From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Corporate Country Vs. Jason Aldean & The Failings Of The Barbie Movie

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Country music star Jason Aldean has made waves with his new song "Try That In A Small Town", which calls out the crime crisis that has swept the nation. Sean and Rachel are joined by their daughter, and writer at The Federalist, Evita Duffy-Alfonso to discuss the controversy surrounding the song, and Evita shares her experience covering crime in Chicago, Illinois, and Kenosha, Wisconsin.  Later, they weigh in on the critiques of the new Barbie film and expose the woke messaging that they say is sprinkled throughout the movie.  Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey, everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host of the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy.

Sean, it's so great to be back at our kitchen table. And today we are joined by our doctor, Evita, because we have two really great cultural topics. And, you know, we love having Evita when we have them. The first one we're going to talk about, let's get right to it. There is massive controversy around Jason Aldean. He has a song. It's called Try That in a Small Town. It's called Try That in a Small Town. Weirdly, it came out two months ago, but all of a sudden, this song is being pulled from CMT, off the rotation, and Jason Aldean is being accused of promoting, get this, lynching. Let's just play some of the song,

because I'm telling you, people who live in rural America, or anyone who's a conservative is scratching their head going, why is this song controversial? Here's the first verse. liquor store. You think it's cool. Like the fool if you like. Cuss out a cop spitting his face. Stomp on the flag and light it up. Yeah, you think it's tough. Try that in a small town. All right. So that's try that in a small town. By the way, that last line about good old boys is one of the trigger points for so many on the left. Also, the verse after that, he says, got a gun that my granddad gave me. They say one day that they're going to round that up.

Well, that might fly in the city. Good luck. So, okay, look, it's a, let's bring Evita, what were your initial thoughts? First of all, people should know Evita is a major country music fan. She's written a lot of articles about country music, about its cultural impact, about its American-ness, if you will. So what were your thoughts when you heard the song, Evita? Well, I have a lot of thoughts about the song, but I was just going to say really quickly, song dito well i have a lot of thoughts about the song i was just gonna say really quickly um this is very typical of cmt who absolutely hates their audience they really don't like yeah i think

dinner i think that's so great because that's exactly where i was going to yeah absolutely they they hate their audience um they promote people like mickey guyton and crap songs and and maren morris on purpose because they feel honestly I think they're self-hating. I think they don't like their audience. So they say, we're going to promote really left-wing country music artists that the fans don't even really like. And we're going to not give Jason Aldean any awards whatsoever. And that's actually what some people have theorized is that he's basically said, you know what? I'm going to sing about what I really care about because I have been completely subbed by corporate country and national.

And so it's interesting because Jason Aldean, Sean, his wife, you remember last summer, she came out and put out a, she's an interesting figure, beautiful blonde woman. She put out a tweet last summer against, you know, kind of voicing her concerns about the trans agenda and its impact on kids. And she got the wrath. I mean, they shut her down. They called her insurrectionist Barbie. Other the sort of protected, celebrated country artists who write about more progressive topics attacked her. And so so he is already as a as a couple those two are kind of on the outs of the corporate nashville crowd mom and i had a lot of initial thoughts about this song but i'm really interested

about what you thought about it because you're from a small town so i i was born and raised in a small town of 1800 people really small um and I think this is the case for all small towns across America. They look at what's happening in American cities. And globally, whether it's the carjackings, it's the people being punched in the streets or people getting shot or robbed. And they can't believe the societal decay and that a community would allow that to happen because they wouldn't let that happen in their community and in most small towns again and maybe it's because police are so far away because there's not as many of them and it's more rural and so you're you're not in a you know a block radius where there's sky rise you know housing you got a gun because no one is going to be there to protect you

um should someone come calling at your house to what one steal your property gotta do it right or do that's right you gotta you gotta be able to protect yourself and so i look at this song i listen to this song i'm like this this is there's nothing controversial about this you know what because everyone in a small town. And by the way, a lot of people in big towns as well will say the crap that's happening from the left is insanity. And when you call out the insanity with some common sense, they lose their mind and call you what a racist. Cause you mentioned good old boys. I mean, give me a break. Well, yeah, it's interesting. A lot of the people from the cities, the ones who are tired of it, the few conservative left who are left are leaving. I mean, by the way, I heard yesterday, you know, that an interview with Ron

DeSantis and they said, are you worried that all these people that are moving from the city to Florida, are you worried about them? And he like i was at first but i realized the ones who are coming to florida are common sense people they're they're a lot of them are conservatives um a lot of them are just are burnt out on all the bs liberal crap in their cities and so he's like no they're they tend to vote well and and so anyway i, there's clearly a small town mentality that you grew up with. You look at this, you see no problems. Evita, do you think this will become, I mean, look, corporate media, CMT, the Nashville corporate crowd, corporate country, if you will, they're going to try and smear this.

They don't want to be associated with it. So they can go to fancy parties with their brethren in Hollywood and be accepted on the West Coast. But regardless of their attempts to squelch this song and smear Aldine and anyone who likes it, could this become an anthem of sorts? I hope it does. And I'll say this, the song personally for me was really, really powerful because I've had, I think the two most formative experiences of my life was one, doing on the ground reporting in Kenosha, Wisconsin during the BLM rioting, which if you look at the video that CMT has taken down, you see flashes of massive BLM protests. And then also living in Chicago, which is an utterly lawless city that is destroying itself from the inside because Soros-installed DAs are refusing to prosecute violent crime. And by the way, the victims of both of those things, right, lawless cities and BLM rioting are poor, low-income minorities. Black and Hispanic.

