The far right is constantly warning that if you go woke, you’ll go broke. But when it comes to the new Barbie movie, they couldn’t be more wrong.
Barbie, which follows Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) as they leave Barbie Land to explore the real world, earned a whopping $162 million in its opening weekend, Variety reported Monday. This is the biggest opening weekend of the year, and the biggest opening weekend for a female director ever.
The film had already made $22.3 million at the domestic box office from Thursday previews, the biggest preview haul of the summer. It blew the previous record of $17.5 million (made by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in May) out of the water.
But my conservative dad posted on Facebook that it was a flop…
My conservative father in law is posting about how great the idiotic Sound of Freedom movie is. I don’t even think he’s seen it
Sound of Freedom - 71% Rotten Tomatoes
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sound_of_freedom
Box office by week:
Tue 7/4 to Mon 7/10 - $45,668,594
Tue 7/12 to Mon 7/17 - $45,064,968
Tue 7/18 to Sun 7/23 - $33,699,950
Total: $124,433,512
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl4254237441/?ref_=bo_tt_gr_1Barbie - 90% Rotten Tomatoes
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/barbie
Box office by week:
Fri 7/21 to Sun 7/23 - $162,022,044
Total: $162,022,044
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl1077904129/?ref_=bo_tt_gr_1For the record, Oppenheimer - 94% Rotten Tomatoes
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/oppenheimer_2023
Box office by week:
Fri 7/21 to Sun 7/23 - $82,455,420
Total: $82,455,420
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3725886209/?ref_=bo_tt_gr_1Oppenheimer is 1 hour and 6 minutes longer than Barbie (3 hours vs. 1 hour, 54 minutes), it literally can’t have as many showings and has an age limited audience due to the rating.
In their reality, it is. And that’s all that matters anymore.
I saw a little of ben Shapipos reaction to it through a leftist streamer.
It was hilarious. He was literally mad that a core message of the movie is that you can be whoever you want to as a woman.
Thats the slogan of the company Ben, idk why you didn’t know that.
He doesn’t want to know that. He’d rather tell you what Barbie and, by proxy, other women are.
Women who think independently is the biggest threat to conservatives on the planet
I still don’t know what ‘woke’ means except it’s like the opposite of the ‘moral values’ bullshit Republican’s spewed before it became impossible for even Republicans to ignore that is was complete bullshit.
So basically they gave up campaigning on their own morality and decided to campaign against a made-up immorality instead… I guess if they’ve ruled out just not being morally bankrupt this is actually a good strategy.
Woke when through the same journey as “SJW” before it. First it’s used by the left/progressives, then it’s picked up to mock the most mad examples of them, before eventually being picked up by right wing media and commentators to attack anything even lightly left of centre.
Woke = everything conservatives hate.
In reality, it means to be aware of something for the first time.
Thing is, we’ve never actually had an instance where someone went broke, by going woke.
This is how conservative arguments work. You simply assert something over and over, preferably with a catchy phrase. Actual evidence or proof is not required, and in fact the very idea of evidence being an important thing is rejected outright.
It doesn’t matter that there’s little that actually supports the notion of “go woke, go broke”. You just say it over and over again so that it FEELS true, and thus it becomes true.
Yeah that seems to be how it goes, I’m still waiting for any example of Obama being a “Race Baiter” or Kamela Harris actually being the nitwit they claim her to be. I don’t think I’ll ever actually get either.
Turns out most people don’t care about this shit when the movie’s actually, you know, good.
Bud Lite?
they most definitely have not gone broke sir.
Bud light.
So Anheuser-Busch is doing absolutely fine better than last years and last quarter. What I find absolutely HILARIOUS is these morons switching to other Anheuser-Busch brands in protest. Despite mostly fake news about their demise. They will eventually all just forget about this and move on to their new stupid thing.The dip from this was so small that there wasn’t even really an opportunity to make any money off it. it valleyed at 53 just before a record high of 66 the month prior but its already bouncing back at 58. I wouldn’t invest right now unless you’re looking long-term because they ain’t going nowhere. Also Bud Light sucks why do these idiots drink this shit.
I’m on your side and went to that link.
