I was disappointed by the Barbie Movie (as a Barbie fan) - en - Twincloud's Youtube Subtitle Extractor

Hello everyone. This is Calimara here and no it's not Calamari. Welcome back

to the channel or if you're new to the pond, go ahead and take a dive. You

might like it here. So, I know the title of this video is a bit controversial,

but trust me, I am not a right-wing anti-SJW, nor am I the kind of girl who

hates Barbies for one reason or another. In fact, just because I was disappointed

in the movie does not mean I thought it was a bad movie. On the contrary, I

think the Barbie movie had a genuinely good and important message and it got

through to a lot of people who didn't know the experience of womanhood, even

though it was delivered in a bit of a heavy-handed way. And it explores a

concept that as a fashion doll line with the slogan you can be anything

surprisingly has never explored before. That women can just be. They don't have

to be anything outstanding or strive for great heights to be considered a person

as opposed to an object, something to be owned or used or to serve someone else.

just as it's enough for a man to simply be a man to be considered a person in

the eyes of society. I think that's a beautiful message and a clever critique

of modern feminist movements where in encouraging women to pursue paths

previously unaccessible to them because it was originally reserved for men. It

has at the same time painted intentionally or not traditional roles

women had before like being a mother, wanting to be a homemaker or a caretaker

as something inferior on the merit that it was a predominantly feminine role and

still dictating what women can and can't want. And I know not all third-wave

feminists are like this. A lot of them are simply advocating for women to have

the ability to choose what they want to do. Be it to be a housewife, to be a

career woman, to cover up or to not cover up. I'm more so calling out the

people who in their attempts to be progressive actually end up pivoting to

misogyny and cultural insensitivity. If anything, I think I

just had different expectations for what the Barbie movie would be. See, I am a

Barbie girl through and through. I watched all the animated Barbie movies

growing up. I had a couple of dolls that I really liked that I had to beg my mom

for because in my country, those dolls were the price of groceries for an

entire month for a family of four. And I even modeled for Barbie's fashion line

as a kid. Barbie was my bread and butter, and I still frequently re-watch

the old Barbie movies I grew up with whenever I need a comfort watch. And

that's exactly why the Barbie movie was not quite what I expected, not only as

an avid Barbie fan, but an avid Barbie cinematic universe fan. So, let's talk

about it. For this video, I will be drawing on Clip Studio Paint using the

Studio VK 1200 V2 screen tablet that was kindly sent to me from Vake. This tablet

is a full screen display with an 11 in anti-glare full HD IPS screen with 1920x

1080 resolution and six shortcut keys. It's definitely smaller than your

average screen tablet. So, I think this tablet would be ideal for someone who

likes to work on a laptop outside of their house, like cafes, like I do, or

someone who's just starting out with a screen tablet. It's also the right

resolution for screen recording if you like to make speed draws like me. But my

favorite thing about this tablet, and something that I always look for when

shopping for screen tablets, is that it has a fully laminated screen. Why is

this such a big deal to me? because laminated screens minimize parallax,

which is the gap between the position of the pen tip and where the cursor

actually is on your window. And this tablet definitely has that. The only

downside I found was that the screen is a lot more slippery than I expected for

a real paperlike drawing experience compared to drawing on my iPad Pro and

Apple Pencil. I felt like I had a harder time getting a grip on the screen, so

the pen was gliding around a bit too fast for my liking, but that may be

because the pen has a full plastic nib. I'm someone who prefers felt or rubber

tips for more friction, but that's up to personal preference, and you can replace

the tip pretty easily to suit yours. Otherwise, it's a pretty solid tablet,

and it's also super affordable as far as full display tablets go in my opinion.

The pressure sensitivity is genuinely excellent. Just look at my line dynamics

here. So, if you're currently looking to upgrade to a screen tablet from your

regular drawing pad, I highly recommend this one. So, if you didn't grow up

watching the Barbie movies like I did, or have never watched any of the old

Barbie movies at all, maybe this sentiment is something that you won't be

able to understand. And I don't think it's something you will ever understand

simply because that time has passed. That moment where you were young enough

to believe that magic could truly be real, that magical creatures existed and

it was all waiting for you behind an enchanted door or through a magical

forest no one has dared explore before. It wasn't just a certain age, but also

the era these movies came out in a time when the internet was not quite as

accessible as it is now. When the media accessible to you as a child were books

or magazines or cable television and movies in theaters. the start of the

21st century when everything was still new and hopeful and you still believe

that the future held something good. That optimism, that touch of softness

and fantasy and whimsy and visuals when the scale of the stories felt

simultaneously simple yet grand at the same time. That to me was what made the

Barbie movie so special. Sure, Bratz was also big on the scene at the time, but

for me personally, it just didn't have the same kind of magic and whimsy that

Barbie had. It was trendy and cutting edge, yes, but I loved the pastel

aesthetics, magic, and romantic faraway kingdoms, the gentle music, and

obviously the transformation sequences that have become a Barbie movie staple.

