Invoice Maher Hated the “Barbie” Film for the Stupidest Doable Purpose

Today, Invoice Maher could be discovered spending giant chunks of his valuable airtime evaluating the “woke revolution” to communism, so it shouldn’t precisely come as a shock that he didn’t benefit from the Barbie film’s tackle feminism and the methods wherein all of us endure below patriarchy, no matter our gender. However the comic’s foremost purpose for disliking the film is maybe a little bit extra surprising: he merely doesn’t assume patriarchy exists anymore.

On Monday, after taking within the Greta Gerwig movie with an unnamed “lady in her 30s,” the 67-year-old Maher posted a evaluation of Barbie to the social media platform previously often known as Twitter.

“OK, ‘Barbie’: I hoped it wouldn’t be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie – alas, it was all three,” he wrote. “What’s a Zombie Lie? One thing that by no means was true, however sure individuals refuse to cease saying it (tax cuts for the wealthy enhance revenues, e.g.); OR one thing that USED to be true however not is, however sure individuals faux it’s nonetheless true. “Barbie” is this sort of #ZombieLie.”

“Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Proper as much as the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white males! The Patriarchy! Besides there’s a Mattel board in actual life, and it’s 7 males and 5 girls,” he continued. “OK, not excellent even-steven, however not the best way the board IN THE MOVIE – which takes place in 2023 – is portrayed. And probably not any longer deserving of the phrase ‘patriarchy.’ Sure, there was one, and remnants of it stay – however this film is so 2000-LATE. At one level the Barbies need to win over the Kens, and they’re informed to do it by pretending to behave helpless and never know tips on how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown referred to as, she needs her premise again. Sure, that WAS a factor. I noticed ‘Barbie’ with a lady in her 30s who mentioned, ‘I don’t know a single lady of any age who would act like that at present.’”

“I do know, I do know, ‘How may I do know concerning the patriarchy, I AM a person!’ That argument is so outdated and so foolish,” he concluded. “After all, none of us can know precisely what others undergo life, however I can see the world round me, and I can learn information. The actual Mattel board is a reasonably shut mirror of the nation, the place 45% of the 449 board seats stuffed final 12 months in Fortune 500 corporations have been girls. Fact is, I’m not the one who’s out of step – I’m dwelling within the 12 months we’re dwelling in. Barbie is enjoyable, I loved it – however it IS a #ZombieLie. And individuals who don’t associate with zombie lies didn’t take some pink tablet – simply staying true to CURRENT actuality. Let’s reside within the 12 months we’re dwelling in! Hello Ken!!!”

Oh boy. Hear that, girls? Patriarchy’s over! We did it! Roe v. Wade stays the regulation of the land, girls throughout the nation have bodily autonomy, we’re all receiving equal pay for equal work, and — oops, I’m being informed none of that’s true and we truly reside in hell.

To start with, as Rolling Stone factors out, “[Maher] seems to have misinterpret (or intentionally misinterpreted) a latest report commissioned by Deloitte and the Alliance for Board Variety concluding that 46.5% of board seats in Fortune 100 corporations have been made up of girls and minorities (not simply girls). Of all Fortune 500 corporations, the report concluded that solely 22% of board seats got to girls and minorities, whereas 78% of board seats within the Fortune 500 have been held by white males.”

However even when we give Maher the good thing about the doubt and assume he wasn’t intentionally misinterpreting that information, are we alleged to take 5 out of 12 Mattel board members or 45% of board seats in any firm, Fortune 500 or not, being girls as proof that we’re not at present dwelling in a patriarchy? Does he actually assume dwelling in a barely much less male-dominated society is identical factor as dwelling in a world freed from sexism?

After all, it’s no shock that Maher, who famously had no feminine writers in anyway engaged on his present till very lately, isn’t precisely an knowledgeable in relation to gender parity. However perhaps he ought to’ve requested his 30-something-year-old film date for a hipper pop cultural reference than “so 2000-LATE” to make in his anti-Barbie screed. Nothing says “I’m an outdated, out-of-touch white man” fairly like calling another person irrelevant and out-of-step with the zeitgeist by quoting the 2009 Black Eyed Peas tune “Growth Growth Pow.” Yikes.