Unfortunately, the person you are debating is correct. Anheuser-Busch’s stock fell over 20% after the boycott began and while it’s come up a little since the initial fall it’s still no where near where it was prior to the boycott in April.
That said, that might be the ONLY example of this slogan being accurate (at least right now).
So did Coke and Heineken and other beverage companies during that timeframe. These things don’t happen in a vacuum, they’re all subject to market conditions.
They’re still up on last year and were much lower in September 22 than any dive since the protest. Even looking at the 5 year chart, pre protest levels weren’t much on where they were 2018. The protests were a blip at best.
20% stock fall isn’t broke dude… not in the least.
Being woke is looking at the system critically. It’s not taking what you’re told at face value, it’s examining your own beliefs and the beliefs of society about the system
It’s pretty ironic the way most are using the word
The main reason people use that word negatively is that they got no fucking clue as to what it means.
Woke is good thing but people have made it something bad, and by people I do point to the right.
Woke people made it bad by their constant petty paternalism, and authoritarian bullying.
The mixture of narcissism and thinking they are always morally superior beings has created this situation.
Those are SJWs, who are generally not very woke. They embody the (false) stated morality of the system, which is very un-woke
A woke person would recognize the system is built to turn us against each other, and not play into it
Politicians, especially republicans, have tried to make it a bad word for the sole purpose of keeping their sheep in line. They ONLY want them listening to pod casts for all their information and believing every single thing they hear.
That’s how that entire republican party likes their people so they can feed them misinformation and have it not be fact checked. It’s like the easiest way for propaganda to be used as a weapon.
Turn the idiots against fact checking lol.
I can’t speak to whether this is a good movie or not, as I haven’t seen it yet. What I can notice is that the ‘Barbie’ IP appeals to a broad demographic, and every woman I know is planning on seeing this soon.
Strongly suspect Barbie movie’s success is due to good marketing, not alleged ‘wokeness’.
I think its success has more to do with how they’ve broadened the appeal of a Barbie movie by being critical of it in a way that feels honest and appeals to people that like Barbie as well as those that hate Barbie. I am not Barbie’s main demo nor have I ever been a fan of anything related to Barbie, but the buzz got me to skeptically see it opening weekend, and I was absolutely shocked at how much I enjoyed it from start to finish.
Writer/Director Greta Gerwig and producer Margot Robbie should get most of the credit for how the movie turned out, but Matel should get some credit too for allowing these women to embrace the complicated and flawed nature of the IP with the story that they have told.
Ribbit
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Ribbit
I don’t think I know what woke means anymore and really I hate this term. Can we call it enlightenment or something? I like to have my mind opened to new ideas/concepts or discussion of ideals that align with how society is it should be.
Sorry rant over. I’ll likely watch the movie when it’s available for home viewing. 👍
It is enlightenment. Literally a term from the early 1900s meaning awareness of racial injustice. It is just another term the conservative movement has turned into a dirty word through unrelenting coordinated media efforts.
Killing it means engaging them - so, enjoy that. Just ask things like “what does that mean?” And literally, about any of their dirty words. They don’t know what any of those words mean mostly because those aforementioned efforts rely on vagueness to be effective and any solid, consistent definition would weaken its power. So get them to define it. Then, repeat their definition back to them in terms that make them sounds as fucking stupid as they are.
fuckin libs bro, i can’t stop lusting after hot pink ryan gosling! this is what the left wants! THIS IS THE FUTURE IF YOU GO WOKE! WAIT!WHERE’S EVERYONE GOING? COME BACK!
Shitty movies with shitty marketing don’t make money, sure
The fact this is supposedly decent and is doing well has made conservatives so mad, I thought Obama just won a 3rd term
Conservatives have been buying tickets to the Qanon film Sound of Freedom but the theaters are empty. They are just buying tickets to make it appear people are seeing it. They are not.
That’s amusingly pathetic.
They were doing some thing of pay it forward garbage where they would get donations “so we can open the public eyes” and then buyout a theater showing, which no one was there.
You’ve surely got some sources to back up what you’re saying?
all theaters? like, there’s been no attendance at every showing? really?
