Why I support banning the Barbie Movie in MENA

The biggest threat facing the MENA region today is Greta Gerwig’s Barbie Movie. Aware of this existential threat, the brave censors of some countries in the MENA – such as bankrupt Lebanon – have been risking life and limb to stand up to the invasive pink aggression. They have decided to sit through over two hours of its runtime, so that no one in their countries would have to.

True, the MENA region is among the hardest hit by climate change. The rivers of Iraq are drying up, the greenery of the entire Mediterranean basis has been on fire, and warming temperatures are on the verge of turning vast swaths of the Arab world into uninhabitable wastelands.

The authorities and politicians have responded bravely, doubling down on fossil fuels. But the Barbie Movie is a bigger problem.

One might say the MENA region has some of the highest youth unemployment in the world. The rulers have a policy for that, including setting up Ponzi schemes and smuggling looted public funds abroad, instead of wasting precious resources on development programmes.

But the Barbie Movie is worse.

''Barbie’s feminist credentials are compromised by its commodification and corporatization of women’s rights. It has more in common with the lean-in girl-boss trend, than with the radicalism of the suffragette movement. Despite the right-wing backlash by some men’s rights provocateurs, it is ‘safe viewing’ for anyone even in deranged segments of the American public opinion.''

Some will cite conflict. The MENA region has some of the world’s most restive hotspots. It is home to the world’s longest-surviving settler-colonial enterprise. Civil wars ravage its four corners, from the northern regions of Iraq to the Sahel region’s serial coups. Authoritarian regimes and rulers wage modern warfare on their own peoples raining hell on their cities, in Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and beyond.

The rulers have a response to that, taking sides or arming others to make sure conflicts become multi-generational forever wars.

But the Barbie movie is much worse.

Some will cite the atrocious state of democracy in the MENA region. Even the rare few semi-functioning democracies are withering in Tunisia and Lebanon, while institutional norms are being replaced with naked one-person rule.

Someone else could jump here and talk about individual freedoms, from personal, gender, sexual, and bodily rights to collective ones such as freedom of faith, speech, and assembly. These freedoms in MENA are on a spectrum of non-existent to outright oppressive.

The brave officials routinely resist any nefarious attempt to improve these freedoms, thank God.

But the Barbie movie is the worst thing to ever happen to the MENA region and requires the full attention of the authorities, without any side distractions like peace, development, or preventing mass extinction.

I watched Barbie over the weekend. First of all, it’s a children’s film. Its opening scene shows little girls playing with dolls.

The film is heavily sanitised and made safe by removing any controversy. It has only heteronormative characters and themes. It bears no allusion to any serious feminist issues of the day, like bodily autonomy or reproductive rights although Barbie goes to a gynaecologist in the end (spoiler alert).

True, across the MENA region, in much of which women are in law and practice second-class citizens, Barbie’s central message is still radical. In places adjacent to MENA, like Afghanistan, women can’t even learn let alone be what they want. Until recently, women couldn’t even drive a car in Saudi Arabia.

But Barbie’s feminist credentials are compromised by its commodification and corporatization of women’s rights. It has more in common with the lean-in girl-boss trend, than with the radicalism of the suffragette movement. Despite the right-wing backlash by some men’s rights provocateurs, it is ‘safe viewing’ for anyone even in deranged segments of the American public opinion.

The problematic Ken character, meanwhile, appears to be a redeemable Andrew Tate. Or Ken-drew Tate. We can also talk about the whole offensive and insensitive Barbenheimer marketing hype.

In other words, despite being fun and generally carrying a positive message to girls, the film is unserious and should raise no eyebrows except from disappointed progressives.

Even the medievally inclined censors in Lebanon who watched the film found no reason to ban it. The Lebanese judge who wanted it banned is a minister who’s been going on Twitter rants saying the films poses a threat to Lebanese religious values and freedom of faith.

All this is why I support banning the Barbie film in any MENA country not yet ready to see it then be hit with the question ‘Is that it?’ with the depressing realisation that the banality of the region’s officials is as mute and dumb as the plastic material from which Barbies are made, but far more deadly.

This alone is reason for total despair, for no salvation is coming to rescue millions of Arab citizens from their death spiral, as long as such people are in charge.

Karim Traboulsi is the Managing Editor of The New Arab since May 2019. His journalism career spans 14 years working as an editor, writer, and translator in Middle East-focused news media.

Follow him on Twitter: @kareemios

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