"Barbie" spent the past two weekends in the top spot at the box office, so it seems safe to say at this point that it's been very popular with the American moviegoing public. But its popularity exists no thanks to Salon editor at large and University of Baltimore Professor D. Watkins. Just in case you were thinking of inviting Watkins to go see "Barbie" with you, you can forget about it. He doesn't want any part of all that unintentional whiteness, thank you very much. Same reason he won't be taking his daughter to see it.
And pray tell, what would “intentional whiteness” be?
— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) July 31, 2023
(You know I’m thinking of the ‘b’ word) pic.twitter.com/sOGPIQ8UMO
We weren't familiar with that term, either.
This is “Unintentional Whiteness” pic.twitter.com/CF23Vu32EI
— Lalo (@LaloDagach) July 31, 2023
Could be!
Please, allow D. to explain:
It's wild that the first Barbie doll dropped in 1959, and even though Black people were everywhere, we didn't get a Black version until two decades later. But this is 2023, and the movie should be way more progressive than the company's history, right? Wrong. I watched the trailer and was overwhelmed with whiteness.
Barbie, which does have a few nonwhite cast members, including Rae, America Ferrera, and Ncuti Gatwa, has one of the whitest trailers I ever saw in my life. And no, I'm not that guy; I genuinely believe that artists and filmmakers can create whatever they want, but I must be cautious of what I expose my daughter to. She's too young to understand the complexities of gender, so how do you even begin to open the door to conversations about race and how movies and commercials in America act like white people have a monopoly on beauty? Google "attractive woman" and watch the page fill up with white faces.
Let's pause for a quick digression here. Notice that Watkins is unsure about how to talk to his three-year-old daughter Barbie-loving daughter about race because she doesn't even "understand the complexities of gender." His piece starts out with an anecdote featuring his daughter remarking that dresses are for girls and men's bathrooms are for boys, and in her toddler naiveté, "she's very into specific ideas about gender." As though there's something wrong with a little girl recognizing that boys and girls are inherently different instead of understanding that gender is just a social construct and is fluid like good woke parents understand. Based on Watkins' piece, it sounds like it's only a matter of time before his daughter's innate and correct understanding of biology is figuratively beaten out of her, and that makes us incredibly sad.
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Anyway, back to the racial stuff. Here's how Watkins' piece concludes:
The fact is, I can do everything in my power to keep my daughter away from the "white is always right" ideology and still may not be able to protect her from that way of thinking because our country is so fixed on that message. But that doesn't exempt me from religiously teaching her that Black is beautiful, even though Hollywood is only willing to show it in small doses.
It really seems like D. Watkins is in search of a problem. Why can't his daughter learn that there can be beauty in all skin colors? "Barbie" certainly doesn't teach that there's something inherently shameful or ugly about being black, so why does Watkins seem so intent on using the film as evidence that his daughter only has a lifetime of otherness and bigotry ahead and that she should anticipate marginalization in all areas of society? That's not teaching her to be empowered; that's teaching her to think of herself as a victim and assume that white people in particular will never be able to appreciate her value as a person.
In short, that's just bad parenting. That little girl deserves better. And if Watkins weren't so hellbent on crushing her spirits instead of uplifting her and just letting her be a happy, three-year-old child, she'd have better.
I went to see the Sound of freedom last week. Theater was in a black neighborhood. Unbelievable how many black women and their daughters were dressed in pink to see another movie. Barbie was sold out for every time slot.
— Joe Moore ⚡️ (@SimJoeMoore) July 31, 2023
Isn't a shared interest in something by little girls of all different races a good thing? Isn't that a goal of a modern civil society?
“Unintentional whiteness.” This is new. You can’t even be an ally in this framework. https://t.co/YguFmipciQ
— Thomas Chatterton Williams (@thomaschattwill) August 1, 2023
To be fair, though, why would you even want to be an ally to anyone who insists on viewing the world through a racial lens? They've done nothing to deserve your allyship, but they certainly deserve your derision.
In any event, best of luck to D. Watkins' daughter. She's gonna need it with a father whose brain is that broken.
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