🇺🇸 Barbie's Blockbuster

Good morning, and happy Wednesday. This stepdad made good on a long-held promise to his stepdaughter after playing her and her daughter’s birthdates in the lotto.

Plus, a furry invasion of rabbits has descended on a South Florida community. How are the recovery efforts going?

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Right: Biden Scandal Is Heating Up, the Public Is Not 'Moving On' Jonathan Turley, NY Post

Right: Operation Get Trump Roger Kimball, The Spectator

Right: Dems Value Free Speech Far Less Than GOP Dennis Prager, Townhall

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World: Atlantic Ocean currents system could collapse this century from climate change (The Hill)

World: China replaces foreign minister after month-long absence from public view (Axios)

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CULTURE

Barbie’s Blockbuster

Over the weekend, Barbie claimed the top box office spot with a massive $155 million in ticket sales from North American theaters from 4,243 locations, surpassing The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the biggest opening of the year and breaking the first weekend record for a film directed by a woman.

Reporting from the Left: In the beginning, there was Barbie (Vox)

Reporting from the Right: Critics hype 'Barbie' as a stunning 'takedown' of toxic masculinity and 'a master's thesis on feminism' (Fox News)

From The Flag: In its opening weekend, the film garnered positive commercial and critical reception. However, in the lead up to the film’s premiere and after, the film has been met with both praise and criticism. Here’s what both sides are saying.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

A Triumph for Feminism and Inclusion

• The film deftly reckons with the iconic doll’s complicated and controversial history, putting forth an empowering, feminist story.

• Fox News has elevated an anti-LGBT criticism of the film that highlights the film’s inclusive casting of a transgender actor.

• Barbie succeeded despite the right accusing it of being “trans propaganda,” “Chinese propaganda,” “brainwashing,” and “woke.”

Barbie Is a Delight of Improbable Proportions Dana Stevens, Slate: “Are audiences meant to cheer on the empowered girlboss exploits of the live-action embodiment of a now 64-year-old fashion doll? Or, on the contrary, should we be critiquing the male gaze–driven industrial economy that made generations of little girls believe that the highest achievement of adult womanhood was an anatomically impossible waist-hip ratio? Yes, yes, and yes, responds Barbie: This movie is for you. You, the fashion-fixated tweenager. You, the stereotype-dismantling student of pop culture. You, the Barbie-neutral film fan just looking to be entertained. But can any one movie be all those things at once? Gerwig’s answer to that conundrum is to serve up a multilayered concoction that’s as busy as a fully accessorized Dreamhouse: an earnest feminist manifesto inside a barbed social satire inside an effervescent musical comedy, all designed in colors and textures so sumptuous they make 1950s Technicolor look desaturated.”

Fox is elevating this very bad 'Barbie' take Marisa Kabas, MSNBC: “A 275-word blurb on a Christian film review site titled ‘WARNING: DON’T TAKE YOUR DAUGHTER TO BARBIE’ would most likely have gone unnoticed had it not been for Fox News’ celebration of the moral panicky take. Much of [its] anti-LGBTQ sentiment stems from the casting of trans actor Hari Nef as ‘Doctor Barbie’... In a land of pure pink-hued fantasy, this was somehow a bridge too far. Right-wing sites like Breitbart and The Daily Signal disparaged her casting, and commentators like Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin purposely misgendered her. To them, Barbie is a cisgender, heterosexual woman, and any suggestion otherwise threatens to break their fragile world views. ….The inclusive casting is a direct result of Mattel’s objective of making Barbie more representative, not just the vision of some liberal Hollywood director: Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz told CNBC last year that the company very intentionally brought on Gerwig to create a fresh vision of Barbie based on the new brand direction…”

One more opinion piece from the Left: ‘Barbie’ breaks box-office records while crushing right-wing outrage Dean Obeidallah, CNN

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

More of Hollywood’s “Woke” Agenda

• This is not the feminist triumph the director claims it is, and instead presents a shallow view of womanhood that amounts to nothing.

• The film may be visually pleasant to look at, but the script is merely an opportunity to criticize the “patriarchy” and other perceived social ills.

• A Christian film review site warns that the film ignores its core audience of families and children in favor of a “woke” agenda.

The sad, shallow world of Barbie Madeline Fry Schultz, Washington Examiner: “In an interview, Gerwig described the film as feminist insofar as it explores ‘what is the negotiation of what women need to be and how to give them something other than a tightrope to walk on.’ We’re told, repeatedly over the course of two hours, that being a woman is hard. But beyond a final grasp at choice feminism — women should be whatever they want to be, whether that means a mother or an astronaut or both! — viewers are not offered much of a path forward. As for any idea of what’s good about being a woman, forget about it.Barbie echoes a shallow view of womanhood often perpetuated by transgender ideologues, who fetishize the trials of femaleness (periods, catcalls, sexism in general) while imagining the beauty of womanhood as no more than a doll’s costume to put on or off.”

‘Barbie’ Review: Beyond Her Ken Kyle Smith, The Wall Street Journal: “Amid many multicultural iterations of Barbie, there’s also one who uses a wheelchair and another who is overweight, plus many accomplished career women—scientists, politicians and so on. The central Barbie, played by Margot Robbie in a role that was seemingly waiting for her, is ‘Stereotypical Barbie’—the sparkly but brainless basic version who exists mainly to look pretty. … Feminist enlightenment follows, but while Barbie is discovering herself, Ken learns that real society is male-dominated and uses the lesson to turn Barbieland into the Kendom—a bro paradise of brewskis and weight lifting. In his ideal state, ‘Everything exists to expand and elevate the presence of men.’ Spot the joke? I don’t. ‘Barbie’ contains more swipes at ‘the patriarchy’ than a year’s worth of Ms. magazine. … As bubbly as the film appears, its script is like a grumpier-than-average women’s studies seminar.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Warning: Don’t take your daughter to barbie Movieguide Staff, Movieguide

FLAG THIS

The “Barbenheimer” Showdown

With the simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer over the weekend, a survey gave some insight into who’s going to watch these movies.

10% of American adults say they plan to only watch Barbie. 11% say they will only watch Oppenheimer. 14% of the surveyed adults intend to watch both features.

Barbie fans are more likely to be women and Oppenheimer fans are more likely to be men. However, Barbie draws more fans of the opposite gender — 54% women and 46% men — than can be said of Oppenheimer — 39% women and 61% men. (YouGov)

FLAG FINDS

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WATERCOOLER

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