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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2765 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 28, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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So, I went to see Barbie despite knowing that I would hate it, my mom really wanted to go see it and she feels weird going to the theatre alone, so I went with her. I did, in fact, hate it. It's a film full of politics and eyeroll moments, Ben Shapiro's review of it is essentially right. Yet, I did get something out of it, it showed me the difference between the archetypal story that appeals to males and the female equivalent, and how much just hitting that archetypal story is enough to make a movie enjoyable for either men or women.

The plot of the basic male story is "Man is weak. Man works hard with clear goal. Man becomes strong". I think men feel this basic archetypal story much more strongly than women, so that even an otherwise horrible story can be entertaining if it hits that particular chord well enough, if the man is weak enough at the beginning, or the work especially hard. I'm not exactly clear what the equivalent story is for women, but it's something like "Woman thinks she's not good enough, but she needs to realise that she is already perfect". And the Barbie movie really hits on that note, which is why I think women (including my mom) seemed to enjoy it.

You can really see the mutual blindness men and women have with respect to each other in this domain. Throughout the movie, Ken is basically subservient to Barbie, defining himself only in the relation to her, and the big emotional payoff at the end is supposed to be that Ken "finds himself", saying "I am Ken!". But this whole "finding yourself" business is a fundamentally feminine instinct, the male instinct is to decide who you want to be and then work hard towards that, building yourself up. The movie's female authors and director are completely blind to this difference, and essentially write every character with female motivations.

The plot of the basic male story is "Man is weak. Man works hard with clear goal. Man becomes strong". I think men feel this basic archetypal story much more strongly than women, so that even an otherwise horrible story can be entertaining if it hits that particular chord well enough, if the man is weak enough at the beginning, or the work especially hard.

I think an even more basic male story is "Man is already strong. Man uses strength to serve God/Tribe/Woman and is appropriately rewarded. All live happily ever after or at least until next week's episode". That one goes all the way back to Gilmagesh - his character development is that he acquires the wisdom to use the strength that is already manifest at the beginning, not that he acquires strength. The same applies to the Greek heroes and most modern superhero material. The earliest examples of Took a level in badass on TVTropes are around 1800, which is consistent with the origin of the Bildungsroman as a genre - I can't think of obvious earlier examples of the "Weak man becomes strong" plot, unless you count tragic antiheroes like Macbeth or Faust who become strong in a cheaty, corrupting way that sets them up for a fall.

This feels right to me.

I guess Journey to the West includes Sun Wukong ascending to Buddhahood? Then again, he started out the story as a threat to heaven, so it’s the definition of a wisdom upgrade. And the real main character is explicitly more virtuous.

The archetypal Bible story is some dude thinking he’s so tough, but only achieving anything meaningful through God. It definitely equates this sort of moral upgrade with material improvements, a la Job’s health and wealth.

I think deontology tends to emphasize “correct” work rather than “hard” work. Thus you have very strong men and women from the start, they just have to get aligned correctly.

My girlfriend dragged me along, and I enjoyed it far more than I was expecting to. It's painfully ironic that, despite being touted as this great girlboss feminist movie, Ryan Gosling and Will Ferrell stole every scene they're in, and are arguably the only reasons to see the movie. I mean seriously, Gosling was getting bigger laughs with an eyebrow wiggle than entire paragraphs of dialogue from Kate McKinnon. Even the secondary Kens like Simu Liu were getting bigger laughs than most of the female cast.

It's nowhere near as preachy as the discourse had led me to believe, but the few moments of preachiness fell flat on their faces and really jarred. There's a literal fourth-wall breaking joke which took me out of the experience far less than any of the preachy moments. It was impossible to believe that America Ferrara's monologue was being spoken by her in-universe character, this was the movie's "John Galt speech" moment.

"I'm a man who has no power, does that make me a woman?" The poison of modern identity politics is that it sees identity markers as deterministic, such that Greta Gerwig (an Oscar-nominated multimillionare Hollywood writer-director, routinely celebrated as one of the best directors of her generation, and one of the most influential people in the world) can airily assert that, as a woman, she has no power, presumably because homeless men yell obscenities at her sometimes. Definitely of the Hillary Clinton school of girlboss feminism, and it was the single most obnoxious part of the movie for me.

There are two or three moments in the film that tried to tug at the heartstrings. One of these I found surprisingly effective (the flashback with America Ferrara's character and her daughter), the other two not so much.