That's why of the Bratz movies, my favorite was the Pixies one. I also just

loved Barbie's art style a lot more, especially the classic Barbie movies

where Barbie looked and acted more like an adult I could look up to, and that's

probably why I kind of fell off the Barbie movies after the latest reboot

and art style change. But I really did try to like it. I've always made it a

habit to kind of check up on the newest Barbie movies that come out cuz I like

to go and watch them. But I was already kind of shaky on the modern era movies

where they began to introduce modern technology, changing the music direction

from calming and whimsical instrumentals to high energy beats and pop songs. The

colors became more saturated and the setting more realistic and downto-

earthth, if not kind of artificial and plasticky. And that's just not what I

look for or come to expect from the Barbie movies. That's actually Bratz

territory. And the lower budget animation aside, it's actually also why

I preferred Barbie movies over Bratz movies. I think the last few modern

Barbie movies I enjoyed were Barbie Starlight Adventure, which really

surprised me. I did not expect it to be that good, even though it's basically

just Barbie Star Wars along with Fashion Fairy Tale and Princess Charm School,

which was from the era before it. I think the last movie that kind of soured

me on the Barbie franchise was Barbie and the Pink Shoes, which I just thought

was so it really tried to be what the classic Barbie movies were and just

completely dropped the ball in my opinion. Everything else just failed to

capture that same magic and whimsy of the classic Barbie movie era. Now,

granted, I'm not about to glaze Barbie by spouting every single marketing

punchline and propaganda they threw out there to trick parents into thinking

these dolls were inspirational for their daughters. And granted, they probably

truly meant well, especially with their you can be anything tagline, which has

been trademarked by Mattel since 1984 and officially became Barbie slogan in

2015. We've seen Barbie as a doctor, an astronaut, a veterinarian, and a

dentist, trying to show little girls that they could be anything they wanted

to be, even if it didn't really work. I just read the most unhinged study on

Barbie, and it's that, you know how they have those career Barbies now, like

there's a doctor Barbie and a vet Barbie and an astronaut Barbie and all these

Barbies that can help girls think about all the things they'd like to be in the

future. Well, one study, and they actually did this in 2014, so I think it

probably needs to be done again, but essentially one study took three

different types of toys, a fashion Barbie, a Dr. Barbie, and a Mrs. Potato

Head, just randomly, just a random like standard Mrs. Potato Head, and they were

randomly assigned to one of those toys, right? And then they let the girls play

with them. Then they took the toys away from those little girls, and then they

showed them like an array of careers that the little girls could engage in in

the future. And then they asked, "What would you do in the future?" And then,

"What could boys do in the future?" And, "God bless Barbie tried." Okay,

Barbie tried. However, here are the results. I will read them out to you.

Girls who played with either form of Barbie, doctor or fashion, reported that

they could do fewer occupations compared to boys. In contrast, girls who played

with Mrs. Potato Head reported a smaller difference between the number of careers

they felt they could pursue and those they believed boys could

[Music] pursue. You know what they say, the path

to hell was paved with good intentions. But I'm going to be completely honest

here. I didn't give a damn about those Dr. Barbie dolls. As a kid, what I cared

about was the gorgeous, gorgeous princess dolls with beautiful dresses,

glittery wings, and horse companions. And that was because of the Barbie

movies. And I'm I'm kind of convinced that Barbie is also the reason I'm a

horse girl. Barbie radicalized me into equestrian sports. Even as a young

child, I was fully aware that there was a separation between Barbie movies and

the reality I faced whenever I went to school. The Barbie movies have always

been an escape to me because while it had good messages like you're braver

than you know, your differences make you stronger, I was never in it for the

writing. Heck, when I was a kid, I barely even knew English. And most of

the time, the subtitles were complete gibberish anyway because I lived in

Indonesia and if you were middle class or lower, all your DVDs were pirated.

Okay, so the subtitles were whatever the guy decided it was.

