9 months ago
40
The anti-woke right wing thought it would flex some post-Bud Light brouhaha muscles by taking down the “Barbie” movie. This did not come off looking like a show of strength for them, to say the least.
After all the Fox News and Newsmax segments attacking the movie before it hit theaters, after Rep. Matt Gaetz’s wife Ginger complaining of “Disappointingly low T from Ken,” and after the criticism on right-wing movie review sites, the movie is an enormous hit. “Barbie” had the biggest opening of the year at the domestic box office, and the biggest opening weekend ever for a movie directed by a woman.
Ben Shapiro dedicated a 43-minute video to trashing the movie, calling it “one of the most woke movies I have ever seen” and urging his followers to downrate the movie if they were polled by market research firm CinemaScore. “Barbie” has an A rating at CinemaScore. Following widespread mockery of his video, Shapiro returned to claim, “The reaction to me burning a Barbie car with, like, a Barbie and Ken in it is like the reaction of the Islamic world when someone burns a Quran in Sweden.” No, Ben: People were making fun of you. There’s a difference.
It was a full far-right pile-on. Alt-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec called it a “man-hating Woke propaganda fest” and “possibly the most anti-male film ever made.” Far-right social media site owner Elon Musk claimed that if “you take a shot every time Barbie says the word ‘patriarchy’, you will pass out before the movie ends.” They really, really wanted to show they could leave a mark on a major Hollywood movie centering on an iconic corporate product. But it turns out they have less sway over “Barbie” than Bud Light.