The narrative structure of the movie is all over the place. The Mattel characters, led by Will Ferrell, are introduced in a lengthy sequence, have one silly chase scene, and then have no further impact on the plot whatsoever (granted, having a group of comic relief characters in a comedy film is no vice, but I got the distinct impression they'd have more of an active role in the story). Barbie is the protagonist of the film, but she's what TV Tropes calls a pinball protagonist: it's Ken, America Ferrara's character and maybe Weird Barbie driving the plot forward, and Barbie is just along for the ride. Even in her own movie, the female protagonist has hardly any agency and just does what everyone else tells her to. Numerous ideas (the impact of Barbie's entering the real world on the real world, the clash between America Ferrara's character and her bratty teenage daughter) are introduced and then dropped just as quickly, or resolved in seconds.

For all that, I laughed a lot and didn't regret going, although I have no intention of seeing it again.

America Ferrara

I wonder if her parents realized they were giving their daughter a pornstar name.

Yeah, I found the ending confusing. The men are defeated and then they start saying "Ken is me" and they're happy about this revelation that I do not underestand.

“Who is John galt?”

Throughout the movie, Ken is basically subservient to Barbie, defining himself only in the relation to her

Isn't that inescapable, given that that is who Ken is, in the Barbie universe? And, after all, Ken eventually leads a revolution which overthrows the Kens' subservience to the Barbies, so he is hardly without agency.

“You had the power in you all along” is a common male narrative, too. It’s core to the great majority of Christian mythmaking (in the sense of male leads who follow a Christ-like journey). The chosen one narrative is a version of this. Luke Skywalker is the son of the most powerful or second most powerful space wizard ever. Yeah, there are counter-examples, but “you were special the whole time / you’re the legendary man’s son / you found the magic crystal of power” is a common male hero’s journey component that can be reduced to “finding yourself”.

In general, women’s stories involve her realizing her worth, going through some shit, and in the end winning the man and/or achieving some other or additional goal that serves as a substitute for this.

I don't see it that way at all. The hero with the thousand faces may have the potential, but he is hesitant to embrace it (he generally refuses it at first) and realizing his potential always involves going to the other side to get it whether that other side is Dagobah for Luke Skywalker, the desert at first and then literal Hell for Jesus, or the red pill for Neo.

The hero never just needs to be himself. He needs to go through something terrifying to self-actualize. He didn't have the power all along, he merely had the potential. To realize that potential he has to go through hell and back.

Yeah I'm with you on this one.

The plot of the basic male story is "Man is weak. Man works hard with clear goal. Man becomes strong". I think men feel this basic archetypal story much more strongly than women, so that even an otherwise horrible story can be entertaining if it hits that particular chord well enough, if the man is weak enough at the beginning, or the work especially hard. I'm not exactly clear what the equivalent story is for women, but it's something like "Woman thinks she's not good enough, but she needs to realise that she is already perfect".

But this is simply a reflection of evolutionary reality. It's not the case that women gravitate to these sorts of stories because they're like, stupid or anything.

A man's future is always, within certain limits, radically open. His sexual marketplace value (SMV) can drastically rise or drastically fall depending on the actions he takes. If he puts in enough work, he can lift weights and bulk up, accomplish more things, gain more status, and be rewarded accordingly. The hero's journey.

A woman's SMV is primarily determined by the physical appearance that was gifted to her by genetics, and past a certain critical window, it slowly but steadily declines due to ageing. Due to a confluence of biological and social factors, a woman cannot expect to bring about an order of magnitude increase in her SMV through her own actions. We do have plastic surgery today, but its effects are limited, particularly in their ability to counteract the effects of ageing, and it wouldn't have been an option at all deep in our evolutionary history, when these mythic structures first became ingrained in the collective unconscious. In a very practical sense, the best thing a woman can do at any given time is to learn to make the best of what she's got. This is reflected in the stories they tell about themselves, to themselves.

Throughout the movie, Ken is basically subservient to Barbie, defining himself only in the relation to her

Again, hardly atypical. Plenty of men define themselves solely in terms of women, in terms of their success with women. Probably the majority.

A woman’s SMV is determined primarily by the class and social status into which she was born and in which she grows up. This was especially true historically, but is still true today. It’s also mostly true for men, very few of whom heroically change their lives in the way that hero’s journey protagonists do.

Class makes things rather complicated, but I'm inclined to think of class as being more like a feature of the field that defines which status game you're playing in the first place (in the same way that your language and your geographic location isolate you to a certain community), rather than a marker of status per se (and this is even more true the less fluid one's class is).