I was following purely on context clues, but I wanted to live in that world. I

wanted the magic, the magical creatures, the grand adventures, and maybe some of

the love story, too. Though, I'll admit, even as a kid, I got annoyed that every

one of the classic Barbie movies ended with a wedding. Not for the social

connotation that Barbie made it seem like being a bride is a girl's ultimate

goal or any deep reason like that. Unfortunately, I was not that woke as a

child. Just that I thought it was predictable and sometimes I thought the

prince was ugly, so I didn't want Barbie to marry him. Honestly, as with most

girl- centered media I watched, the romance in the Barbie movies were my

least favorite parts of the story. I don't know, the male character models

were really meh to me, and I think I didn't really understand romance or the

appeal of it at that age. And really, I never would.

foreshadowing. I never had much of a boy crazy or love crazy face growing up,

unless you counted 2D animated characters. That part really wasn't for

me. And that's actually one thing I was glad about in Greta Gerwig's Barbie

movie. I'm glad they didn't try to add romance to the story because as per the

movie's tagline, she's everything and he's just Ken. You buy the Ken for the

Barbie, not the other way around. He is her glorified accessory. Okay. no

different than a handbag or an additional outfit set. But to call the

Barbie movie a love letter to the Barbie franchise doesn't feel quite right to me

because if anything, it felt more like a critique. And Greta's depiction of

Barbie feels more like satire. an appeal to the wider demographic whose

understanding of Barbie comes from the generalizations and stereotypes of

Barbie depicted in other media rather than the people who actually grew up

loving Barbie and watching the media that Barbie put out because the

perception between those two demographics I feel are completely

different. Just as I'm sure someone who never played with Barbies or preferred

Bratz and Monster High wouldn't understand my perception of Barbie, I

don't think I'll ever understand their perception either. Malibu Barbie, vapid,

airheaded, hot pinkloving Barbie who only cares about fashion and parties and

going to the beach. Aqua's Barbie girl Barbie. They were never present in any

of the Barbie related media I grew up with. And yes, you can argue that Greta

Gerwick's Barbie is meant to be stereotypical Barbie, the Barbie

everyone thinks of when they think of Barbie. And maybe this is exclusively a

me problem, but that's not who Barbie is to me or what I think of when I think of

stereotypical Barbie. I think of Barbie and I immediately think Swan Lake, that

soft melodic theme of 12 Dancing Princesses and Rapunzel. The Barbie I

know is level-headed, clever, resourceful, kind even when the world

isn't kind to her. She's brave and stands up for what's right. She puts

others first. She's the oldest sister who grows up too fast so her sisters can

stay kids. She grows and learns and she leads with love because that's who she

is in the movies. Yes, each movie has a slightly different iteration of Barbie

with her own unique personalities, but they all had the same core identity that

Barbie is capable and resilient. Even when she's not the best, even when she's

not the smartest, even when she's out of her depth, she doesn't give up and she

never loses sight of who she is. And there isn't a single reference to any of

this in the Barbie movie, which honestly really shocked me. Yes, there are many

Barbies in Barbie land aside from stereotypical Barbie who we follow, but

they can't even throw in any of the Barbie movie protagonists. No Elina,

Anukica, Odette, or Analise. Not even the staple side characters like Raquel

or Teresa or even any of Barbie's sisters aside from that one Skipper doll

they specifically included as a reject Barbie. They included an Allen who is

Ken's friend. So, why aren't any of Barbie's friends referred to by name?

Not even a cameo from Barbie's legendary voice actor, Kelly Sheridan, who I and

I'm sure so many others grew up with. I think the closest representation of how

this felt for me was when Ted Neon did that video watching all the classic

Barbie movies to be caught up on all the references and lore only for none of it

to be relevant in the Greta Gerwick Barbie. So, how can it really be a love

letter when all it features are the superficial plastic and artificial

perfection of a Barbie? I think it's maybe what an adult sees when they watch

their young children play with a Barbie. The playhouses, playsets, and clothes,

the artificial pools and plants, and the plastic smoothness, but none of the

experience of actually playing with one and what that's like. Barbie Land is

depicted as this perfect utopia where nothing goes wrong. But the Barbie I

grew up with was never perfect. Sometimes she was flawed. Sometimes she

was even messy. She learned and grew as a person to become who she needed to be

at the end of the story. And the worlds that the movies were set in were no

different. Each setting they created in the animated Barbie movies were organic

and alive. It breathed. It had a life of its own. It grew and changed alongside

the characters. It wasn't just a background. It was the escape. The thing

that made you wish you could be there, too. And because of that, I think the

animated Barbie movies did a better job of capturing what it was like actually

playing with the dolls. Anyone who played with any kind of doll could tell

you that even as a child, we would come up with the wildest worlds, story lines,

and drama. Everything and everyone was messy. Nothing was ever used as

intended, and that was the point. It was immersive and organic. And maybe it was

just me, but I've always been more drawn to the nature and magic themed doll

lines featuring mermaids and fairies and forests over the beach house playsets.

