Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro has not tried to hide his disdain for the new fantasy comedy movie, “Barbie.” During his scathing 43-minute review, the podcast host called the film, “a flaming piece of dog s*** piled atop an entire dumpster on fire piled atop a landfill filled with dog s***.”
But not every Daily Wire host had the same reaction. “The Comments Section” host Brett Cooper enjoyed “Barbie,” which led to her having a lively debate with Shapiro about the merits of the film.
Cooper showed up to the conversation decked out in pink, including a hat that said “Make America Hot Again.”
Cooper said she watched Shapiro’s entire critique and conceded that he made “a lot of excellent points,” but it wasn’t enough to change her mind about the movie.
Cooper admitted that the plot was “not the greatest in terms of its construction,” which was a major flaw Shapiro pointed out in his review. “It was very, very messy, but you can’t deny that it was fun,” Cooper said. “It was colorful. It was a great time.”
She called it “an escape in many ways” and reiterated that it was “fun.” Cooper described how the whole audience was laughing and enjoying themselves.
“It felt totally different than anything that I’d seen in a while,” Cooper said. “Kind of reminded me of ‘La La Land,’ which was objectively much better than ‘Barbie,’ but in the same way that it was very … out of this world.”
She said most movies and TV shows these days are “dark and dreary and depressing,” which made the colorful nature of “Barbie” stand out.
Shapiro hit back, saying the production and set design are great but the politics really ruin the movie. He said America Ferrara’s big pro-feminist speech is “cringy,” which Cooper agreed with.
“The politics of the film are completely askew,” Shapiro said. “Because the entire basis of the film is that the real world is a complete patriarchy, so magically patriarchal that Ken learns from it and goes back to Barbie Land where he then applies the patriarchal standards of the real world … and that the only solution to create paradise is that men and women must be separated from one another.”
Next, Shapiro pointed out how everyone in the movie is “unhappy,” which unintentionally proves a conservative point.
Shapiro also questioned the ending of the movie, calling it “super transphobic” because the one thing that makes Barbie a real woman is getting real woman parts and visiting a gynecologist. Cooper agreed that the ending is “terrible.”
Cooper did find a silver lining, however. She pointed out how Barbie chose to go to “the real world” despite being given the option of staying in Barbie Land, which was restored to a matriarchy following Ken’s failed coup.
“She’s choosing to live in a world that’s maybe not perfect,” she said.
Shapiro said the film could have made an important point if the filmmakers had chosen to make Ken and Barbie partners rather than keep them in an eternal competition. He also said that if the main problem presented in the film is Barbie’s irrepressible thoughts of death, then there needs to be some sort of “spiritual” or “familial” solution. Instead, the ending never answers these lingering questions.
Instead, director Greta Gerwig created “a box for herself” rooted in “secular feminism” that ensures the movie doesn’t provide any kind of solution. Shapiro said it’s a “lazy movie.”
Shapiro and Cooper ended the conversation by “agreeing to disagree” on whether the movie was good.