I know nothing about this movie except that it’s apparently a fun time. Can someone please tell me what makes the Barbie Movie “woke” just for the sake of context?
It isn’t woke. Conservative critics misunderstood the movie. They’re complaining that it’s anti-motherhood (it’s not, it’s pro-), that it’s anti-male (it’s not, it properly recognizes men’s struggles), etc. But the discussion is surrounding the more political/gender norm themes of the movie which are quite openly stated and talked about (sexism, feminism, patriarchy, etc).
Without spoilers, they broadly bring up the idea that equality for the sexes isn’t in effect at present moment.
Because apparently telling children/girls that they can have independence, be anything they want, and recognizing womens struggles is woke
It also lampoons conservative culture of patriarchy.
Look man, my wife does whatever I tell her to. She was
groomedraised that way.You know how hard it is to be insecure AND lazy AND have a wife that wants to do crazy shit like “whatever she wants” or even evil communist shit like “get a job” or “talk to others without me listening in” or “disabling the GPS tracker I put on her phone”?
This movie helps drive her in that direction, then what am I supposed to do?
Haven’t seen the movie, but I’m planning to. I’m sure it’s fine. That said, as neutrally as I can I’ll try to define characteristics of a ‘woke’ movie.
If said in bad-faith, ‘woke’ means: “Something I don’t like because … women. Amirite.” (aka: A dog-whistle)
If said in good-faith ‘woke’ describes a way to write female characters in the laziest way possible. Some of the good-faith criticisms of wokeness:
- Gratuitous use of minority characters that have nothing to do with the plot, and perhaps don’t even make sense.
- Female protagonists start the movie being fairly competent at, well, everything. The main thing holding them back is a lack of belief in themselves.
- Men, even the ones supporting the protagonist, are generally portrayed as incompetent, ignorant, and biased. They age poorly, and have nothing to teach except to highlight how awesome the female character is. (See point #2)
- A weak story arc. Viewers are expected to appreciate the Strong Female Character as she realizes she’s awesome just the way she is, no real arc happens.
- ON EDIT: All the above are applied to movies based on established IP with existing cultural resonance. Original work is rarely criticized as ‘woke’. (Wish I had remembered to include this in the first place, rather than an after-the-fact ON EDIT.)
There are other points I could bring up, but these are some of the basics. One can have a fun ‘woke’ movie, one can have a crap non-woke movie.
And just so that I don’t get accused of being some closet misogynist, I’m going to provide two female characters that I consider 'woke, and two that are not so that a comparison can be made to illustrate above points:
Woke:
Galadriel - from Amazon’s ‘Rings of Power’
Rey - from Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Well written female characters:
Vi - from Arcane
Ripley - from Alien
Why is it woke when female or “minority” characters are this way but not when white male characters are this way? Your points describe the majority of movies featuring a male white protagonist.
And how is Galadriel not the way she is described in the original IP?
1 what’s gratuitous? More than 12% of the cast? A ratio that normally makes you clutch your pearls at the store?
2 happens in every male action movie ever made but it’s men being awesome. 3 has been every sitcom since the first sitcom (I hate 3 but conservatives have loved those shows for decades). And for 3, in men’s movies, the women were just props. I bet you love Planet Of the Apes. The man is super awesome and perfect and the woman is literally a pointless mute.
4 happens for movies with men, constantly.
Your examples are trash too. So Star Wars would have been just fine if Rey was Ray. Why?
You list Ripley but how is that different? If alien was made in 2019 you’d be saying the same shit
Your definition is if it’s like a man’s movie but a woman
Hello @Saneless I hope this reply finds you well.
Should make something clear: @DrMango asked “Can someone please tell me what makes the Barbie Movie woke”. I’m just doing my best to give a reasonably-neutral answer. I don’t necessarily agree with the attitude. (Although, I think I can appreciate it better than most who aren’t RWers.)
Also: I should have added bullet point #5:
**5. All the above are applied to established IP with existing cultural resonance. ** I regret I didn’t include it in the above list since it’s key to understanding the objections to ‘wokeness’ … but in my defense, this is a Lemmy thread - how much time should anyone put into anything on a minor Lemmy thread? ;-)
With that out of the way:
1 what’s gratuitous? More than 12% of the cast? A ratio that normally makes you clutch your pearls at the store?
