{"id":1987458,"date":"2023-08-01T03:30:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T07:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-secret-to-barbies-success-is-nature\/"},"modified":"2023-08-01T03:34:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T07:34:37","slug":"the-secret-to-barbies-success-is-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-secret-to-barbies-success-is-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature is the key to Barbie&#8217;s success."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-secret-to-barbies-success-is-nature%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1987458&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<p><strong>\u201cMan! I Feel Like A Woman\u201d<\/strong> is more literal than people realize. \u2064Shania Twain, who wrote the lyrics to\u200b a riff from her ex-husband Mutt Lange,\u200d says the\u200b song was at least \u200bpartially inspired\u2063 by the \u200bdrag queens of mid-\u201980s Ontario. Twain also insists the song is\u2063 a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smoothradio.com\/features\/the-story-of\/man-i-feel-like-a-woman-shania-twain-lyrics-meaning\/\">rebuke<\/a> of dour feminists who see women\u2019s glass as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-secret-to-barbies-success-is-nature\/\" title=\"Nature is the key to Barbie's success.\">perpetually half empty<\/a>. <\/p>\n<h2>Understanding Barbie<\/h2>\n<p>Maybe it is. \u201cBarbie\u201d\u2063 \u2014\u2062 both doll\u2063 and movie \u2014 is at\u200b least trying to understand. <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>As Camille Paglia wrote\u2063 in her introductory essay\u2062 to<em> Sexual Personae<\/em>, \u201cArt\u2064 is form struggling \u200dto\u200c wake from the nightmare of nature.\u201d This is Barbie: genitally smooth,\u2064 briefly pregnant, curvaceous and petite all at once.\u2064 (I\u2019ll take her\u2062 just \u2063as seriously as \u200cher detractors.) Greta Gerwig\u2019s \u200dfilm reflects that ambiguity to great effect. It\u2019s neither \u200dgood nor bad. It\u2019s just funny. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3>Paglia&#8217;s Influence<\/h3>\n<p>Paglia \u200cis precisely the right thinker to consult. <em>Sexual Personae<\/em> \u200ccongealed over the course \u2063of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mass-infighting-brings-progressive-activist-groups-to-a-standstill\/\" title=\"Mass Infighting Brings Progressive Activist Groups to a Standstill\">mid-\u201960s<\/a>, was finished\u200b in \u20631980, and finally published in 1990. Barbie\u200b dolls first hit shelves in 1959.\u200c By the time Paglia began\u200d poking holes in the anti-humanism of \u200bfeminism\u2019s emergent consensus, women\u2064 were entering <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2021\/11\/08\/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">colleges<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2017\/01\/31\/women-may-never-make-up-half-of-the-u-s-workforce\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">workplaces<\/a> \u2064 at historic rates that upended \u200csexual politics in less than\u200b one generation. <\/p>\n<p>Barbie came along for the ride, morphing into\u2063 new \u2064and progressive identities but always retaining her \u200dbeauty. In \u2062Gerwig\u2019s \u206321st-century hands, Barbie could be president, she could be disabled, she could \u200beven be a \u200dman. <\/p>\n<p>This is \u2063not all\u200d that different from the incoherence Paglia\u2064 writes about in\u200c Western art. \u200bIt\u2019s\u2064 our\u2062 struggle to transcend nature. <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Gerwig\u2019s film is predicated on the hilarity \u2064of innate sex \u2064differences. She\u2063 mocks Mattel for \u200bdiscontinuing a pregnant Barbie and allows America Ferrera to find purpose in motherhood. Ken\u2019s Mojo \u2062Dojo Casa House jokingly needs disinfecting \u2064to be \u2064converted back into a\u2062 Dreamhouse.\u200c There would be no point in going on \u200b\u2014 nearly \u200bevery laugh line in \u201cBarbie\u201d relies on the\u200d audience\u2019s understanding that men\u200b and women are different. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3>The Power \u200cof Women<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cWoman\u2019s current advance in society \u200bis not a voyage from myth to truth but from myth to \u200dnew myth,\u201d observed Paglia in \u200dthe midst of sexual upheaval. \u201cThe rise of rational, technological woman \u200dmay demand the repression\u2063 of unpleasant archetypal realities.\u201d Those realities are\u200c identified by \u2063the author as\u200b menstruation, pregnancy, vaginas, and more. Barbie is\u200d liberated from all \u2062of these inconveniences, \u200bfree to\u2062 go to \u200cspace or serve\u200c on the Supreme Court. But\u2064 she\u2019s still wrapped in pink, and she still has breasts. <\/p>\n<p>Ken, as the narrator says, does not have a good day\u200b until he\u2019s noticed by Barbie. Why? It\u2019s ultimately\u2064 women\u2019s validation that leads to procreation.