Was Ken a Victim? - Therapist Reacts! 

yes so true .... how much it meant to him

reminded me of Dobby and his socks

@@ZoraXire Right, that's it. Right in the feels!

I didn’t really noticed it too much the first time when I saw the movie (the cinema was so crowded and everyone was talking). But I just rewatched it with my aunt and we laughed so much at that scene.

I love how the film brings attention to the watches without outright pointing them out.

The fact that everyone in Barbie world seemed better off when the Kens were allowed to have actual value and respect speaks volumes of what a feminist agenda driven world would actually be like.

@@CdrChaoswow…you know, I actually find it quite impressive how one can completely misinterpret the meaning of a movie. Crazy mental gymnastics here, congrats

​@@nikitafilonenko7846nah he's obviously right, this is one of those times where satire fails and the joke is more attractive then the alternative presented

@johnmattison1209 Bro crying from his gamer chair

@@artorhen gamers are the most oppressed peoples. Gamers rise up against the Matriarchy!

Doesn't everyone want to be around horses? I kinda low key think the movie was making a case that the Barbie World needs horses. Just swap out patriarchy for horses and you've fixed everything.

@@rottensquid Yes, Barbie World needs horses, and more pets in general.

​@@rottensquidGive him a horse and he can ride into thesunset all by himself and still not be lonely.

I agree that it is horrifying and very sad. I would add that it's not only intended to be empowering, I think that part is just at the end, I think the majority of the movie is also a very blatant denounce about women situation in many periods of time and places. Not always, not everywhere, not every woman, for sure. But yes for many.

But Alan was created to be Ken’s best friend, and the Kens don’t acknowledge him at all.

@@gurun8071 Ken has two gripes. One is that Barbie doesn't love him. That doesn't get swept under the rug. He can't make her love him, and no one is entitled to someone else's love. That was made clear, so it was totally addressed. His other gripe is that the Kens don't get respect, because in Barbieland only the Barbies have real jobs. (They aren't really real jobs, of course, just titles.) When President Barbie is offered the chance to put things back exactly the way they were, she decides that the Kens should have some of the jobs. So that's not swept under the rug either. The narrator even says that someday the Kens will have just as much power as women have in the real world. What could be more fair than that? They didn't address the Kens' supposed homelessness, but the Kens never brought that up. I suppose they could build tenements, move the Kens there, and that problem would be solved instantly.

Yeah this movie really slaps you in the face with depictions of oppression that had me biting my pillow in stress for like 70% of the film.

@@riverstein7251yeah, tbh the way the Kens were treated throughout the movie reminds me of how women as a whole get treated in a lot of different time periods, countries and settings.

agreed

​@Ana-hb3ih women complain about men not protecting an providing but at the same time want to complain about the "patriarchy". You don't even know what that word means

4 REPLIES

@@BluEx22329 k.

@@BluEx22329patriarchy is when a society is almost completely controlled by men, the United States is not a patriarchal society as women are in many government positions that make big decisions such as the senate, men and women are in very important roles in the government. A matriarchal society is when the government is controlled almost entirely by women in which most older societies such as tribes and such are matriarchies. The separation of government by gender is not something I believe should be a thing though and I am a male

They are homeless because Ken's are just accessories for barbies

​@@adrianflipflop9054 Yes, but there's another layer to it. The Kens had no homes because the MEN in the boardroom made it that way. There's even an incredibly meta dimension to it because Greta and Ryan went to Mattel and asked if it would be okay to make t-shirts (like, "I am Kenough") for the cast and crew and they said they didn't want Barbie on the t-shirts but they could do anything they wanted with Ken. I think the board rep said, "Oh yeah, Ken doesn't matter".

​@@psychedelicpegasus7587girls toy focused on the girls aspect, how suprising

@@saltedcaramel88 CHILDREN, not women. So, you're blaming little girls for the stuff that is marketed to them by ADULT professional marketers? That's really weird, you know that right? When I was a little girl I wanted to play with my cousin's TMNT figurines and The Real Ghostbusters toys. I had a Barbie lunchbox (that I didn't choose btw) so I got some cheap Turtles transfers and stuck them all over it. Do you know why I couldn't have the toys I wanted? Because they weren't "girl's toys" in the girl's aisle. My cousin showed an interest in my mermaid dolls and it was worse for him because it was considered shameful for a boy to play with "girl's toys" and his parents definitely shamed him. Do you know who bullied me for playing with "boys" toys? Boys AND girls in my class. Why? Because of the marketing teams full of adults at these companies who went to UNIVERSITY to study how to manipulate consumers. It's their job. They put these categories in so they can sell more product. They manipulate parents, children and other adults, but only the kids have an excuse. I think it is morally reprehensible to advertise to children anyway.

