Gender Wars

 

When Warner Bros Pictures produced the Barbie Movie, I can only think of one thing such as
profit as the end game. The company does not care where these profits come from, ever thought
of by their young girls. I guess whatever the company can sell and gain profit from their
figurative doll and movie regardless of young girls as their customers. They continue to market
towards them.

Ideally, in Barbie’s doll world, Barbie is the ideal feminine figure who achieved so much in her world. Barbie has and owns everything in pink (pink dresses, shoes, pink clothes, pink cars, and pink house, etc.) Barbie defied the patriarchal norms in our human world where males are the breadwinners of our (real) society. In a play world, Barbie’s success might put a lot of pressure on girls in general if girls choose and fantasize Barbie as their role model. In our real world, we can see many successful female figures such as CEOs, vice presidents, lawyers, doctors, and engineers, etc. Despite Barbie’s success, Handler (1959), did not allow Barbie to get married. As Ruth Handler stated (1994), “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.” Girls can be in any profession if they set their mind to it and work hard towards it.

I believe that Christiansen would validate my views of these culture wars. That is, if we look at Disney and Warner Bros, they are the entertainment companies for profits regardless of what genders, nationalities, and religions they throw under the buses. Most of these movies and shows are biased toward minorities and most of the time misrepresent minorities’ success. Their end game is to make and market toward young audiences and minorities which they can easily manipulate and cater to. As far as the movies or shows are concerned, I did not grow up watching them much besides PBS station or Hallmark programs.