And even if what they wanted to do was emulate that plastic dolllike aesthetic

with meta humor, I still think the movie was outdone by Barbie life in the

dreamhouse, which is what I'd consider a true love letter to the Barbie

franchise. It was everything that the Barbie movie tried to do with Barbie

Land while still maintaining Barbie's character as this multiaceted polymath

renaissance woman who could do it all and do it all fabulously all while

keeping her friends and sisters, integral parts of her identity that any

true Barbie fan would know in it, too. And let's be honest, Life in the

Dreamhouse Ken is the most biblically accurate Ken in every sense of the word.

In all honesty, I was waiting the entire movie for stereotypical Barbie to have

her wakeup call, to realize that the way she perceives the world and herself is

flawed and get the ball rolling for her character development. In fact, there

already is a perfect moment in the movie where they could have done this, and it

was the scene where she meets Sasha. Sasha basically calls out all the flaws

and harm that the Barbie dolls have done to young girls, including all the

generalizations and stereotypes that come when people think of Barbies. And I

really wish that that scene had more impact not only to the story, but to

Barbie as a character. I really wish that she was given time to think it

over, to realize that times have changed, and that maybe the way she is

is obsolete, that she needs to change if she wants to be what little girls need

her to be. You know, instead of being kidnapped and thrown into a car chase.

And I think that's also another thing that the movie missed. Not the car

chase, but the fact that Barbie is marketed to be a role model. I think the

Barbie movie made the fatal flaw of trying to portray Barbie as being equal

to her audience, something you relate to or something that is a reflection of

you. When in reality, well, my reality at least, Barbie is and always has been

your cool, amazing, big sister who can do anything and who wants you to succeed

like her, too. That's why they made her the oldest of her sisters. why early

Barbie movies start with her giving advice and guidance to her sister.

Because in Barbie's cannon, she cares about you, the audience who is

represented by her younger sisters. Barbie is not your average girl next

door that you look at and think, "Yeah, that could be me." She is a literal

goddess made flesh that you couldn't possibly hope to touch, but only aspire

to be like. And I think that's also where the newer Barbie movies featuring

a more downto- earthth relatable Barbie kind of loses me because she's always

been this kind of mythical being to me. Like even as a child, I knew I would

never be Barbie. So I never really tried to compare myself to her. I just took

the lesson she taught and look where I am today. But that's just me, though. I

think some people were a bit more ambitious and lofty in their

expectations of what they would be when they grew up. But Barbie is and always

has been a Mary Sue. And I think it's wrong for us to erase that about her.

It's literally integral to who she is. You wouldn't write Superman, and I do

mean Superman, the persona, and not Clark Kent, as this quirky, dorky,

everyday boy next door. basically transferring the Clark Kent personality

onto Superman because he's an icon, a symbol, a god among men. And that is

what Barbie is to me. She's my Superman. I think my biggest dissatisfaction is

that while those themes and conversations about womanhood,

motherhood, and girlhood are there, it also doesn't affect Barbie. It happens

around her. It doesn't change her or move her and she never really expresses

or shows any desire for anything but her status quo. Which is why to me the

conclusion of her choosing to be a real woman did not feel earned. And to be

fair, while the hints are there in lingering shots of Margot Barbie, it

could have been more. As it stands, Barbie's transformation into a real

woman is an unstoppable, inevitable process brought on by a force beyond

Barbie's control that still would have happened whether or not she chose to

travel to the real world. The lore of the movie implies that every Barbie ever

conceived of by anyone who has ever played with a Barbie, which is why it's

even more unbelievable that the movie tie-in dolls and playsets never made an

appearance, but that's beside the point, ends up in Barbie land. I kind of

thought of it as a chalk zone situation where every chalk drawing that gets

erased ends up in the chalk world. And with that concept in mind, I've always

seen Barbie's transformation as her simply becoming what the last person

playing with her imagined her to be because it was Gloria playing with her

and coming up with realistic Barbie concepts. Now, don't get me wrong, I

still think it's a great inciting event, but it's what they did with it that I

think could have been a bit more refined. Like instead of her just seeing

that old woman and calling her beautiful, she also later on looks at

herself in the mirror and imagines herself as an old woman. And instead of

being scared or repulsed by it like she originally was by her transformation,

she reaches out and finds that she loves how she looks then too. Maybe when she

observes the kids playing at the park for the first time she arrives in the

human world, or when she watches Gloria with Sasha, she also starts to long for

that connection. Maybe she pictures herself with a kid, wondering what it's

like to be a mother like Gloria, or even tries to imagine what it's like to have

a mother, wondering what it's like to be a daughter. Maybe she spends time

bonding with Sasha, getting to know what she likes, and she learns what it's like