@@psychedelicpegasus7587 when talking about toy mainly for girls, "what about the boys tho?". when it's the opposite it's crickets

The whole movie ultimately gets deep into existential questions of identity. Ken defined himself as Barbie's boyfriend, instead of just himself. And obviously, the Barbie World was set up to feed him that identity. But in the end, it was always his choice. Just like it was Barbie's choice to be human rather than a toy, to be the thinking rather than the idea. I think everyone goes through that, some kind of realization, conscious or unconscious, that who they are is their choice, not an extension of the world they live in, of the identity handed to them by that world.

I don't understand this abstract idea of being your name. what does it mean?

@@toitman2 My interpretation is that they functioned as if Ken was a title. Like an accessory to Barbie, like a car or a purse. A Ken. And the realization they had was that they are Ken like how she is Barbie. It’s not a role or a title, it’s who they are. That they have an identify of their own desperate Freon Barbie. So for me it was that Kens found the bringing they were looking for by realizing their worth and reclaiming their name. And the companionship they felt was missing and that only Barbie could fill could be filled with friendship from their fellow Kens.

Anywhere else he'd be a 10.

They are kenough

very nice he was very interesting as a char

I agree! I enjoy when characters and themes can be a springboard to important and/or informative conversations

Yes, that was exactly the intent of the film!

Masculinity is always healthy. Toxic masculinity doesn't exist, toxic BEHAVIOR does. We dont call women "toxic femininity" ever..whys that

That you've just turned your argument in to an 'us vs them' statement disproves your point. There IS toxic behavior specifically relating to women. You're not paying attention to that because it doesn't directly affect you.@@BluEx22329

"Why fix it when you can profit it" -Capitalist (most likely)

@@curiouswind9196being lonely is actually antirevolutionary so bro has to go to the gulag now.

@@DwynTwoif a single tweet made you write off the wellbeing off an entire group of people I just don’t think you were a very empathetic person to begin with.

@@DwynTwo someone's lonely, yikes.

@@Muggins1046this!

You can't force yourself to love somebody.

​@@GangstaStan010I don't think he minded that Barbie didn't love him, he just wanted her respect

He wanted somebody to care about and that's different from love. Everyone deserves to be cared for.

I don’t really think he really loved her but he was completely dependent on her for validation. I think Barbieland is just a satirical flip of the real world. When women didn’t have any rights, they were completely dependent on men which led to codependency in relationships.

Ken did nothing wrong

Yet drop the ball at the end when the status quo returns where Barbie's have all the power, but Ken's now have LITTLE autonomy as president Barbie basically spells it out.

The maker certainly wasn't trying to make that point XD

@ARuiz-eu3hk Change doesn’t happen overnight. And true equality is impossible to achieve. The best we can do is fight the power to make it as equal as we can. At least Barbieland is taking steps in the right direction.

​@@ARuiz-eu3hk it's meant to reflect the real world where men have most of the power and women only have a little-- and remember the real world is the whole world and not just USA. In Barbieland and the real world we need to work towards equality for everyone, there is no quick fix and "we ended sexism!". Girls having toys that let them be doctors, astronauts, presidents, etc. Can help reinforce the idea that women can do those jobs, which is very important when they don't see it around them. Similarly it's important for boys to see that they can also be teachers, nurses or stay at home dads-- that it's okay to cry and be emotional. If they had just let Barbies and Kens be equal in the end it would have sent a message of this is easy to fix, and unfortunately it hasn't been. We have more work to do.

@@colleenodriscoll8914 its not impossible its just improbable in todays world

I think it’s understandable because Ken has a deeply personal, emotional hurt. Women dealing with the patriarchy can have similar hurt but it’s just a different feeling. Ken felt worthless and unloved and disrespected by everyone. That’s such a hopeless feeling. The patriarchy doesn’t hurt my feelings it just pisses me off.

Because you're far smarter than the average Barbie viewer, or the director.