Two individuals in the same class can have significantly different status levels (e.g. the tenured gang leader vs the new lackey), and as far as intra-class status goes, you generally observe men being more dynamic and women being more static, according to the factors I outlined.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, does Emily Ratajkowski's SMV really depend on her parents and social status? I guess maybe I'd find her a bit less attractive if I knew she had a deep Appalachian accent or something, but I truly don't give a single fuck about her social status, she could be an outcast with no friends for all I care, and it wouldn't matter a bit.

I presumed when you mentioned men improving their SMV by making money that you meant something more like ‘marriage market value’. (If it’s just who’s most fuckable at the club, hotness is the most important thing for men and women by far.) A handful of supermodels don’t change the fact that most mating is still assortative. A woman’s value in terms of romantic success is, in almost every way, capped by her social class. An Appalachian Emily Ratajkowski almost certainly wouldn’t have become a model and so neither you or any high-status men would ever have heard of her, unlike the version who grew up in London and Los Angeles and went to UCLA.

Hot working class women don’t usually have the opportunity to marry into the elite the way they would if their value was solely physical appearance. There are always exceptional cases but for the most part the beautiful woman from a poor family will not rapidly rise in SES because of her beauty over her lifetime.

An Appalachian Emily Ratajkowski almost certainly wouldn’t have become a model

How do you explain Pamela Anderson then? Her parents were a furnace repairman and a waitress, and she was "scouted" as she was in the stands at a CFL game. If you are pretty enough, things can happen, whether it be the prince taking interest or the beer sponsor deciding to sign you. You have to be very pretty, though, I will grant that.

Emily's parents were two school teachers. She was born in London, but it does not seem that her parents were jet-setters. Her mother does have a Ph.D. and taught at San Diego Jewish Academy. Ratajkowski Pere got a Bachelor of Fine Arts from San Diego State University and taught at San Dieguito High School, where he met Balgley, who also taught there for a time. This is a public high school, so Emily grew up in San Diego in fairly middle-class surroundings.

UCLA certainly could make a difference, but she attended for one year and was already a model. The child of two school teachers can usually get to UCLA, or another flagship college.

Looking further, Emily got into modeling when a high school acting coach introduced her to an agent and she signed with Ford models at age 14. I do not think that her entry is in any way predicated on her social class, as the acting coach at a public high school is accessible to most Americans. At 14 she was distinctively pretty, as this photo she shared shows.

I would guess that 50% of girls that pretty get introduced to agents, and the ones who are willing to do the work end up as models. Surely you know girls who were scouted?

Emily's parents were two school teachers. She was born in London, but it does not seem that her parents were jet-setters. Her mother does have a Ph.D. and taught at San Diego Jewish Academy. Ratajkowski Pere got a Bachelor of Fine Arts from San Diego State University and taught at San Dieguito High School, where he met Balgley, who also taught there for a time. This is a public high school, so Emily grew up in San Diego in fairly middle-class surroundings.

Her background probably had a lot to do with her second career: transmuting a career as a disposable nude model into some sort of niche in the online feminist space. It takes a bit of education to at least know the right words to mumble to perform this turn.

But yeah, I doubt anyone cared when she was becoming a model.

I don’t think Ratajkowski is that pretty, she’s often cited by men online as an example of a ‘butterface’ with a perfect body but not so great face. And I think that an acting coach is more likely to know a modelling in agent in Southern California than in Appalachia.

But again, even for Emily Ratajkowski, how high is her value? She has a divorce and a son with a largely unknown indie movie producer who was seemingly so poor that he couldn’t pay the rent on their shared apartment (the weird online estimates of his wealth are absurd and fictive), and who doesn’t seem to have particularly wealthy parents. She certainly didn’t marry up and so leaves her marriage both a single mother and certainly no richer than she began it.

Karlie Kloss was a supermodel who married ‘up’ financially, but she was already the daughter of a doctor and so firmly upper-middle class (which, really, is what the Kushners were, too). That maps to my own experience, the people I grew up with might date one or two rungs lower on the scale (as have I), but for the most part not that much lower.

I don’t think Ratajkowski is that pretty, she’s often cited by men online as an example of a ‘butterface’ with a perfect body but not so great face.

I'm surprised to see this from you since you usually seem to be very skeptical (rightly imo) about a lot of these stories people - especially bitter men - tell themselves in the Discourse.