to be a sister. All these simple, seemingly mundane things that come with

being a woman, but to a doll like her becomes something extraordinary,

something to be celebrated. And despite now also knowing what women in the real

world deal with with the patriarchy and having to suffer through that, she still

chooses to be one anyway because she loved that experience so much. And it

would still fit with the movie's iconic what was I made for track and Ruth's

parting message that Barbie's story doesn't have a set ending which also

honors Barbie's tagline you can be anything. But in the actual Barbie

movie, Barbie began and ended the same way with her spectating and having

things happen to her and around her. She doesn't really affect the story in any

real way. She was just the audience's proxy. And I'll be honest, I got more

frustrated with how passive she was the longer the movie went on. Even when

Barbie successfully returned to Barbie land, excited to show Gloria and Sasha

what it's like there, she completely fell apart and gave up when she learned

that the kens have taken over. It was the other Barbies, Gloria and Sasha,

that had to put the pieces back together and do most of the work. And that's

another thing that disappointed me about Margot Barbie. She lacks resilience.

Every Barbie, even if she's not depicted as ultra capable, even if she's still an

airhead, she has always been shown to be resilient. Even when things seem

hopeless and bad, she picks herself up and carries on. Not always for herself,

but sometimes, most of the time, she does it for the sake of those she cares

about. And that's another issue I had with the Barbie movie. And maybe it is

just me being autistic and not picking up on the social cues, but it really

felt like Margot Barbie didn't really care about anything in the movie. Not

the young kids she was made for, not Barbie land or any of her friends, not

even Gloria, who was there for her through it all. I never really felt that

Barbie had sufficient time to bond with Gloria and Sasha. It would have been

nice to see Gloria becoming something of a mother figure to Barbie and Sasha

teaching her what little girls are like these days. So yeah, I was really hoping

they would do more with Margot Barbie, even if they didn't fully make her

accurate to the animated movies or series because remember the core message

is that you don't have to be extraordinary or shoot for the stars to

matter. I at least wanted to see her start to care about other people, about

anything other than herself and her identity. But hey, maybe that's just my

color showing because I was raised in a collectivist Asian culture where it was

very community centered rather than centering on the individual. At the very

least, I was really hoping that she would be the person to reclaim Barbie

land from the Kens. She can still cry and feel like she's failing, but I

really wish that after hearing Gloria's empowering speech and seeing how

disappointed Gloria and Sasha were that Barbieland was not what they expected.

She actually does get empowered and takes the lead on the operation in order

to make that world that they wish they had, just like the Barbie I know and

love would. Because as it stands, she is now the only Barbie in Barbie land who

knows what the real world is like and how the men there act. And she knows

what the Kens are actually like and what they're trying to emulate. Something

that no other Barbie or Gloria and Sasha know because they only know one or the

other. So, it would have been a great full circle moment to have her apply

what she learned, have her grow out of her passiveness into a more proactive

character as she realizes she has something that she wants to strive

towards and protect and people that she cares about, that she doesn't want to

see hurt. And in the end, they could still have her decide that she's not

stereotypical Barbie anymore, that she doesn't want to be a Barbie anymore. She

wants to be able to grow old, to change, to have stretch marks and wrinkles and

be more than what her box tells her she is, to be a real woman, not just a

symbol or an icon, but a person. And I think this decision would have been more

impactful because of it. Honestly, my expectations coming into the Barbie

movie was that it would be about proving the stereotype wrong and showing how

much Barbie actually means to people, how much hope and aspiration she gives

to little girls who still play with Barbies. You know, Legally Blonde style.

But in my opinion, it actually had a much more pessimistic and negative view

of the dolls than I would have preferred. The glamorous shots of Barbie

Land, the parties, and the interactions between the characters felt more like

satire or sarcasm that was putting the dolls down in order to uplift its

message. And as a Barbie girly, that just made me sad because I do have such

a fondness for those dolls. So yeah, that's why I was disappointed by the

Barbie movie. [Music]

Thank you so much for hanging out in my channel for a while. I hope your skin

didn't get too pruny. Big shout out to my lovely sea bunnies on Patreon. If you

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description and I will see you all in the next video. Goodbye.

[Music]