Spoilers Ahead for Barbie
The Barbie movie is an absurdist masterpiece, an art film given a giant budget, and one of the greatest things I have ever seen in a theater. It’s also a terrifying depiction of how “nice guys” get radicalized into violent misogyny movements.
In Barbieland, the Barbies control everything, and the Kens are mostly ornamental accessories. The film’s main Ken (Ryan Gosling) accompanies Barbie (Margot Robbie) to the real world to find out why Barbie is having existential crises. Along the way, Ken sees what a world entirely dedicated to male supremacy looks like and becomes enamored of the flood of self-respect he suddenly feels. He returns to Barbieland with a handful of patriarchal texts, and he quickly re-organizes the community into a stereotypical bro-ocracy.
And also horses. It’s a wild flick.
Minus the magic journey on a snowmobile between the two planes of existence, this is a pretty accurate depiction of how and why regular men fall down the rabbit hole of chauvinist gurus like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson. Ken’s newfound male supremacy may be cartoonish, but it’s also familiar.
There is a need in every human person to feel connected to something larger than themselves. Call it an evolutionary leftover from the days when we were just ape tribes who were more interested in making sure everyone had enough bananas than personal wealth. This ache for a meaning that transcends the individual is as important a need as regular old loneliness, but we don’t tend to think of it that way.
After years of studying (and being targeted by) online extremist groups, I can definitely say that young men are not seeing this need fulfilled. People who are dying of spiritual thirst are easy targets for anything that makes them feel bigger. Whether you name it Men’s Rights or Western Chauvinism, it’s very appealing to men who are adrift.
There’s a quote by the famous anti-fascist journalist Suzanne Thompson in her piece “Who Goes Nazi?” It described fascists and Ken perfectly.
“His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.”
Modern masculinity is almost antithetical to the type of spiritual nurturing that keeps someone safe from cults. It’s highly driven by consumerism and status symbols that are increasingly unaffordable in late stage capitalism. Asserting masculinity involves fast cars, big paychecks, and stylish clothes. As I’ve pointed out before, a person’s entire identity can quickly become wrapped up in the entertainment owned objects. When those objects become unobtainable because of stagnant wage growth, it becomes an attack on a person’s very identity.
This is one of the reasons NFTs went the way they did. As Dan Olson chronicles in Line Goes Up, the NFT/Crypto community was dominated by these tech bros with good jobs who eagerly threw in their lot with the first thing that made them feel like they were part of a movement. It was a lifestyle cult as much as it was a collection of pyramid schemes, and adherents defend it even as their badly drawn cartoons digital currencies flounder.
You see this in gym culture, MMA, raw meat fads, and a myriad of other scams. These young men know they don’t feel powerful. They’re afraid and can tell something is lacking. Misogynistic online communities offer an immediate balm to their souls. Since patriarchy is baked into existence, all it takes is a little bit of guided sexism and a young man suddenly has the confidence he needs to pretend to be in charge. Because the world is set up the way it is, society tends to let him pretend.
It’s all a façade, though. Ken realized in the end his problem was that he insisted Barbie define him, just like incels insist their stereotypical “Stacies” provide them with sex and intimacy no matter what. Patriarchy has always taught men that whatever problems they had were probably women’s fault, and nothing makes a man feel more like an angel than a devil to slay.
Until men learn to cultivate a healthy spiritual life outside of both patriarchy and a woman’s regard, they will remain easy to sway into manosphere cults. Ken spent half a day being deferred to, and he was drunk with power like Orson Welles. Even when he took total control, he was empty. The relief from anxiety was temporary, like giving a starving person candy.
One of the taglines of the film is “He’s just Ken.” The movie jokes that he doesn’t even have a job. His designator is “beach.” Like a lot of young men, he doesn’t know who he is, and he was afraid to find out in case what he was ended up being less than his wildest dreams. Men are told they can rule the world, then other men make that impossible. All that’s left is to face reality and find meaning in it or blame women. The latter is a sweet, hard, and immediate high. Ken got addicted, and his meat world counterparts do as well.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
