Fergus Finlay: What is it with Barbie that has some men in such a tizzy?

I’ve nothing against him, of course, and I’ve always found him polite and civilised in arguments. But I can’t think of a single thing we’ve ever agreed about.

David Quinn, that is. Director of The Iona Institute, defender of the faith, and public arbiter of all things moral and decent.

And Catholic, don’t forget Catholic.

But he did force me into it. He forced me to go and see Barbie .

Barbie wasn’t on my bucket list, not one of the movies I’d be most attracted to.

Oppenheimer, yes definitely — one of those movies that are enthralling in themselves and force you to go straight home and start reading, so you can figure out the relationships and motivations you didn’t fully get as you were sucked into the story. Barbie, not so much I’m afraid.

But then I read a piece by David in another newspaper after he had been apparently asked by his boss to go and see the film.

He seemed wounded, hurt almost, by the experience. You can tell from the headline on his piece that this was, in his view, a dangerous night’s work.

“Are you a man? Well you’re either a lecherous creep or emasculated eye candy according to the sexist, bleak movie that is Barbie”.

That was the headline (and he used the same language in the piece).

And to make matters worse, he was surrounded in the cinema by hordes of young women.

By his account, the oldest of them was born in 1997, which would make her 26, and the youngest in 2012, so about 11.

Gen Z women, he called them (women and girls?).

Distressing experience

It does sound like a really distressing experience for him. (I wonder what all those young women thought of the oul fella in their midst, ageing by the minute as the brutal sexist awfulness of Barbie unfolded?)

I admit that when I read David’s piece my heart went out to him. But then I did a bit more reading and discovered that thankfully, he wasn’t alone. 

No less a figure than the American senator Ted Cruz has attacked the movie, although on a slightly different basis — he apparently believes that in addition to emasculating men, the movie also supports China’s political claim to a contested portion of the South China Sea!

But all across the American right, Barbie has been found guilty of the ultimate crime, the crime for which there can be no redemption. It’s woke.

There’s something called a “Christian movie review site” (MovieGuide is its name) that according to CNN warns parents against taking their daughters to the movie. I was so intrigued that I went to the site, where indeed Barbie merits a special section all to itself.

The summary of a very long review, to be fair, says that although Barbie contains some “abhorrent, objectionable content”, MovieGuide rates it as "excessive and unacceptable, not totally evil”.

Other American commentators aren’t putting up with that sort of milk-and-water language.

Charlie Kirk (you can look him up yourself) devoted his radio show to calling the movie “trans propaganda” and “the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen”.

Another one, Ben Shapiro, actually burned a Barbie doll in effigy — the smell must have been horrific.

There was only one thing for it. I was going to have to go see this movie myself, to figure out what the fuss was. My missus and one of our closest friends came along to protect me from the Gen-Z crowd, whatever that is. If you want to apply demographic slang to us, we’re baby boomers.

That is to say, we’re of a certain age, it takes us longer to get in and out of our chairs, and we prefer ice cream to popcorn (it’s a denture thing in my case).

Before the lights went down, and we had to brace ourselves for the movie, I checked.

The cinema was full — men in the minority for sure, but not that much. All ages were represented. So we settled into our seats and let the horror begin.

And when it was over, and I had stopped chuckling, and we had all remarked at how beautifully made it all was, I had only one thought in my head.

I don’t have David Quinn’s phone number, but if it was handy at the time, I’d have texted him to say just one thing. Heavens above David, but you’re sad.

I don’t know how you missed it David but Barbie is a brilliantly entertaining satire. It turns stereotypes on their heads and makes us smile at how absurd they are.

It pokes fun — lots of fun, and yes, serious fun — at corporatism and old-fashioned role models. It reverses those roles, but to make a serious point.

If you’ll forgive a couple of woke cliches, David, it’s empowering and inclusive. It makes a villain out of no one, but would, I suspect, be genuinely inspiring to a lot of girls and younger women — and boys too, I’d hope.

In fact, every young person I know who has seen it has loved it.

Yes, the women are beautiful, sparky, bright, and sometimes insecure. They want to be themselves and they object to being treated as second best.

The men are all handsome, full of themselves, and a bit dim.

The women have lived full and independent lives, but the men want them back in their place so that they (the men) can be cock of the walk.

Emasculation

One of the phrases that occurs over and over again in the, let’s say, ‘conservative’ criticism of Barbie is the reference to all the men being emasculated.

That’s a fascinating word. My much-valued dictionary, the 8th edition of the Concise Oxford, carries this definition on page 380 — “deprived of force or vigour, made feeble or ineffective”.

And then a second definition. “Castrated.” Of course. I get it now. Or at least it’s starting to get a bit clearer.

If women get ideas above their station — they want to be a judge or an astronaut and don’t want to be ruled by men — that doesn’t just mean they want equality.

It must mean they pose an existential threat to men — the kind of threat that could even lead to valuable bits being cut off.

No wonder then that it’s necessary to be frightened of a funny movie with lots of pink outfits.