To be fair the monologue felt a bit forced

@@lilscenechick1995What is the patriarchy? We are a representative republic with women making a majority of the voting block, a class which also has more access to education and make a majority of consumer spending and debt. Honestly, we go out of our way to include women with quotas and safe spaces like exclusive restroom and sports. We are absolutely far form a patriarchal system, for the most part, nobody has any responsibility outside what they expect. The biggest driver is consumerism, which women dictate more then men. Even legally we are not patriarchal, due to women serving substantially less time for the same crimes as men, female pedos are essentially ignored. I’m genuinely confused, not trying to be rude. Nobody explains this too me outside of individual sexist behavior someone’s dealt with, but that’s definitely not systematic or governmental in any manner. The only really debatable thing I’ve notice was the abortion debate, which also goes into the deep concepts of life and spirituality.

​@@L16htW4rr10r Yeah, it's also predictable and too much tell than show. Ken's speech, on the other hand, talks less but with such visual richness.

So Ken is the actual protagonist of the film.

What’s a family?

​@@prouddegenerates9056 From my experience, family are the people who you let use you.

@@gurun8071Barbieland is interesting because while it’s supposed to mimic a depiction of human society it very clearly isn’t that. Instead it’s a depiction of how the young children that play with these dolls view society through the most fantastical idealized lens possible. Kids in playtime copy some things that are similar to real life, sure, but they’re not going to reenact reality perfectly because that’s no fun. More likely you’re going to see pretend milk, floating off roofs and down to the ground, dolls being awarded Nobel peace prizes and leadership positions and inventing crazy things without much backstory to it-it just happens because the kids _want_ it to happen and they want to skip to that point in the story. It’s a major plot point that all the dolls in Barbieland are being played with, and the children playing with them are the ones to imbibe their perspective and personality onto the Barbies, along with their wildest fantasies that, through playtime, are made true in Barbieland. That’s why a toy seen as something that primarily is given to little girls reflects back into barbieland as an oppressive matriarchy-it’s not that the little girls playing with their Barbies are being malicious, it’s that as young girls they are most interested in what other girls are doing without putting much thought to boys (they may even be in their “no boys allowed” girls vs boys phase), and they want to play pretend in a world where they are surrounded by super smart, pretty, amazing, powerful women and girls who are all in charge, and that is reflected into Barbieland. If Barbieland seems too simplistic, too black and white, with a tendency to not think about others, you’re correct-it’s literally a world run by the ideals of children, with a harsh bias for little girls! What this means as far as equality in barbieland is concerned is that the only dolls capable of critical thinking instead of accepting things at face value are the dolls that visited the real world and interacted with adults, stereotypical Barbie and Ken. That’s why when Ken explains the patriarchy to the Kens they accept it as the gospel truth and begin down a path of destruction, and when he explains patriarchy to the Barbies and insists all Kens/men are better than them, they crumble immediately and start trying to fill that role. The Kens in this instance represent little boys hearing patriarchal ideals for the first time and loving the idea of being superior to everyone else even to the detriment of the people around them, and the Barbies represent little girls hearing patriarchal ideals and being pressured to fill oppressive gender roles, perhaps thinking that’s the only viable option for them now if they’re not given a different choice. Everyone falls in line and isn’t able to escape until the reality of the system they’ve fallen into and how it’s harmful is stated-only then can they realize “hey, I DONT have to be this”. That is the Barbies’ first introduction to nuance, and the first time they can maybe see that what they’ve been doing to the Kens is bad, because they were literally just in that position. Similarly, young kids often have to be taught empathy through a “put yourself in their shoes, would you like how you’re being treated over this thing?” kind of exercise. Sometimes it works, but it often needs a lot of practice and nudging. Kids learn these skills slowly, and they change slowly. You can argue that all people change slowly too, that too fast of a change is likely to be rejected as a shock to the system. That’s why for Barbieland to proceed and to even start towards equality, it needed to be returned to a familiar state of matriarchal Barbie rule, and then the Barbies _might_ start to consider handing over their power to the Kens slowly over time. We saw some of that change like the President agreeing to make a court of Ken judges, and the narrator say “the Kens have to start somewhere, and maybe one day they’ll have as much power as women do in the real world.” It’s a nod that change will come, but it will be as slow as the Women’s equal rights movement was in the real world, because although this is a doll society and anything can happen at the drop of a hat, everything about them is derived from humanity itself. It’s absolutely not satisfying, but it keeps with the theme of what Barbieland is supposed to be-a mirror of the hearts and minds of people in the real world, oftentimes people as impressionable and stubborn as children. Perhaps now that all the dolls in barbieland have interacted with a human adult instead of strictly having kid influence, they can grow to think like one too. At least that’s what I got from the ending of the movie.

@@gurun8071sorry in advance for the essay, but Barbieland as a concept is quite a complicated metaphor

As someone who had been in an abusive relationship I can relate to being my ex girlfriends's emotional punching bag because of how her ex cheated and verbally abused her. One thing a therapist told me is that just because my ex also had a traumatic childhood experience as I have l, that doesn't justify her lashing out at others.

