My 43-Minute Reaction to Ben Shapiro's 43 Minute Barbie Reaction Video

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Non-Obligatory Thoughts on Ben Shapiro

I thought about titling this post, ‘Obligatory Thoughts on Barbie,’ except, of course, basically no thoughts have ever been obligatory, and definitely not any about Barbie. Furthermore, I don’t really want to talk about Barbie, a movie I thought was good but not great. It was really fun, and the performances were excellent, but sometimes the plot was a little too silly, and also, it suffered from the same problem as 99.6% of all movies—no Jesse Eisenberg. Which was particularly egregious in this case, as it had the perfect role for him, filled by an actor who’s been compared to him thousands—if not millions—of times (Ryan Gosling).

No, I want to talk about Ben Shapiro. Over the weekend, Ben went to go see Barbie (so embarrassing….it’s literally a movie for girls) and hated it so much that he released a 43-minute reaction video that has a literal (literal) capitalized word in the title.

Now, for conflict-of-interest reasons, I can’t speak about Ben Shapiro without disclosing that he once posted one of my New Yorker stories (with the caption “possibly the least funny thing I’ve ever read”), and it was the single greatest follower-bump I’d received up to that point. So, if you think I’m being too kind to Ben Shapiro, I’ll admit I am biased.

OKAY SO…let’s get into it. My reaction to Ben Shapiro’s reaction video (also—spoilers for Barbie ahead). I didn’t actually film this, so I’ll just go take-by-take:

• First, he says he’s going to review Barbie in the most “Oppenheimer way possible” by lighting a trash can on fire. My main takeaway is that this is how atomic bombs work. I haven’t seen Oppenheimer, so I don’t know otherwise.

• Then, he says he’s going to be thinking about how bad Barbie is on his death bed, which may be the truest thing he’s ever said. Dude holds a grudge.

• Throughout the review, he seemed to take the movie very literally. One recurring complaint is that the plot is unrealistic. This is completely false. Every single event in the movie happens every single day in real life, including but not limited to: the part where Barbie is a real human person, the part set in Barbieland, the part where she’s able to fly, the lack of traffic in LA. It’s the most realistic movie any of us have ever seen. In all honesty, I think Ben might have been expecting a historical film about the creation of Barbie.

• He then calls this one of the most boring movies he’s ever seen. I, too, make 43-minute reaction videos to everything that bores me.

• He next claims it’s not an appropriate movie for 7-year-old girls because there are a lot of references to genitals. Fair. Personally, if I had a 7-year-old child, I would never take them to any movie that might risk having Ben Shapiro in its audience.

• Then, he says it’s inconsistent that Barbie is supposed to be stupid, but also knows what fascists are. Fascists aren’t really that hard of a concept—in recent years, in fact, we’ve been gifted any number of real-world examples to clarify what they are, for anyone who was confused.

• He then says the politics of Barbieland make no sense, because women outnumber men, so they’re not at risk of losing control of their constitution (this is a plot point). He’s right. A voting system in which the majority of people can vote for, say, a presidential candidate, but then…the other presidential candidate gets to be president…that makes no sense.

• He then says Will Ferrell’s plot line is completely gratuitous, which I agreed with. The performance was fun though.

• He also says Noah Baumbach is obsessed with showing the viewer how smart he is, which…I also agree with.

I made it through about 25 minutes of his review, even though my flight was delayed two hours (I decided I could spend the remaining 95 minutes on cat videos, much better). So sorry. I’ll cover the last 18 minutes on Premium, if you subscribe.

Overall, Ben’s main complaint is that Barbie is anti-male. Well, of course he’d think that—he’s a man! Silly.

But this is one I’m hearing a lot about Barbie, and I must address it. The movie is not anti-male. For one thing, it depicts men as hot, which is generous. In all seriousness, I found it pretty empathetic towards the plight of the modern male. Ken exhibits a comically-extreme form of a problem so many men face—they don’t know how to be. And we’re at a moment in society where men’s roles are shifting fast—of course they’re confused! The movie is critical of men, sure, but also acknowledges their struggle in a very touching way.

I also think Ben Shapiro might fundamentally misunderstand what a movie is, because he says that sure, mothers will take their kids to see Barbie once, but when they see how bad it is, they…won’t take them again. Okay, Ben, you got us there.

The Other News I Hope You Missed

Twitter is now X, which makes sense, as “X” is math for “I have no fucking clue.” The company has rebranded; Elon wants us to start banking through Twitter. I love this idea. It’s the ultimate way to soothe myself in the face of all my worst financial decisions. "Yes, I took money out of my 401k to get my teeth whitened—not even my front two teeth, two of my molars—but at least I don’t bank with Twitter.”

But Threads—which I’ve always thought was like Twitter if Twitter took CBD (exactly the same)—isn’t doing great either. It’s usership is down, which could just be the logical deflation after the launch. Or it could be that it imported followers from Instagram, and it turns out people don’t want their friends & loved ones to know their actual thoughts on things. Turns out, your cousin with the adorable babies is a flat-earther, and that’s why you stopped using Facebook in the first place. Good news is I just heard AOL is about to release its own Twitter-killer.

Thanks for being here. If this newsletter brings a short quick smile to your face, or even a long, lugubrious smile, I’d love it if you recommended it to your similarly dumb-news-obsessed friends (dumb modifying “news”!! Not “friends'“!!!). Or signed up for Premium.

xox

Ginny