(LifeSiteNews) — Conservatives are spreading the word about details contained in the highly anticipated “Barbie” movie, warning the public that the film includes LGBT and feminist narratives.
A gender-confused man portraying a female doctor and overarching themes that belittle men in the name of gender equality are some of the concerns raised by conservatives ahead of the July 21 release date.
The film is based on the wildly popular fashion doll Barbie, which was originally released over 60 years ago by the American toy manufacturer Mattel. In the first live-action interpretation of the dolls, the main characters — a Barbie accompanied by male counterpart Ken — leave the safety of “Barbie Land” and venture out into “the real world” on a self-discovery mission.
The movie is categorized as a comedy, fantasy and adventure and is rated PG-13 (parental guidance suggested for children under age 13). Conservatives, however, have gone a step beyond this general age recommendation, emphasizing left-wing content that may not be at the forefront of parents’ minds when their daughters ask them to see a movie depicting their favorite toy.
Normalizing transgenderism
In a June 29 Twitter post, Daily Signal reporter Mary Margaret Olohan repeated the fact that a self-identified “transgender” actor would portray a female doctor in the film, despite being a biological male.
“There’s a TON of hype around this movie,” Olohan pointed out, adding that the gender-confused actor “is well aware of the impact that a biological man playing a female Barbie will have.”
BARBIE releases July 21. There’s a TON of hype around this movie. What you may have missed: it includes a biologically male actor who identifies as a woman playing a female doctor. @harinef is well aware of the impact that a biological man playing a female Barbie will have ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/4uNa0PClkc
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) June 29, 2023
Olohan referred to an April 4 post by the actor — who goes by the name Hari Nef — in which he announced he would play a female doctor in the upcoming film. Nef reportedly wrote to the director and requested certain scheduling changes to enable him to be able to take the role. In his previous post — shared again by Olohan — Nef shared a piece of the letter.
“Identity politics and cinema aren’t my favorite combination, but the name BARBIE looms large over every American woman,” he wrote. “Barbie’s the standard; she’s The Girl; she’s certainly THE doll.”
Nef added that he and his “other transgender girlfriends” refer to themselves as “the dolls,” ironically noting that “underneath the word ‘doll’ is the shape of a woman who is not quite a woman — recognizable as such, but still a fake.”
“’Doll’ is fraught, glamorous; she is, and she isn’t. We call ourselves ‘the dolls’ in the face of everything we know we are, never will be, and hope to be. We yell the word because the word matters. And no doll matters more than Barbie.”
But Nef isn’t the only person intent on sending a promotional message of gender ideology through the film. Director Greta Gerwig told the LGBT magazine Out that “we are opening the doors to the Barbie universe” with the movie.
“There’s no way we could have told this story without bringing in the LGBTQ+ [sic] community, and it was important for us to represent the diversity that Mattel has created with all of the different Barbies and Kens that exist today,” she said.
Three of the project’s actors, including Nef, have also been featured on the cover of the magazine’s latest issue and described as “the LGBTQ+ dolls of Barbie.” Actress Alexandra Shipp self-identifies as “queer” and actor Scott Evans as gay.
Belittling men and traditional gender roles
On top of the LGBT themes, the “Barbie” movie is also inundated with feminist narratives. As sarcastically noted by Daily Wire co-founder and podcast host Ben Shapiro, “we need another movie saying men are unnecessary in society — because that’s worked out amazingly well for feminism over the course of the last 50 years, in which women, by every metric, are unhappier than they were in the 1970s.”
During a recent episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” the conservative host commented on an interview wherein “Barbie” actresses discussed the left-wing message the film sends about gender roles. Specifically, Shapiro reacted to a statement made by Kate McKinnon, who declared that “gender roles deny people half of their humanity.”
He promptly rejected “the notion that women ought to be feminine and men ought to be masculine … as a general expectation … denies people.”
Kate McKinnon’s interview about the Barbie movie proves it is just another movie saying men are unnecessary in society. pic.twitter.com/Y2GPi8bhIR
— The Ben Shapiro Show (@BenShapiroShow) June 29, 2023
“You know what denies people their humanity? Not allowing them to be what they are. Women are feminine. Men are masculine. Telling them that women ought to be masculine and men ought to be feminine is absurd.”
Shapiro also pointed out that the determination to portray the men in the film as supporting characters wasn’t necessary, as “Ken was always an afterthought” next to Barbie.
McKinnon, who also stars in the film, has openly shared her lesbian lifestyle for years.
‘It’s not for kids’
A conservative mother and writer who uses the pseudonym Peachy Keenan told Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk last week that she was originally excited for the “Barbie” movie but “had no idea” the LGBT themes that were present. After seeing a cover story in Time Magazine that featured the gender-confused Nef posing as a female, Keenan dug deeper and found that the film had been given a PG-13 rating and inserted a “dirty sex joke” in its official trailer.
“I was kind of prepared for Barbie as the feminine girl boss escaping her dream life for the real world … but I was really surprised to see a man as a Barbie,” she said. “I’m not afraid a transgender woman — in other words, a biological man in a dress — is going to molest my children, is a pedophile necessarily, [but] it’s really about psychological grooming.”
Keenan explained that taking her 7-year-old daughter to see the “Barbie” movie could easily lead to the child later realizing that one of the female characters “was actually a boy,” and that such impersonation could be justified as reality by not being able to tell the difference between the male and female actors.
“But that is sort of psychologically grooming them to accept it, to think it’s totally fine, completely normal, and that little boys can, in fact, grow up to be female Barbie dolls,” Keenan added. “It’s not for kids.”
Though the most recent example, this is not the first time that gender ideology has been pushed on children through Barbie dolls. As LifeSiteNews has reported over the years, the manufacturer Mattel has caved to left-wing agendas through accessories promoting gay “marriage” and entertained the idea of creating same sex couple toy sets. In 2019, the company launched a line of so-called “gender inclusive” dolls with a ”transgender” figure following in 2022.
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