@@Chill-mm4pn Oof. That's rough.

thank you

@@GeorgiaDow don’t mention it

It's Ryan Gosling. Women would be clubbing each other for the chance.

@@freman007 but we're talking about Ken

@@freman007Yep. Hence they Lyric ‘Anywhere else I’d be a ten, but I’m just ken’

The fact barbie and Ken aren’t together makes NO SENSEE to me 😭 it’s barbie and Ken, they are married, barbie loves Ken and Ken supports barbie always… I hate that the movie broke them up

​@bellabyers2929 it’s MIND BOGGLING! they’re THE doll couple, and they were forced apart... they barely had screen time after they got to the human world? it’s suddenly ... Barbie cares more about random humans than her own bf!!!

Thanks for this comment, I think this topic of disadvantages of patriarchy for men is importat to point out. Also, I think we sometimes share similar struggles, like what you said about competition. I, as a woman, have felt just like that with other women, just as you describe men to men competition. Reading your comment reminds me that the system fails many people and we should push back together, not apart.

​@@gurun8071 Do you have sources for those statistics?

​​@@ekuu8918I would like to see the statistics as well. Maybe I can someeeeewhat agree if in recent days where women have more choices, but in the past, I don't think many women have a say on who they can marry etc (depends on the countries of course)

No other man is my competition, I am without equal.

Ken very clearly lives in a matriarchy. Your interpretation is delusional.

not the victim, the tragic hero

​@@christopherroberts7293tragic villain maybe

@@lavenderbambi3501 hero*. The villains where the ones who where emotionally manipulating the Kens, love. Ken may have had his flaws but he never acted with malicious intent to gain political power over an oppressed population

@@christopherroberts7293 they weren't manipulating, barbie staright up told him she doesn't want him in her dream house, that it's gonna be girl's night forever, she didn't ask him to go to the real world either. He saw how opressed women were irl and took that to the barbie land bc a girl didn't like him like that 💀 his intent was to create opressed population, pretty malicious. He made barbies their servants, at least barbies left kens alone

Alan was the real victim.

Most thoughtful interpretation ever. I did not get that "trying to be like Barbie" thing when first viewing the movie, but it does make sense.

Yes! This!!

Certified Ken moment

Wait, Barbie is running a Fight Club?

Wait what? There is Barbie animated series?

Ken is also asexual; but his unrequited feelings might also make Ken aromantic.

It's just how the script is written, basically making Barbie the hard to get man, and Ken is the desperate chasing female.. ..flipping stereotypical roles and pretending it's something bold and new.. ..its a female power fantasy.. .."ooh, imagine if Ryan gosling wanted me that bad and I didn't even care because I had sooo many options" .. toxic femininity

Actually, I'd say Barbie is aromantic, while Ken is very much not, or at least, if Ken is Aro he's been convinced by the Barbie land society into thinking he needs to be romantically attracted to Barbie.

Barbie gave me so much AroAce vibes

The message would have more strenght if Kens were able to own property...

Right! It should be less about abandoning your hobbies and ambitions, but spending more time with yourself, discovering and adhering to your personal values and goals and how you can navigate that journey ❤

Telling snother person how to be himself is gaslighting and an instant red flag imo. I had older siblings who would tell me in a "loving well meaning voice" that "i need to stop listening to metal and like more sophisticated things", telling me that my hobbies and interests aren't really "authentic". This takes the power away from the person, and establishes a dynamic where the gaslighters gets to define how the other person should be. Telling another person that "those things aren't really you" is disgusting and manipulative. Other people have no business in trying to define what it means to be yourself for someone else. That is just narcissistic.

No, but Ken identified himself over those things. First he identified himself over Barbie, then over his property, and both times he didn't ask himself who he really was. It was absolutely neccessary for him to hear that from Barbie. Maybe he doesn't even like the Gym- he's free now to explore that now that it's not his identity anymore.

I'm a woman on the spectrum. it is hard

I don't know about that, I've seen a few streams and the number of people at camp who'll ask the player character to sleep with them in a span of 20 minutes is a bit unrealistic, usually to the streamer's annoyance as they want to avoid things getting too spicy for Twitch.

That would take her over 100 hours of watching let's plays, not sure it's worth it.

Yes! I would love to see her analysis of all of the companion characters. I love Astarion and his journey but all of the characters are deeply wounded and need healing.

