The far right is constantly warning that if you go woke, you’ll go broke. But when it comes to the new Barbie movie, they couldn’t be more wrong.
Barbie, which follows Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) as they leave Barbie Land to explore the real world, earned a whopping $162 million in its opening weekend, Variety reported Monday. This is the biggest opening weekend of the year, and the biggest opening weekend for a female director ever.
The film had already made $22.3 million at the domestic box office from Thursday previews, the biggest preview haul of the summer. It blew the previous record of $17.5 million (made by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in May) out of the water.
Do you support traditional American values like the idea that all people are created equal? What about the idea that if someone isn’t hurting you you have no right to impose on their freedom, especially not using the government? How about environmental protection and keeping this gorgeous country looking good? What about the idea that government isn’t perfect and that we must strive to improve it and ourselves? How about the idea that your religion is your right and your problem?
Yeah that’s what woke is. It’s believing what Americans have always said about our country and demanding it do that.
How can you be a good American if you can’t acknowledge the sins our nation was built on?
I’m afraid that the word has long since transcended the borders of your country. In fact it has even transcended the English language and found its way into the language of right-wing culture warriors all over the world.
Also, while I think I know what you’re trying to say, “traditional American values like the idea that all people are created equal” sounds a bit funny considering that your country expressly allowed slavery upon its foundation.
Oh absolutely it’s ironic, but I think it’s important to understand something about America here, one of our main conflicts since the 18th century has been that we have these ideals that we all say sound nice and some of us demand we live by them while others want to live the way our country was once. Our nation is literally made out of irony, a bunch of wealthy slave owners fought a revolution for freedom and equality. But also this rhetoric of demanding our nation put up or shut up about our ideals is a strong American tradition. Part of abolitionist rhetoric was “how can we be a nation of both freedom and slavery?” Part of civil rights rhetoric was demanding that we actually treat all men as created equal.