There is seemingly no end to the impact of Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie. It's been hailed as a 'feminist fable', also doing great work exposing male fragility, with storylines highlighting the negative impact of the patriarchy on everyone – not just women.
Fans have been so affected by Barbie's story, in fact, that some are breaking up with their partners if they don't get it. Barbie seems to have, fascinatingly enough, become some kind of litmus test for exposing problematic views. Stories have poured in on Reddit threads, Twitter and TikTok with one Barbie stan tweeting: 'take your boyfriends to the barbie movie & if they hate it, dump them'.
There are many ways that the Barbie film seems to have exposed male fragility and other dealbreaker issues. One fan took to the 'Am I The A**hole' Reddit thread to talk of her frustration that her boyfriend wouldn't wear pink to the cinema.
‘I’ve asked my boyfriend to go to the cinema with me, both dressed in pink. It would show that he supports me, and it’d just be fun.
‘He agreed to watch the movie with me, but not in pink. I told him wearing pink is minimum effort, he says minimum effort is him coming along to the movie.
‘AITA for finding this unreasonable? All my friend’s boyfriends did it, even my dad and brother would.’
One TikToker has even said that 'getting' Barbie should be 'a standard in a relationship'.
Another fan has spoken of rethinking her entire relationship due to the fact that she feels that her boyfriend doesn't understand Barbie.
'I feel like I’m the asshole for letting the Barbie movie affect my relationship and the way I see my boyfriend,' she wrote. 'Friends have been telling me that I shouldn’t let it alter the way I view my boyfriend because our relationship if really good and healthy.
'I’ve been also sending him nonstop tiktoks and tweets about the Barbie movie and saying that men wouldn’t understand and that if my bf doesn’t understand then I should rethink our whole relationship, which is what I’ve been doing lately.'
Another spoke in more detail in a Reddit thread about how her (now ex) boyfriend was 'offended' by the film, which was the last straw after his various issues with women and the LGBT community. She'd gone to see Barbie with him hoping that he would 'get it' as well as its feminist themes.
Her thread reads: 'Over the duration of the movie I could tell he was getting more and more uncomfortable/upset and I was getting really sad (both from the movie and his reaction) and i knew we would end up having a conversation about it afterwards. He didn’t talk to me until we got in the car. He then told me that he was really offended by the movie and said that it was the kind of thing i should have watched with my girlfriends and not him.
'We have been having problems with his weird comments about women, the lgbtq community, and other stuff. He would deem it “b_tch sh_t”. Maybe it was a long time coming but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was tired of having to always deal with his attitude and disrespect and was also maybe on this girl-power high. So I told him it was over.'
So not only has Barbie been successful in making box office history and breaking the record for a female director's opening weekend (go Greta!), it's helped many make steps when it comes to shutting toxic relationships and male fragility out of their lives. What a Barbie world.