neoliberal propaganda stopping us from breaking free from our chains by telling us we can be individually free from systemic oppression. Don’t watch this film, join a union and start breaking shit until they give us what we are owed.”
But obviously that’s a little (hyperbole intended) reductive. I say this to highlight a point. It’s not that the statement is untrue. It’s that simplistic slogan-istic statements like the one above risk losing nuance and character. They risk being reactionary in nature rather than anything fundamentally revolutionary. That is why I am going to expand that 43 word, two sentence statement.
