Lebanon, once thought of as among the most liberal parts of the Middle East, is poised to ban global hit movie “Barbie.” More conservative Kuwait said Wednesday that it had gone ahead with a ban due to its promotion of homosexuality.
Maybe I’m desensitized, but I honestly don’t remember any gay moments in this movie. There are obviously plenty of guys wearing really “flamboyant” outfits, but it was contrasted with their toxic masculinity (i.e. behavior mostly associated with the types of people who actually tend to be homophobic), which is what made it so goddamn funny.
And I also have no idea what they’re talking about with promoting body transformation. Unless you know going in that the one actress is trans, you might not even guess she is. The main joke that even references genitalia is making fun of the fact that the Barbie and Ken dolls have nothing there…
And all this is beside the point anyway. Modern societies shouldn’t be catering to the precious feefees of religious/conservative snowflakes. They can just choose not to see this movie instead of ruining it for everyone.
I also have no idea what they’re talking about with promoting body transformation
Well, there is the
spoiler
last line in the movie
I saw it in the trailer too but just in case, upcoming spoiler: maybe the whole beaching each other off scene? I can’t think of any others besides that, which if it is the one, then that’s kind of funny in a ridiculous way.
Good point, but I feel like they could probably just translate that scene without having the innuendo (like the direct translation for “beach off” probably doesn’t sound anything like the translation of “beat off”, so it would become more of a whimsical non sequitur directly translated).
I think there’s a fair amount in this movie that doesn’t really translate well outside American/Western culture anyway. For me, that scene was funny because it’s repeating a pun that points to the Ken characters’ innocence when in the real world, they’d be mocked mercilessly by some people. And it forces the audience to think about their own reactions when insecure straight men sometimes follow sentences like that jokingly with, “no homo,” to point out that, despite unintentionally saying something that sounded kind of gay, they are not in fact gay. At any rate, I don’t see this scene as an endorsement of homosexuality, but rather a commentary on society’s fixation on hypermasculine language.
