go watch Barbie

I am Kenough.

Also, props to Allan???

He's a doll most people have never heard of. He got discontinued forever ago cause he was perceived as gay by consumers and they didn't like that.

But I love that he had an actual role in Barbie. He was very queer coded, yeah, but he didn't like when all the Kens turned to Patriarchy. He was so uncomfortable that he wanted to abandon Barbieland all together. He knew it was wrong.

And then he helped the Barbies get themselves back. He had a pink jumpsuit and sunglasses and went out all stealthy to get the Barbies in the van. He even voted at the end to keep the constitution the way it was.

Big Allan fan over here.

sorry ur boyfriend got brainwashed by the patriarchy. yeah he thought that it meant horses run everything. sorry.

i feel like everyone's really glossing over the fact that allan canonically killed someone. there is a doll IN CANON with a kill count. i love him

Some things about Allan:

He’s the only one who reacts to the narrator

He’s the only doll (besides the Weird House) who isn’t swayed in some way by Ken’s takeover

He also declares himself as “Ken's buddy" (making canon his official box description) which makes his inability to be swayed more interesting

He has bendable legs (probably the only reason he tries to jump the fence instead of going around like everyone else)

He easily decked a half-dozen construction Kens and could probably singlehandedly win the Ken fight

He seems to know more about the real world than most Barbies

He knows what NSYNC is 

He knows about other Allan copies living in the real world (I’m trying to figure out if he made this up to convince the humans he can live in the real world, but even if he did, how does he know what NSYNC is???)

There are no other Allan models

this was the only thing i thought about during his conversation with barbie

Barbie (2023) + the internet

bonus:

The Barbie movie: The Ken's need to find who they are outside of pursuing Barbies, a clear allegory for how real life men should not define themselves by trying to attract a partner and building their personality around that, something that would be healthier and better for them overall

Misogynists: barbie movie is so anti-men :(( how could they do this :((((

how i thought i would feel walking out of the theater:

how i actually felt:

One thing I appreciate about Barbie was the emphasis on age.

I was emotional when Barbie told the old woman how beautiful she was, and when Ruth came in and helped her become human.

It was also the fact that America Ferrera was the one having the crisis that caused Barbie to do the same.

The whole concept of the toy doesn't end in childhood. Cause she is an idea; Barbie is forever. She's everything. She's meant to inspire women to keep going for what they dream. You don't age out of these ideas, they grow with you, just like how Margot Robbie grew with America Ferrera.

I loved it when the Barbie movie was like.. "this Barbie is having an existential crisis right now and she's supposed to look kinda ugly to reflect that, but we hired Margot Robbie so.. y'know, use your imagination"

I can’t stop thinking about how perfectly Barbie portrays girlhood and growing up… How you’re born in a perfect pink world, where you make the rules and get to prioritise whimsies and friendship and beauty, and then you notice something has changed, you discover that something is wrong with you, and you’re offered an illusion of choice, but even if you’d rather keep wearing your heels and go home and be safe and comfortable, you have to choose the Birkenstock, you have to leave your home, you have to grow up. So you’re thrust into this gritty, unfeeling world, where you’re scrutinised and suppressed, where you want to disappear into yourself, because everything is harsh and big and you are tiny and fragile and inadequate. And as overwhelming and impossible as it seems, you survive it. You find truth in the things you believed in when you were young, the inherent good in humanity, connection and love; your friends who look at you while you are crying, and tell you that they cannot imagine what it is that you do not like about yourself.

The Ken dance is so magnificent because it’s reminiscent of the Golden Age of Musicals when there would just be artful dance sequences for no reason other than the director wanted to have one.

I've seen a lot of people talking about how Barbie talks about how the patriarchy affects women and how well it does that, so I wanna talk about how Barbie talks about how the patriarchy affects men and how well it does that. Because it does that really well tbh.

At the beginning of the movie, it's made very clear that the Kens are constantly competing with each other, and trying to prove their worth, their Ken-ness, to both the Barbies, and more importantly, to the other Kens. In fact, multiple times through the movie it's shown that Ken seems to find the opinions of other Kens as a motivator for him to do things. He tries to show off to Barbie only after he sees the other Kens saying hi to her. He only starts dancing with Barbie when he sees the other Kens dancing with her. He only goes with her to the Real World after another Ken accuses him of cowardice and he decides to prove him wrong. Barbie says "Ken's not cool!" and Ken responds "He is to me."

This shows so damn well what the patriarchy is like for men. Because for the Kens it's not necessarily about Barbie, it's about what other Kens think of you. Being a man you are constantly, incessantly trying so damn hard to prove to the other men around you that you are a man, the manliest man to ever man, the best Ken to ever Ken. Literally doing backflips trying to prove yourself. And this is before patriarchy is even officially introduced to the story, there's no undertone of power yet, this is just what it's like to be a man around other men. It's toxic masculinity.

And when the patriarchy is introduced, that's increased tenfold. At first it looks like they've banded together to take power, but really they're still competing with each other, they're just doing it differently. Rather than competing to see who can get Barbie to fall in love with them, they're competing to see who can be the manliest, have the manliest stuff, wear the manliest clothes, have the manliest house and decorations.

And then they literally go to war. War is considered one of the few places where it's socially accepted for men to be more emotional, form deep and personal bonds with other men, and that's exactly what happens in the movie. They go to war, and there's an entire song where they bond and learn not to fight with each other anymore.

And that I think is the message from the Kens. For men, the way the patriarchy affects them is it forces constant competition and animosity, even around people that are supposed to be your friends. It makes it impossible to express your feelings unless they're with a romantic partner, and all of this turns you into a pent up ball of emotions with nowhere to go.

Which means that the message is: In order to fix the way the patriarchy oppresses men, men need to learn how to form close bonds with people, especially other men. Because like Barbie said to Ken, he needs to discover who he is without her. Men have learned to lean on women as a crutch, using them to figure out how to Be A Person and express emotions in a healthy way, but this can very quickly turn into a woman feeling like she needs too be his mother and teach him how to do these things. And Ken was 100% doing this, or at least he was trying to throughout the movie. Ken was so desperate for Barbie to be in love with him, not necessarily because he loved her, but because he needed a person he could just exist as himself around. Because he couldn't do that with the other Kens, the only person he could be himself around was Barbie.

And what's so great about the end of the movie is that the Kens did eventually figure out how to form close bonds with each other! They went to war, argued and fought, but by the end of the song they were holding hands, kissing each other on the cheek, telling each other they were enough. Even when Ken is up in the dreamhouse, crying and saying that he looks stupid, all the other Kens start shouting back up to him, saying that he looks cool. And Ken responds by giving one of his new friends his coat, which was clearly very important to him.

What the Kens did, that's what men in the real world need to do. They need to form close bonds with other men and stop competing with each other. Hopefully not by going to war the way the Kens did, Barbie isn't a blueprint for solving the patriarchy lol.

I'd be happy to do it through a song though.