To see you citing how "men online" talk down Ratajkowski without a jab at how crazy /r/truerateme is is a bit funny.

IMO Ratajkowski is like Sydney Sweeney or hell, Benedict Cumberbatch for a weird male version: their status and/or SMV is so self-evidently high that people can sit around mocking them for their looks without it coming across as mean-spirited (well...less so than usual).

Unless you're a fashion designer or a homosexual, it's almost certainly a meaningless meme.

Sydney Sweeney

What's wrong with her looks? Or Emily's, for that matter. Both are quite attractive and not even close to someone like Amy Winehouse.

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I don’t think Ratajkowski is that pretty, she’s often cited by men online as an example of a ‘butterface’ with a perfect body but not so great face.

Homosexuals on /r/redscarepod are not "men".

The only person who has really extolled her beauty in my knowledge is Bronze Age Pervert, who is and has been known to be a homosexual for decades so can hardly have much insight on women's looks. He really should stay away from the topic, the only other time he went on about some woman was the 'Olivia Casta' thing which was about some IG/OF thot trying to avoid the glue factory fate using teen filter to boost her numbers. (nsfw link).

I'd rate Emily as 6/10, not ugly, but many flaws. Slightly crooked nose, lips too full, eyes too wide set, could probably go on for a while about her face.

If we go by reasonably objective standards, such as higher N twitter polls, it's notable that by a quite serious margin, in about seven elimination tournaments internet racists chose Jennifer Connelly to be the most beautiful woman ever. Still is very good looking, though the dessicated vegan look isn't really doing her any favors.

28 matches, zero losses.

Which is unsurprising, as she's both Jewish and was rather pretty back in the day. And had a very nice figure. To the point there's an entire youtube channel dedicated to it. Can you find one as obsessed with e.g. Ratajkowski or really anyone else ?

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More effort, less heat, please.

she’s often cited by men online as an example of a ‘butterface’ with a perfect body but not so great face.

Who are these men? Can't help but offer a hard disagree.

I don’t think Ratajkowski is that pretty

She is stunning in person, which actually counts for a lot. When I last met her, I was not wearing my glasses, as I am vain, so she just looked blurred, but her effect on other guys was very obvious.

an acting coach is more likely to know a modelling in agent in Southern California than in Appalachia.

That is true, but not enormously so. Modeling agents look for girls where pretty girls are.

But again, even for Emily Ratajkowski, how high is her value?

I agree with you here. She was appearing on the cover of "erotica" magazines when she was 21, which is pretty low class.

Karlie Kloss was a supermodel who married ‘up’ financially,

Financially, but arguably not socially. Real estate is weird that way, with rich people who have no class. I am sure there is an obvious example around.

I do think it is very hard to marry up several levels. Grace Kelly did it. Miranda Kerr is notable, as she was getting any younger. Natalia Vodianova seems to have done well. Class in the US has been eroding, and the levels are not as obvious as they were. I think in the UK it probably is still much more rigid.

Great point about the relationship to SMV increase possibility, really obvious in retrospect. Though I didn't mean to suggest that the women's myth was stupid, just that I didn't resonate with it the way that women don't resonate with what I like.

I don't remember whether it was on the old Motte or here, but I remember stumbling upon this idea of a "heroine's journey" as well. However, I think you're oversimplifying the male version. The archetypical version is more of a "man is flawed but is oblivious to that, man has a false goal, man chases that goal and fails because he's weak, man accepts that the goal is false and he's flawed and becomes stronger by rejecting the flaw, man reaches true goal".

For example, consider Trading Places. Aykroyd's character has a clear goal in sight: to get his old life back. He chases this goal relentlessly, tries to prove that Murphy's character is a criminal and a fraud, resorts to planting drugs in his office, but ultimately fails. When Murphy's character rescues him from a suicide attempt, he realizes his weakness: egoism. The Dukes exploited them both, but he only cared about himself. He abandons his goal and uses his new power of friendship to achieve his new goal: revenge. Together they humiliate and bankrupt the Dukes, and Aykroyd's character gets everything: he's become a better, stronger man who can rely on his friends and be relied upon, he has avenged the humiliation of himself and his new friend and he's once again a rich executive, which was his original goal. And while Jamie Lee Curtis has an uncannily simian face, she still has a huge rack.

I haven't seen Barbie yet, so I can't tell how different Ken's journey is from the archetypal one.

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