@@TheBayzentshe could always watch just the specific characters scenes. I saw one of Astarion and it was around five hours long. Still a chunk of time but not as bad as playing the game completely through

I’m just Ken and I’m Enough, and I’m great at doing stuff it’s what keeps me going

Well it didn't go back to where things were. There were some immediate changes with the door open for more to change over time.

​​@@Dakarai_Knighti really wish we saw that change happen in a time jump of some kind because with how the kens were treated I wish we could see this equal world they wefe striving towards

@@fox7378 I mean not necessarily equal. They said as much power as women have in the real world and we aren't exactly at parity yet. Hopefully one day soon. Vestiges of old systems and individuals with antiquated beliefs can only hold us back for so long.

​@@Dakarai_Knightif you expect 100% perfect equity between men and women, that won't happen, because men and women are different, and make different choices. As for rights, at least in the US, we have equal rights.

​@@Dakarai_KnightI want you to look two things up for me. 1) the gender breakdown of the Mattel board of directors, and 2) the gender breakdown of the supreme Court.

Yeah I don't remember teenage girls being like that when I was in school. I remember them being self absorbed narcissists, just like barbie.

This assumes a vacuum otherwise. It ignores the boys raised being told they are bad their whole lives by all the women around them. To ignore that effect on young boys, and the various responses to it, is to deliberately ignore important factors. People forget women raise boys and influence them too, not just men... "The patriarchy" isn't to blame for a boy who acts bad and was raised primarily by women.

It's sad that people still believe in silly myths like patriarchy

'Start drinking the patriarchy juice' I hope you never have a son

The middle east has a patriarchy, the west does not. Promotion of the patriarchy does more harm to gender relations than benefits, unless you also examine the negatives of a matriarchy?

​@@iamnotyu5548I find it particularly funny how so many women didn't realise the 'real world' in this movie is also a fantasy world.

@@gurun8071 Which is how it is in the real world too.

​@@gurun8071"a movie with a female target audience focused on women's issues but not men's issues!" Look, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but movies can't encompass every theme, they pick a handful. The men weren't the point of the film, their inclusion and framing was entirely as a device to reflect the experiences of women under patriarchy irl. The barbies, while having male-typical positions of power, weren't symbolically men, they were just women with power. Having them experience the male experience would have been an entirely different movie concept that would, in the end, just distract from and muddy the issue the creators were trying to comment on by addressing too many parallel themes, like changing too many variables in a science experiment, eventually you lose sight of which one is causing a change in outcome. What you're asking for is a different movie

Really happy its what I hope for

In Ken's "patriarchy" both the Kens and Barbies were happy. That was a unique event in their history. So of course a man hating feminist had to destroy their happiness.

they even had homes. when the barbies took over agein, all the kens became homeless. yay woman.

This sounds interesting! Do you know whether it has also been adapted into a movie?

Berserk is awesome, but do we *really* wanna put Georgia through the Golden Age Arc?

@@msaoichan aa hard as it is yes, beacuse i know she can make and awsome video on the characters

You're the only one with common sense

She's literally his girlfriend. What you're saying is women are not obligated to show affection to those they're in relationships with. She only ever uses him for what she wants and then ignores him. This is textbook emotional abuse, and you're defending it.

@@PhoenixLord777 people should stop calling everything negative abuse because it minimizes actual abuse. Barbie never intimidated him or made him feel like he couldn’t leave, and her actions made it obvious that she barely saw him as a friend. If my significant other never wanted to go on dates, never invited me to his house, and never said anything affectionate to me, I would eventually catch on and leave, because that isn’t a real relationship. He could have easily broke up with her if his needs weren’t being met (and they weren’t)

When adults experience an existential crisis, when the sense of security formerly provided by their adult roles in society falls away, they often fall back on childhood identities - it's almost a default place to go to. It makes sense that this can look like something of a second puberty when they try to figure out a new role for them because the old one doesn't fit anymore.

Not even sure what was so different about them. Is Roller skating not a thing anymore? Their outfits seem no different than what anyone might wear, especially in LA.

The 'real world' was also not real. The matrix references are not exactly subtle. Of course it's not realistic, it's what a feminist would believe would really happen.

So are you

its a mix, the broad strokes are mirrored to the 1600s and moves to the 1800s at the end. the closest points are a woman's view on men, a very bad view on men. but ryan saves it like a boss and while its a childish view on men from the view point of women(kinda fits since its barbie) it's actually the best part of the movie.

And yet the analogy falls completely flat when the average guy remembers feeling like ken.