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   I wish a few would kill themselves over this.  Suicide is the right   
   solution.   Maybe they can go to church and get a child raping minister to   
   help.   
      
   Fox News leads a right-wing freakout over Barbie movie   
      
   Did you have “Republicans freak out over the gender politics of the Barbie   
   movie” on your 2023 bingo card? I, for one, did not—yet here we are. The   
   movie hasn’t even been released yet, but Fox News is leading the charge   
   against it, giving a host of right-wing influencer types the space to   
   whine that, as one chyron predictably put it, the “Barbie movie goes   
   woke.”   
      
   According to one of its stars, Simu Liu, “I’m so glad that this movie   
   exists because I think it puts the final nail in the coffin of that very   
   heteronormative idea of what gender is, and what is or is not gendered.”   
   Writer and activist Charlotte Clymer tweeted a compelling review of the   
   movie, writing that it “feels like an especially potent trojan horse,   
   beckoning us with well-earned laughter into a larger conversation on   
   gender and how Barbie—the defining cultural symbol of high femme   
   expression—has shaped that discourse over the past six decades.” So you   
   can begin to see the problem from the right-wing culture warriors’ point   
   of view.   
      
      
      
   In the words of one Christian movie review site gleefully quoted by Fox   
   News, ”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.”   
   (News flash: Nostalgic adults can be parents who make decisions about   
   their family’s movie-watching habits.)   
      
   The movie’s undermining of Barbie’s traditional place in the gender canon   
   includes the title character’s feet suddenly going flat rather than   
   maintaining her eternal high-heeled stance, experiencing objectification   
   by men for the first time as she leaves Barbie world for the real world,   
   and Ken becoming what Clymer describes as “something of a Jordan Peterson   
   guru to the other Kens.” All of these are potent critiques of gender   
   representation in Barbie—a brand long loathed by many feminists—and could   
   be the targets of right-wing ire. Indeed, Ginger Gaetz, wife of Rep. Matt   
   Gaetz, is trying to grow her social media profile on the basis of the   
   movie, despite the fact that she and Matt attended and eagerly posed for   
   pictures at the premiere.   
      
   “I'd recommend sticking to getting outfit inspiration and skipping the   
   theater,” she tweeted. That’s because “[t]he Barbie I grew up with was a   
   representation of limitless possibilities, embracing diverse careers and   
   feminine empowerment,” but “[t]he 2023 Barbie movie, unfortunately,   
   neglects to address any notion of faith or family, and tries to normalize   
   the idea that men and women can't collaborate positively (yuck).”   
   Additionally, there’s “[d]isappointingly low T from Ken.”   
      
   Did anyone connect Barbie to faith or family to begin with? Barbie has had   
   a long list of careers. She’s been a cowgirl, a wild animal trainer, a   
   race car driver, a bowler, a boxer, an aerobics instructor, a computer   
   engineer, an architect, a campaign fundraiser, a U.S. president, a fashion   
   trend forecaster, and a film director. She has taught subjects from yoga   
   to Spanish to sign language. She has occupied a number of roles in the   
   military. She has owned small businesses including a farmers market stall   
   and a fashion boutique, as well as working in almost any kind of store you   
   can think of. She has not, however, been a minister in any of her   
   incarnations—and indeed, if she had been, it would have alienated those   
   Christians who do not believe it is biblically appropriate for women to be   
   ministers. Perhaps Ginger Gaetz and her ilk imagined one of the musician   
   Barbies as a church musician.   
      
   And family? Barbie is not a particularly maternal figure. Barbie and Ken   
   are not married. They may have from time to time shared a Dreamhouse, but   
   that was living in sin. It may be easy for someone married to Matt Gaetz   
   to get confused about what “faith and family” is supposed to look like,   
   but while Barbie has long been a hyper-femme icon, the official narrative   
   about her coming from Mattel has never been that.   
      
   Gaetz either missed the thing she was supposed to be most upset about or   
   wasn’t quite willing to go there. Because a significant part of the right-   
   wing freakout centers around one single character, a doctor Barbie played   
   by trans actress Hari Nef. As that Christian movie review site said, the   
   movie “push[es] lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories.”   
   The Federalist’s Peachy Keenan, author of “Domestic Extremist: A Practical   
   Guide to Winning the Culture War,” wrote at Revolver, the movie is “the   
   slickest, most visually appealing and therefore most insidious packaging   
   of feminist cliche and trans grooming” that she had ever seen, and said on   
   Fox News, “I found out last week, they somehow didn’t let anyone know this   
   with the marketing campaign, that one of Barbie’s main three sidekicks   
   is—surprise surprise—a man. I mean, is nothing sacred?” She added, “I   
   don’t really know what they were thinking, they just gave Barbie the Bud   
   Light treatment.”   
      
   No, the movie happened to cast Hari Nef. It’s the bigots who want to give   
   the movie “the Bud Light treatment” by unleashing an avalanche of hate on   
   any company that offers even a glancing positive representation of a trans   
   person.   
      
   Even without a trans actress playing a Barbie, the culture warriors of the   
   right probably would have had at least a minor freakout over the movie.   
   Ginger Gaetz laid out some of the arguments that would have been used, as   
   silly as they are. (Has Ken ever seemed especially “high T” to you?) After   
   all, it’s the slow news month of July. Teachers aren’t in the classroom to   
   present targets for attack. But the movie’s use of a trans actress in the   
   hallowed feminine role of Barbie guaranteed that the temper tantrum would   
   be loud and sustained. There is a right-wing project afoot to drive trans   
   people from public life, to make their existence unspeakable—in the sense   
   that it cannot be mentioned, and in the sense that the miseries inflicted   
   upon them would be impossible to convey in words.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)