\u200d This dynamic is resolved by Barbie realizing after returning \u200dfrom the\u2062 Real World that she took Ken for\u200c granted. Paglia\u2019s critiques\u2064 of feminism always place women in the driver\u2019s seat of history for\u200c this\u200d reason. They\u2019re \u2063not the powerless victims of leftist lore. They are \u2064the \u200dmysteries man works \u2062all his life to crack. <\/p>\n<p>Which is, of course, very funny.\u2062 It\u2019s impossible to blame anyone for going into the movie with the expectation it would reflect that leftist lore more than\u2062 the \u200dtruth. Perhaps that explains why the script fell flat with some right-leaning critics. But \u201cBarbie\u2019s\u201d second week at\u2064 the box office \u2062was\u2064 stronger than \u200c\u201cOppenheimer\u2019s\u201d \u200cfirst. It\u2019s one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2023\/07\/31\/barbie-box-office-record-second-weekend\">most<\/a> successful week-two runs \u2063in \u200bhistory. That is to say, people like it. And\u200c people \u2064don\u2019t \u200clike woke content,\u2063 which is\u200d why it\u2019s almost \u200dalways a commercial failure. <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cBarbie\u201d just isn\u2019t\u2064 what the hyper-political minds of online punditry expected. \u2063It\u2019s hardly \u2064perfect. The\u2063 male bashing is a little gratuitous. But the \u200cco-ed writing team of Gerwig and Noah Baumbach capture Barbie and capitalist, post-industrial\u2062 America\u2019s very real struggle \u2063against \u200bnature without exactly taking\u200d a side. Men can be women, but\u200d women still have \u200cto make gynecology appointments. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3>The Thrust of the Western Pursuit<\/h3>\n<p>It\u2019s a \u200cdangerous sense of \u2062indecision but \u2062it\u2019s \u200cone of which the film is almost\u2064 unaware, as is the case with contemporary feminism\u2019s inability \u2063to grapple with, for \u200dinstance, TERF-dom. The overarching theme of \u200bBarbie does not belong to a \u2063<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aliens-have-visited-america-and-this-is-what-they-saw\/\" title=\"Aliens spotted in America, here's what they witnessed.\">political \u2063party<\/a> or \u2062cause. We\u2019d be kidding ourselves \u2063to \u200cthink even most mainstream conservatives want, for\u2063 instance, a \u200dworkforce closed to women, a repealed 19th Amendment, or male-only \u200bcredit cards. As\u2063 Paglia says, \u201cWe must honor\u2062 the chthonian but not necessarily yield to it.\u201d This is the thrust of the Western pursuit. <\/p>\n<p>Some \u200dargue that devolves inevitably \u2062into high-tech, genderless dystopia. \u200cOthers, correctly as I see \u200cit, argue this will always be a tug-of-war \u200bbetween tech and nature, with\u200c tech at an often invisible, but important, disadvantage. <\/p>\n<p>Gerwig and Baumbach \u200dcan\u2019t\u200b quite\u2063 commit to the \u2062genderless dystopia of progressive fantasies. <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIn a \u200dtotalitarian future that has removed procreation from woman\u2019s\u200b hands, \u2062there \u200dwill also be no affect and no art,\u201d wrote\u200d Paglia. \u201cMen will be machines, without pain \u200dbut also without pleasure. Imagination has a price, which we are paying every \u2063day. There is no\u200d escape from the biologic chains that bind us.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>While this is\u200c certainly \u200ca prescient vision of \u2063a \u2062world molded \u2063by \u2062postmodern androgyny, it is not the world \u200cof Barbie \u2064Land. \u2063We all know, as Paglia\u200c articulates, \u201cthe \u2063sexes are caught in a\u200d comedy of historical indebtedness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMan can feel like a woman.\u200d He can \u200bnever be her. That\u2019s the\u200d joke,\u200b and it\u2064 will always be funny.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Man! I Feel Like A Woman&#8221; holds a deeper meaning. Shania Twain, the songwriter, drew inspiration from drag queens in mid-&#8217;80s Ontario. She clarifies that the song also challenges somber feminists who overlook women&#8217;s empowerment. Twain&#8217;s lyrics, derived from her ex-husband Mutt Lange&#8217;s riff, carry a more literal significance than commonly perceived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":554,"featured_media":1987459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1987458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/554"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1987458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1987459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1987458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1987458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1987458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}