Are Malaysian men taking offence at Barbie movie?

 

One of my basketball friends recently just got out of surgery to remove kidney stones. When he finally joined us for our weekly session, three weeks after his recovery, he told us about his experience.

“It is the most excruciating pain I have felt in my life!” he said.

“But wouldn’t you have been unconscious from the anaesthetic?” I asked.

“Of course. That wasn’t painful. It was the peeing for the next three or four days that was torture.”

Then, another one of my friends who had kidney stones several years ago butted in and reaffirmed that it really is painful.

“It was so painful for me. It’s like childbirth,” he exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never given birth before.”

That was the exact moment when the conversation changed to talking about the new Barbie movie. Ever since I saw it a week ago with my old lady and the kids, I’ve been promoting it to my ever-so-macho and manly basketball friends. I think it’s a funny and intelligent film, with very relevant social commentary as well.

A couple of them had gone to watch it after I raved about it to them and their response was, well, not as enthusiastic as me.

“It’s a feminist movie!” complained one friend.

“Why can’t women and men just come into a complementary partnership?” said another.

“Ugh! Okay then. I’ll let the kids go watch it on their own!” said another who has yet to watch it.

Feminist or not, I just found all the jokes and references so real and true, from all the women stereotypes to the jokes making fun of men. It is so true that when I was watching it in the cinema, I was laughing my head off throughout the movie.

However, the ending of the movie left much to be desired. The filmmakers had to go all mainstream Hollywood and “conclude” and “explain” the movie to the audience, which kind of killed it for me.

But this week’s article isn’t a review of the Barbie movie. It is more about how so many men view women in this country. I have no intention of mansplaining any women’s issues. All I am doing is just to express how I really feel from a personal point of view.

It may be wrong or right. Who knows. But I welcome any comments and reactions from men and women as long as it isn’t hate speech.

A man’s world

In the Barbie movie, something goes wrong in Barbieland and Barbie has to go to the real world to find out what is causing the disturbance in their world. That’s when Barbie and Ken are exposed to real-world misogyny.

This exposure creates even more problems for their world when Ken heads back to Barbieland with the new ideas that he has learned. Barbie has to then fix everything.

The conversation that my male friends and I had about the Barbie movie at the mamak stall after our basketball game last night was so defensive. They were intercepting, blocking and fouling so much that it felt like everyone was trying to be Dennis Rodman from the 1990s Chicago Bulls NBA championship team.

I felt that the argument that it is a man’s world is true and because it has been for centuries, women are at a big disadvantage in trying to just live life.

The ingrained misogyny and patriarchy in human society are too deep to be eliminated just like that. There need to be steps taken and, of course, a little bit of affirmative action to make things fair and equal.

For example, in government, there needs to be political will and policies developed to make sure there is fair women representation. The Pakatan Harapan government had promised 30 percent women representation in government. At the moment, there isn’t. It’s close, but still not hitting it.

So more affirmative action needs to be implemented to achieve this because, with the strong patriarchal society that we live in, nothing will happen if it isn’t pushed.

Of course, the men would go back to the obvious arguments that if women wanted everything to be so equal, then they should play sports against men and not have gender categories. Yeah, sure.

Men can assert their dominance when it comes to physical strength, but what about other areas? This argument that men make is just too arbitrary and insignificant.

Another argument that men like to make, especially in Malaysia, is the position women have that has been determined by religion. Apparently, women being subservient to men is something that God intended.

What they don’t get is that a lot of how women are perceived in religion are just interpretations made centuries ago by, who else, but men. These interpretations are definitely due for an update.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that although in general I feel that sexism and misogyny are reducing and the progress on women’s rights is happening, especially when movies like Barbie are coming out and getting rave reviews, there is still a long way to go.

It gets frustrating sometimes, but what can you do, right? - Mkini

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ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary film-maker, journalist and academic. The Sheraton move really frustrated him but maybe after November 2022, he can start feeling better again. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.