Watching the movie BARBIE post-election gave me insight into the huge male vote for Donald Trump. Think about it….

I am not a Barbie doll fan. Never was. I didn’t watch the movie when it first came to theaters and everyone wore pink dresses to attend showings. Nor did I wait eagerly for its Netflix debut.

Yet, I’d heard enough good things about the film to decide to watch it when it was offered, free of charge, on a Southwest Airlines flight. Of course I was viewing the movie on a smart phone (tiny screen) and the streaming was kind of bumpy. (Bumpier, in fact, than the flight itself.) Watching it on a tiny screen like this, however, is like viewing something through the wrong end of a telescope. It allows you to observe the whole film, its total gestalt, without being immersed in its details.

Barbie isn’t a character I’d admire or want to befriend. But she had some good qualities. She’s friendly, nice, sort of bright, and adventuresome enough to try something new and different (reality).

Then there’s Ken — what a bimbo! From the outset, it’s clear he’s just an appendage to Barbie who only possesses one good quality — he’s cute. Ken’s so dumb he thinks horses rule the world; he behaves with the wits of a cartoon character and he’s ridiculously garbed in Barbie look-alike clothes. Even Barbie doesn’t care for him. Near the end, she says, “I don’t love Ken.” That’s kind of horrible thing to hear after you’ve watched Ken slavishly follow Barbie wherever she goes or imitate whatever she does.

Also, Barbie spurns every attempt by Ken at a physical embrace. Why? Is she totally asexual? Maybe so, since she and he admit they lack genitalia. But he appears, at least, to be romantically attached to her — he keeps trying to embrace her — while she seems to find him repugnant.

Barbie has a slim character arc. She develops from being a beautified robot living in a plastic universe to wanting to be real or, at least, somewhat real. Few of us real gals have (or want) her figure, her blond hair, her degree of disingenuousness.

But back to Ken — if he has a character arc, I missed it. He appears as clueless, childish, and moronic in the end as in the beginning. As one reviewer commented, “Ken’s dumb hunk shtick starts out silly but wears thin when we realize that’s all it’s going to be.”

Lots of guys saw the film BARBIE. About a third as many men saw it as women. But 1/3 of 41 million tickets sold in theaters is still a very big number. And that doesn’t count streaming. Most attended the show as the husbands or brothers or friends of women who desperately wanted to see it. Once these guy sat in the theater, however, with their popcorn and soda, they experienced the pathetic portrayal of Ken. Now what do you imagine was their takeaway?

Watching BARBIE a few days after the presidential election, I couldn’t help but wonder how it must have felt for a guy to see Ken. After all, if Barbie is thought to represent what little girls aspire to be, then Ken is a sort of ikon as well. In BARBIE, however, you see Ken being scorned, ridiculed, infantilized, and sissified. I’m guessing that made many men uncomfortable; I bet they felt insulted.

What’s more, I’m guessing some guys viewed Ken as typifying the “woke” attitude toward manhood, the “woke” take on masculinity. How demeaning! So these guys may have wanted nothing more than to renounce and repudiate Ken and everything Ken-ish.

A year later, our presidential election gave them that opportunity.

For among other things, this election was a choice between a clearly “woke” woman and totally un-woke guy — a guy who was un-Ken as a guy could be. Someone who enjoys McDonalds burgers, brags about grabbing pussy and raises his fist in the air after being nicked by a bullet. The more politically incorrect Donald behaved and spoke, the better. Trump’s many deficits became assets. No wonder, the un-Ken guy got the male vote in huge numbers — bigger than in previous years.

Now, of course, I’m not saying that BARBIE determined the outcome of the election. Many factors impacted the voting public. But I do think the film might have contributed to the surging anti-woke sentiment in this country among men. And that had an impact on the election.

I also think it’s unfortunate that Greta Gerwig who’s so talented in portraying girls and women, is so weak in her portrayals of boys and men. We’d be a lot better served by male characters who are far stronger, smarter and more complex than Ken. That’s what I’ll be looking for next time I go to the movies. ###