Brady Campaign president longs for a real-life Barbieland where Kens couldn't become mass shooters

Earlier, I told you about Salon editor at large and University of Baltimore Prof. D. Watkins, who explained that he could not in good conscience take his three-year-old daughter to see "Barbie" because, to be quite frank, she "already receives enough unintentional whiteness" in her life right now and doesn't need any more of it, thank you very much.

And we're sure that the gals at Ms. Magazine can totally respect that. After all, they're raging progs just like D. is. But to their credit, they recently featured a piece by a woman who bravely risked the unintentional whiteness and went to see the movie was quite pleased with what she found. Basically, the film was just one big gun-free zone:

The characters—and some of the audience—were audibly relieved the Kens couldn’t inflict the horrors we see in the U.S. every day.https://t.co/7PAa6kPHdy
— Ms. Magazine (@MsMagazine) August 2, 2023

The gun industry effectively cultivates a “Mass Shooter Ken” — who comes with his own accessories, like body armor, a racist manifesto, and an AR-15. But as Barbieland shows us, it doesn't have to be that way.

Read more in @MsMagazine by @KrisB_Brown.https://t.co/58yiRXnBEs
— Brady | United Against Gun Violence (@bradybuzz) August 1, 2023

Kris B. Brown, Brady United Against Gun Violence President, writes:

After watching Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, my daughters and I left the theater laughing and crying. But lingering in my mind was a scene that plagued me with reminders of how dystopic America has become in contrast to the dolls’ utopia. And it has to do with guns.
In the film, when the CEO of Mattel, played by Will Ferrell, enters Kendom (formerly known as Barbieland), he and his corporate sidekicks walk into a brawl. The war between Kens is fierce, but the most brutal violence is rendered with beach balls, not bullets. “There are no guns in Barbieland,” as Ferrell said.
The characters—and some of the audience, all of whom likely scanned the theater for exits before sitting down (it is the “real world” of America, after all)—sighed deeply, relieved the Kens couldn’t inflict the horrors we see in the news every day.
...
Much like the Kens used their newfound knowledge of patriarchy—and yes, horses—to take over Barbieland, the gun industry uses masculinity as a vehicle for sales. Gun manufacturers, marketers and lobbyists have cultivated a series of tropes to target key audiences, specifically white young men seeking a sense of belonging. They use advertisements promising the fulfillment of combat-style fantasies, virility and power.
Do you want to be “Good Guy with a Gun Ken” or “Military Might Ken”?

Was the audience at the show Kris attended with her daughters really "audibly relieved" that the movie didn't feature gun violence, or guns at all? Or is Kris just projecting her weird paranoia and fixation on gun control onto other people? I'm gonna go ahead and go with the latter. I personally haven't seen "Barbie" but I am pretty confident in saying that my takeaway would not have had anything to do with guns. I've also seen movies that actually do depict gun violence and they've never made me worry that I'm just on the verge of getting shot. And my first thought when I enter a movie theater is not "Where are the exits so I can run away from a mass shooter?" Because I'm not an insane person. No one will ever be able to accuse me of being fearless but I can't imagine letting my entire existence revolve around being afraid that I'm going to be the next victim of a mass shooter who was turned into a Mass Shooter Ken by the gun industry.

"There's no guns in barbieland" explain this then: pic.twitter.com/ff2dbXhsqE
— Navi of Boomhandia (@NaviGoBoom) August 2, 2023

GATS IN PLASTIC, IT'S FANTASTIC pic.twitter.com/cEnYvesiNm
— 𝕃𝕆ℝ𝔻 𝔻𝕀𝔸ℕ𝔼𝕏𝕀𝕊 👑 (@Dianexis) August 2, 2023

Nicely done.

Brady Campaign president longs for a real-life Barbieland where Kens couldn't become mass shooters

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