I feel like Barbie is a very vibes-based movie, broadly carried by the ability of its stars - in particular Margot Robbie - to demand empathy. If the vibes hit you, you'll stumble out of the theatre. If they don't, it's not going to write an essay that'll stand up to serious nitpicking or uh, analyzing Barbieland like it's an actual state with internal politics going on.
Barbie goes from a naive security in her own existence and womanhood, with a notable blindspot regarding Ken, has the security in both shattered, first with her grappling with mortality and fallibility, then experiencing the latent threat of the real world, and finally with the imposition of the Kentriarchy in Barbieland. The Kentriarchy is ultimately overthrown, but the movie won't pretend to have an answer for what the perfect society would look like, which is why the final joke is 'well the Kens get some stuff in rough proportion to women in real life' - but if you're not pulled into the particular sort of fear that the Kentriarchy hits some people with, of the most stereotypical in feminine spaces being subordinated to men, it's going to feel off.
Regardless, even after Barbie experiences all of that, she still decides to become a real human (with mortality, fallibility etc.) and woman (under patriarchy, as things stand). This choice is fundamentally unjustified and unjustifiable: the movie doesn't articulate why Barbie wants that, because no exterior authority can do that. Nothing can tell you why life is worth living, and nothing can justify why life as a woman is worth choosing. To find meaning in existence is miraculous, but it's not given by grace. You have to make do for yourself. Barbie does. (This is where, I think, the 'trans narrative' argument comes in.) (Also how many cis women would be thrilled about their first gyno appointment?)
Meanwhile, Ken never grapples with mortality or humanity in that way: he stays in Barbieland, he never makes the leap Barbie does. But he still has to grapple with the gendered notions of what makes his existence have value, first with the relatively harmless need to be around and esteemed by Barbie, which of course is fertile ground for the toxicity he brings back in funhouse form to Barbieland: the centring of his self-conception on being a man, having the girl, material possessions et cetera. The failure of this solution, implemented as the Kentriarchy, is total, and ultimately Ken comes to - at best - a half-solution, moving away from the dependency that drove him into the Kentriarchy, but still not really finding, and certainly not offering a solution beyond that, for the same reasons Barbie didn't.
The movie can't, because nothing can.
I did have empathy for the stars. Ryan Gosling's storyline. This is why it rubbed me the wrong way, that it ends with a non-ending that makes a joke out of them.
I can count on one hand the number of compliments I've received in the last decade that are about me, and not about my work. I can remember each one in great detail, and I can feel each other weight upon my thoughts. Even though they were just minor things said off-handily. The complete starvation of validation, and then receiving one and having it warp your thoughts like Ryan Gosling's Ken being asked the time. How he tells all the other Kens who are wowed by it and then is wearing three watches. That spoke to me emotionally.
The feeling of working so hard, and getting zero attention or connection. Just striving fruitlessly. I went on a date recently, with a girl that was pushy to see what I was seeing on Tinder when scrolling. And flicked over to my matches to see that I had one match, her. And then she showed me hers, and she had over a thousand matches. When not even trying with either her profile or pictures. I feel like Ken competing with all the other Kens. How am I supposed to connect with anybody, when they have a thousand other guys in their pocket they can mentally compare me against?
I tried to follow the path laid out, go to university, get a job, grooming, wear nice clothes, exercise, express interest in her and what she says, etc. And I get passed over over and over. I haven't ever had the feeling of anybody being openly attracted to me. And everything I did, I had to do under my own mental power. The only people who want to help when I struggled were a few close male friends of my own age. No one else visibly seems to care. The only guys who actually cared about Ken, were other Kens even though they fought.
And I can't break into socialisation elsewhere. I try but it's incredibly daunting and the weight of social expectations and pressures fucks with my head. Or I'm held at permanent arm's length.
I've been asked about my interests, and then when I do start to excitedly explain them, I realise mid-way through that they don't actually care. And just asked out of ulterior motives or want the conversation to turn back to being about them. Literally, every time it happens it crushes me emotionally, and the Barbies winning move is doing that, just reminded me of all the times that has happened to me.
I've had women on dates bring up their mental health issues unprompted. And I listen and respond to what they are saying. But even bringing up a little bit that I have my own is the best way to ensure that I won't get a next date. Going to therapy is hashtag empowering for women, but it's loser shit for a guy. Just like body positivity is for women and not for men. I don't feel liberated, I feel more constrained. In practice, I feel held to all the standards of patriarchy that are useful to other people, while bound by social constraints and fears that I'm a danger.
Ken's interests weren't toxic or mean, just his domination of the Barbies as a turnaround for how he was treated. But they still had to be made fun of and ripped out and rejected by Barbie society.
Humans are social creatures. I have a burning desire to be around people. I don't feel entitled to a specific person or a perfect Barbie. But the message I get is that it's bad I want that connection and that if it doesn't happen naturally I just need to accept my place. That just expressing that desire, shows I'm actually an evil incel who wants to dominate women.
No man is an island. I know both intellectually and emotionally how debilitating isolation is. It's torture to put people into solitary. And yet we are walking straight into a social crisis where people are atomised. And the solution for men is either to suck it up or here are some bootstraps. Which is an incredibly conservative attitude that we don't have on other issues. When someone complains about poverty, we don't go 'well here is an example of someone grinding themselves out of poverty, why don't you just do that? Or accept you will be poor'.
So yeah I was touched emotionally. And yet Ken ends the movie in a sweater as the butt of a joke. I'm not even saying he has to end up with Barbie. He showed he was a natural leader, he could have been the first Ken in a political office. They could have let him rebuild his Mojo Dojo and show Barbies sincerely enjoying Ken's interests. Instead its nothing. The movie had plenty of fat like the Mattel CEOs that could have been trimmed to actually fix the Ken arc.