It’s not a percentage … it’s when a character is cast based on virtue-signaling rather than what makes sense for the story or original IP. For example: A story set in Kamakura period, Japan shouldn’t have Native Americans in the back-ground drinking steins of beer. A character who is described in a book as a middle-aged British Victorian butler shouldn’t be a 20-something, lesbian, black woman.
2 happens in every male action movie ever made but it’s men being awesome.
Yes, there are examples of male characters being awesome out-of-the-gate. But I would submit that the ones that resonate are the ones that had to grow. These resonating characters & stories are what Hollywood studios are re-working in the laziest way possible. (One quick example: Skywalker had to grow into his role, Rey automatically understands everything.) It just seems that every new movie based on an established IP has to make the Strong Female Character good at anything.
4 happens for movies with men, constantly.
We’re talking about what makes something woke. Weak character and story arcs are a staple of wokeness, but not the only one.
You list Ripley but how is that different? If alien was made in 2019 you’d be saying the same shit
I disagree. Ripley, for the movies time, was an original character. Moreover: She made mistakes, grew as a person, and had a decent arc.
To wrap this up: ‘Woke’ is a synonym for lazy writing when applied to established IP - especially when pointing out the laziness opens one to accusations of misogyny.
Cheers!
When people accept something happening in a male character they do not accept in a female character that is at least sexist. If Rey was male perhaps there still would have been some whining, but the sheer amount of angry men tears online over Rey being too good is in part due to her being a woman.
I don’t think people accept it happening in a male character, in both cases it makes for a bad movie. The term woke is just so politically charged it doesn’t really apply to when it is a male character.
Heh.
Yes. There’s that.
And, at the same time, it’s also true that Hollywood has taken established IPs, re-written them in an incredibly lazy way, and then turned around and accused people who criticize the laziness as being assholes for pointing it out.
Can you give a few examples of which IPs have been “re-written”? Rey for example is the protagonist in the new Star Wars movies. They weren’t remakes of the old ones. And Galadriel was always that powerful.
Ghostbusters
I haven’t seen the movie, but I can blindly assume its either
- Common/traditional protagonists are now black for the sake of pleasing a “minority”
or
- Everyone is a “woman” and/or male characters with “lowlife” roles (thiefs, submissive to women, etc.)
Increased diversity in casting isn’t just to please a minority. Those of us in majority demographics also love seeing the demographics of real life reflected in media. Pushing the boundaries of what could/SHOULD have been is perfectly lovely.
As for your second paragraph: so it’s when women- led stories are like men’s stories have been since time immemorial.
It depicts women outside of a tradition Christian gender role of being barefoot in the kitchen, and can be used as a political weapon.
Can someone TL;DR what’s so controversial about this movie? All I know about it is that it’s about barbie, and it stars the lady from wolf of wall street. I can tell that trying to research it myself will not improve my life in any way.
It’s lightly criticizes and gleefully satires the real world’s patriarchal structure, so some people (the vast majority being right-leaning men) are saying it’s anti men and supports misandry. It definitely isn’t and doesn’t though.
Eh, I just watched it. From my perspective I see one major problem: it tries to criticize the same problem from two opposite angles which wind up just kinda undercutting each other, while either angle alone could have been pretty powerful, the de facto conclusion of the two together is basically misandry.
Spoilers:
spoiler
On the one hand, it presents a gender swapped matriarchy in Barbieland, where Barbies run the world and Kens are basically accessories. If the movie had stayed in Barbieland and focused on Ken’s self-actualization in a female-centric society, that could’ve been a poignant illustration of the opposite struggle in the real world, striking MRAs simultaneously with understanding and cognitive dissonance.
On the other, Ken brings patriarchy into Barbieland and the Barbies 1) are immediately brainwashed? (I don’t think the small pox analogy is sufficient to justify the fact that these doctors and supreme court justices just, decided to be brainwashed?) 2) decide these I guess inherently inferior Ken’s need to be overcome by manipulation? I’m sure this could’ve been turned into something, not as poignant or impressive as the gender-swap concept, but something for sure.
