In China, ‘Barbie’ triggers heated discussions on patriarchy and feminism
Greta Gerwig’s "Barbie" has drawn heaps of praise from Chinese female moviegoers, who applaud it for its strong feminist message, with some recommending it to other women as a “test” for their male partners’ thoughts on gender-related issues.
While Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s satirical, live-action take on Mattel’s iconic doll, conquered North American box offices in its opening weekend and had an impressive debut in other parts of the world, the pink-saturated fantasia was off to an underwhelming start at the Chinese box office, trailing behind several domestic films that were granted more screenings in local cinemas.
Although it was less of a cultural phenomenon in China than it was in the U.S. — where legions of pink-clad moviegoers swarmed theaters and a slick marketing campaign is in full swing — the film still managed to generate a notable amount of discussion on Chinese social media.
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On popular Chinese film review site Douban, Barbie currently has more than 210,000 reviews and an admirable rating of 8.6 out of 10. The majority of the comments are positive, with many pointing to its feminist message as a highlight. “It was the best moviegoing experience I’ve had in a while. I saw it in a theater packed full of women and we were completely on the same page when laughing at things we could relate to. Greta Gerwig is such a genius to make a blockbuster that tackles serious issues like patriarchy and capitalism,” a Douban user from Sichuan wrote. Another female viewer from Jiangsu, who gave Barbie five stars, said, “As Chinese women, we don’t get a lot of opportunities to go to the cinema and watch something made almost entirely from a female perspective.”
Some fans of the film mocked those who criticized it for being anti-men and too feminist. In a Weibo post that has received more than 310,000 likes, its creator shared a selection of negative reviews about the film on Douban, writing, “I’ve told you guys that some people would freak out over the film and my prediction was right.” In a screenshot included in the post, a Douban review says, “This film promotes problematic values. Women already have too much power now. What else do they want? We are living in a feminist society at the moment!” Another comment states, “Feminism is a cult. This is trashy propaganda.”
“Seeing these men lose their minds over Barbie just makes me like the film more,” a female Weibo user responded to the backlash, while another person wrote, “Rather than preaching ideologies, this film is a comedy for the most part. It’s not even that radical. But this is still too much for some men to take. This is hilarious!”
On Chinese social media, there has been a slew of posts about men walking out of Barbie screenings in displeasure. “I went to see Barbie with a girlfriend yesterday and a man was so offended that he stormed out of the theater. It’s crazy how a film could trigger such a dramatic reaction from him!” a Xiaohongshu user wrote. “I saw several men who went to see the film with their girlfriends and had their headphones on throughout the screening. Some even left before the screening ended,” another woman wrote, adding that these reactions “enhanced the satirical nature” of the film.
According to Chinese online movie-ticketing agency Maoyan, Barbie earned a modest 50 million yuan ($6.95 million) between Friday and Sunday in China, concluding its opening weekend in fifth place in the world’s second-largest movie market. With its global weekend competitor Oppenheimer — Christopher Nolan’s biographical thriller film about the inventor of the atomic bomb — absent in Chinese movie theaters for now, Barbie lost to homegrown historical fantasy The Creation of the Gods, which took the box office crown with 700 million yuan ($97.4 million) in ticket sales, and Chinese animated film Chang An, which was in its third weekend of release and has grossed 1.1 billion yuan ($153 million).
As concepts like sexism and patriarchy reached a growing cohort of educated, young Chinese women and prompted them to rally around a mounting list of concerns, China’s feminist movement has made significant strides in the past decade, creating one of the most impactful #MeToo movements in Asia. However, despite the progress, feminism remains a contentious subject in today’s China, with the government frequently censoring discussions about gender-related issues on the internet and anti-feminists harassing those whom they see as radical men-haters.
The misogyny-fueled pushback against Barbie, however, is not a uniquely Chinese response. In the U.S., a handful of famous conservatives have complained about the film being too “woke,” a term used to describe anything the right doesn’t like or understand. Ben Shapiro, the popular conservative commentator, set fire to Barbie dolls while ranting about the film in a 43-minute video. Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy lashed out at the film in a news segment on Sunday, complaining that “the left has given Barbie a complete feminist makeover” and dubbing the film “just another indoctrination vehicle.”
Looking for a new angle to criticize Barbie, Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas slammed the film for showing a map of disputed territories in the South China Sea that appears to favor China and got it banned in Vietnam. “This is Chinese communist propaganda,” Cruz said in a recent interview, despite the map only appearing in the film for a split second.
