Lebanon, once thought of as among the most liberal parts of the Middle East, is poised to ban global hit movie “Barbie.” More conservative Kuwait said Wednesday that it had gone ahead with a ban due to its promotion of homosexuality.
You mean the magazine would pay people to write a story people would want to read… only to make money for the magazine? Like, they’re doing it for profit, and not out of the goodness of their hearts? Next you’re going to tell me my grocer is only selling me food to generate revenue.
There’s a difference between “just marketing” and “buy this stuff, but also, turns out Lebanon has quite some distance to go in terms of human rights in general and gender equality in particular”. Companies can’t have morals, because they’re not a natural person, but the humans working for them can, and it’s not unthinkable for this story to be both: An expression of moral frustration on part of the journalist that also happens to be profitable for their employer.
Of course. People who want to see it will see it, even if it means piracy. And that’s why piracy is inherently good and it won’t damage the company much so it doesn’t really matter.
I have seen the movie, and I am still wondering where it is supposed to promote homosexuality. Neither Barbie nor Ken give any such vibes. Only thing Ken seems to suffer is a permanent case of blue balls, even if he lacks the equipment…
You’re assuming that they’re honest about their reasons, which is not the case.
The main message of the film (besides being a 2h ad for Mattel) is gender equality and female empowerment.
This threatens these people more than homosexuality, but I imagine even for them saying “we don’t want our women to even imagine a world where they’re not subservient to men” would be a tough sell.
Far fewer people are willing to stand up to defend the LGBT community so they’re a convenient scapegoat (‘conservatives’ will always find a group small enough to target in order to push their unpopular policies, it just works).
Have some perspective, the middle east has been radicalized by war since the time the west hated gays and people of color. But now since the majority of Western powers has progressed past this for like 10 years out of the last 80 that we’ve been involved in these conflicts, they’re the savages?
It would be much easier for civil discourse to mature in these countries if most of the people weren’t traumatized by the predominantly Christian imperialist countries.
Unfortunately, conflict is always going to be more common in the middle east. The North American center of command [NOR-COM] barely touches the south American COM. America itself, shares borders with only two countries that it’s allied with.
The middle east COM has 3 COMs around it, the most of any other. The geopolitics of this implies the other COMs are going to meddle in their affairs the most, since they’re the buffer to other rival COMs
Good behavior is about having empathy, not mocking how people view the entire universe. I don’t like how the middle east isn’t as progressive as the west, and I don’t like how they don’t have as much empathy for gay people as the west does now. But mocking an entire religious community - a community that extends far beyond the middle east - for not being peaceful, doesn’t make sense when the west succeeded in bringing imperialism to the entire world. Especially when the west hated gay people for most of that time.
It’s easier to discuss these issues when you don’t have to worry about your school being bombed the next day. It’s easier to have empathy for the western values of diversity, while not having to worry about the west bombing you because of religion
Hmm. Is there a particular reason why you would associate Islam with warfare? I am asking you because you assumed I was being sarcastic without clarifying first.
Oh feel free to get in another whataboutism rant. You must be feeling the itch by now.
Lol you’re dumb, you don’t have an argument you’re just shit talking. But keep talking about what abouttism as if you know anything about logical fallacies
I’ve never actually heard anyone use that line except people in alt-right circles, and I am around a lot of Muslims. It is not a term Muslims use to describe their religion, not that they would describe it differently, just that it is a strange description. It would be like calling Canada “the country of peace”, which I guess is technically true because most countries want to avoid war and promote peace? But does not mean their military is non-violent.
The line is clearly used for the intent of creating a false contrast to make some made up point about hypocrisy.
Also as the other commenter pointed out, you are making a critique about the middle East, everyone agrees the middle East is dysfunctional.
Um, islam and peace in Arabic both come from the Arabic root س ل م, so to say that they aren’t related is just wrong.
Most religions have/had a very strong violent aspect directly related to them. (Crusades, Israel’s Torah “backed” colonization, India creating a hindu state, etc.).
Everyone is free to believe what they want but imposing something on others is not cool :/
I don’t like centralized religions either, and I think I agree with your points. But I’m just saying the line “The X of peace” is either so generic that it is a bland description of any ideology. All ideology hides it’s violence behind self defense, and are therefore “peaceful”. Or it implies that they are particularly peaceful, so it’s a description of non-violent. But few ideologies would identify as non violent, and so they would not use that term to describe themselves.
Will it be dubbed for other languages eventually? Cinemas only show the English version and my youngest who still play with Barbies doesn’t understand English well enough.
Movies are a great way to learn a foreign language and subtitles work wonders to increase reading speed. Especially when they don’t give you a choice to fall back to a dub.
Source: me, having to watch Cartoon Network as a small child with no translation at all, became proficient in English by the 5th grade in a country where English is not spoken at all, other than when being (poorly) taught at school.
So rather than seeking out dubs you should avoid them as much as possible.
“Following Sunday prayers, Sheikh Ron al Dee’santiz issued a fatwah against the Barbie Movie, decrying it as ‘against the law of Abraham’ and ‘promoting deviant Western concepts around women, homosexuality and the place of Yahweh in our lives.’”
I mean lebanon is slowly becoming more progressive if it wasn’t for it’s government that is corrupt as hell. Though many smart lebanese just leave for western nations because the standard of living is higher even if your broke.
Lebanon is a corrupt nation, $70 billion in funds robbed from citizens' accounts, just toady, U.S. Treasury sanctions imposed on the bank governor, Riad Corrupt Salameh, and a privileged corrupt class that appears more inclined to witness the nation's devastation than to accept responsibility. A significant portion of the population grapples with poverty, struggling to afford even basic sustenance, let alone the luxury of viewing films prohibited by a corrupt Lebanese government. Conversely, Kuwait possesses the world's most valuable currency and boasts a substantial sovereign wealth fund approaching the trillion-dollar mark. With unparalleled purchasing prowess, they could outmatch Warner Bros. effortlessly should they choose to do so.
Maybe I’m desensitized, but I honestly don’t remember any gay moments in this movie. There are obviously plenty of guys wearing really “flamboyant” outfits, but it was contrasted with their toxic masculinity (i.e. behavior mostly associated with the types of people who actually tend to be homophobic), which is what made it so goddamn funny.
And I also have no idea what they’re talking about with promoting body transformation. Unless you know going in that the one actress is trans, you might not even guess she is. The main joke that even references genitalia is making fun of the fact that the Barbie and Ken dolls have nothing there…
And all this is beside the point anyway. Modern societies shouldn’t be catering to the precious feefees of religious/conservative snowflakes. They can just choose not to see this movie instead of ruining it for everyone.
I saw it in the trailer too but just in case, upcoming spoiler: maybe the whole beaching each other off scene? I can’t think of any others besides that, which if it is the one, then that’s kind of funny in a ridiculous way.
Good point, but I feel like they could probably just translate that scene without having the innuendo (like the direct translation for “beach off” probably doesn’t sound anything like the translation of “beat off”, so it would become more of a whimsical non sequitur directly translated).
I think there’s a fair amount in this movie that doesn’t really translate well outside American/Western culture anyway. For me, that scene was funny because it’s repeating a pun that points to the Ken characters’ innocence when in the real world, they’d be mocked mercilessly by some people. And it forces the audience to think about their own reactions when insecure straight men sometimes follow sentences like that jokingly with, “no homo,” to point out that, despite unintentionally saying something that sounded kind of gay, they are not in fact gay. At any rate, I don’t see this scene as an endorsement of homosexuality, but rather a commentary on society’s fixation on hypermasculine language.
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