But the two taken together give a really mixed message. Gender subjugation is bad, but it’s okay to do it to men because they’re dumb and bad? Except the men here are metaphors for women in the real world, so is it right to subjugate women in the real world because they’d only just fuck everything up? Is the Kendom an allegory for patriarchy, or a gender-swapped allegory for feminism? Does that mean feminism is bad? We don’t ever get to see Ken actualize, we just see Barbie cut him off and he kinda vapidly goes away? And they conclude acknowledging that the Barbies are subjugating the Kens, so it’s not even like they’re saying women are more enlightened and egalitarian, just that men suck and should be subservient. Society doesn’t really improve, they just squashed the Keninist movement.
It seemed like they were trying to say “patriarchy bad”, but tried to do it by satiration through matriarchy, and also just playing it straight at the same time, which just came out as “men bad”. If they chose a lane, it could’ve stuck. But I just left kinda confused about what they were trying to say, other than a general vibe of “men bad”.
Well at the very end of the movie, Barbie chose to leave the system in it’s entirety. The movie has a revolutionary communist message, it’s saying true empowerment is impossible within the bounds of the system. It’s mocking the “more👏female👏executives” sentiment, just doing so in a way subtle enough the Hollywood financiers didn’t realize it.
The weird thing is, if they actually WATCHED the movie, it makes a strong point for mens rights.
Ken is an accessory to Barbie, he has no real life outside her, doesn’t even have his own house. As the film states, for Barbie, every day is the best day ever. For Ken? It’s only a good day when Barbie looks at him, and she often doesn’t because “every night is girls night.”
When Ken finds out the real world is not like that, he fills the void with “Patriarchy”. It’s an absolutely toxic reaction, but it’s hard to fault Ken for trying to find meaning for his existence and instead, slipping and falling down a red pill rabbit hole.
So you can see why disaffected men might feel attacked, Ken is a mirror to their own existence. Sidelined by women, powerless, and told their reaction is, ultimately, unhealthy and self-destructive, but they can’t see how else to react.
The main problem is Ken, and the real world men like Ken, aren’t presented with a socially acceptable alternative.
The end of the film ALMOST recognizes that Barbie’s Dream World and Ken’s “Kenergy” are equally toxic, but I expected a better conclusion where they realize it’s an inversion of the “real” world where women have been seen as accessories for decades, and the only real solution is true equality on both sides.
They don’t take it that far, it’s still Barbie’s world, the Kens just live in it, with token integrated positions for equality, for example, Kens get 1 position on the Barbie Supreme Court. Even in our admittedly imperfect world, the Supreme Court has 4 women on it (Kagan, Sotomayor, Barett, Brown-Jackson). You’d think they’d boost the Barbie supremes to 4 Kens, or at a minimum, 3+Allan.
You’re wrong.
spoiler
They get denied even one position on the supreme court, they get lower court appointments, which the Kens are fine with since it means they get to wear robes
You do realize that it paints barbieland in a negative light, right?
There’s a popular YouTuber called “the critical drinker” who recently posted a deranged rant on the film that sums up the “backlash” from these people.
I will never give that guy my views. Bad taste, bad faith, bad takes. Literally nothing to like there. I was addicted to my outrage, and this guy deals the most potent dose of idiocy you can snort
One complaint I have heard is that the resolution of the plot is the girls are back in power, where they could have provided a better message to the kids the film is aimed at by having neither Barbie nor Ken in power over the other
It is narrated, “eventually, the Kens would go on to have the same power in Barbieland that women have in the real world” (paraphrased). It’s basically kind of a joke and, perhaps more specifically, a reminder that positive change doesn’t happen overnight. I think it would be a bit… antithetical to spend the whole movie exploring the issues with a supposedly perfect system and then end by saying “okay we fixed it everything is perfect now”.
Barbie did well because Barbie dolls are incredibly popular and Ryan Gosling. Being woke or not being woke has nothing to do with the success.
Also Margot Robbie
You’re god damn right.
Let’s be honest people went to see Barbie because of sexy Ryan Gosling. That Gosling money.
Really? After all the work I did here?
