‘Barbie’ highlights for men who don’t want to watch it

livemint.com:

I am an expert in men and I wish to explain the Barbie movie to men who do not wish to watch it but would like to talk about it. When I went to watch Barbie, wearing grey, I expected to be the only man in the theatre. I was, because I am usually right.

But there were three adolescent boys, too, who stained an otherwise fine prediction. They were with their girlfriends, who may have dragged them along. I do not recall a film that is so widely perceived by men as something that is meant only for women.

Even straight men who have enjoyed Bridgerton and Downtown Abbey have stayed away from Barbie. I had faith in it because it is directed by Greta Gerwig, who made Lady Bird. First, it is important to note that Barbie is a doll that girls like, one that adult women today used to adore when they were girls, with some exceptions who always let you know they never liked Barbie; it’s like how people who went to Harvard find a way to let you know the fact.

The first Barbie doll was a theoretically perfect blonde beauty who irritated some women. The complaint was that Barbie “set impossible beauty standards for girls," which means Barbie made girls want to be like her who then felt bad because they couldn’t. This is humanities nonsense and one of the great absurd misreadings of how humans think, but it succeeded anyhow.

Stereotypical Barbie became so despised that Mattel Inc was forced to come up with diverse Barbies, including an African-American Barbie, over-weight Barbie and even a pregnant Barbie. And the modern Barbies were all “career women." At this point, you may want to know what the synopsis of the film is, even though there are few things as meaningless as the synopsis of a film. Here it is, in any case: Barbie is about