Right. So let's talk about Kenosha a little bit, Evita, because that was a formative experience. I remember being petrified that you were going down there, but super proud that you were reporting. And this is, so you could say this is a small town, but Kenosha is very close to Chicago and has some elements of Chicago that bleed into it for sure. But what is it about Aldine Song and your experience reporting on the ground during the BLM riots in Kenosha? Right. So it was amazing because it was horrible and it was also amazing.

So Tony Evers would not. Tony Evers is the governor of Wisconsin. Yes, he's a the governor of Wisconsin. Yes, he's a governor. He's a he's a Democrat governor of Wisconsin. He refused to send enough National Guardsmen to protect the city, even though we all knew we had we had been through multiple BLM protests at that point. We knew that something was coming, especially because of this close proximity to Chicago. He didn't send enough men. He sent more to the Bucks game than he did to Kenosha after the shooting of Jacob Blake. And so the city was in absolute flames. The police officers and the national guards had protected the downtown area, but regular people, their businesses, their homes were left completely defenseless. And so men with baseball bats and shotguns stood outside their homes and their businesses on even on top of

their roof and said, you know what, we're going to protect ourselves. And the left absolutely hate that. And I'll tell you this, I think Royce is a scapegoat in this whole story. And what they're really upset about is Al Dean suggesting that regular Americans can stand up and defend themselves outside of the purview of the state. Yeah. Well, Evita, because that is a threat to the state, right? If you're not fully reliant on them and you have freedom yourself to protect yourself, to dictate your own future, your own security, your own safety, you don't need them. And they need you to need them to make the transition that they want to see across the country.

And I think another way, too, I mean, CMT banning this song, I think this is almost a Bud Light moment. I think there's a lot of conservatives who have seen their power in how they use their money or how they use their viewing habits to punish people who don't agree with them. And so I think there was a view in society that Bud Light, it's an American beer in the Clydesdales. And there was that feeling. But when the Dylan Mulvaney ad came out, or not ad, but partnership,

a lot of people said, well, actually their values actually don't fit mine. And they pushed back and decided to drink other beer. I think the same thing can happen here with CMT to say, you know what? CMT doesn't actually fit my value, and I'm not going to watch them any longer and can do huge damage to a network that has the space completely to itself. But if they lose their customers, they lose their ad base, they lose their ad revenue, and they can pay a price for canceling what a lot of their viewers actually agree with and actually like the song. the common denominator between Target, Bud Light, and CMT and corporate country is that these are

all organizations, companies that purport that their audience are middle Americans, right? Who tend to lean conservative in a lot of ways, families. And it's such a betrayal. And it's so obvious now how much these corporate overlords hate us. And I think this is one of those moments where you're like, why would CMT just not care at all about what its listeners and viewers, not care at all about what its listeners and viewers, they hate us. I just think it's so obvious. I want you to comment on that, Avita, and then I want to go back to Kenosha, because I think that what you said about how race is not really the issue, but also about, and that it's really about what Sean talked about with the about defending ourselves with guns. But I also want to talk about this hurts because we need to talk more about the blacks and Hispanics who were hurt in Kenosha, for example. So first, your thoughts on corporate country, maybe this being a Bud Light moment. Yeah, I mean, I think when we talk, there's like a coalition of every corporation in America, whether we're talking about banking, whether we're talking about investments or corporate country.

They all sort of have a very similar political voice. And that's not by mistake. We are living really in pony capitalism with the big tech to Democrats will punish you. And actually globalist ESG will punish you if you are not having if you're not you're not engaging in if you if you are engaging in wrong things, you'll be punished is what I'm trying to say. And so I think that this whole... You're saying that CMT is responding to corporate pressure or at least trying to stave off some sort of corporate pressure by making sure they disassociate from Aldine and shame him as a potential lyncher, then they can keep their ESG score? Yes. And what I think is interesting about this whole thing is actually, Aldean is being a true artist right now. And he's being suppressed by really what's authoritarianism.

It's a critique of our current state that he's done. And people are not allowing him to do that. And what a real artist does is they are a part of the zeitgeist. They are responding to what we're dealing with as a country. But there are things that are forbidden to say in America right now. One of them that, you know, the summer of rage destroyed lives and was violent. And you're not allowed to say what we saw. You're not allowed to say.

You can talk about January 6th, for example, till you're blue in the face and how bad it was. Which, by the way, was 100 times, that's a real stat, 100 times more damaging than the BLM protest, or I'm sorry, BLM protests were 100 times more damaging than January 6th. You mean financially and in terms of violence, 100%. So you can critique, criticize, write songs about how bad, you know, the so-called insurrectionists were on January 6th. But if you talk about, or in the case of Jason Aldeean show images, which he was very careful to use actual news footage of of the riot and art and you're not allowed to say what you saw. in a song is so much more powerful than an article or a news pundit, right? This is something that has the power to really influence the masses. And that's why they've responded so ferociously to the song.

Because it's culture. And culture matters. Culture drives politics. And this is a huge statement in culture about what's actually happening. And it's going against the narrative that the left wants us all to buy into, which is different than what all of us see with our own eyes. You're talking about race, though. And we had on The Bottom Line yesterday, which is a Fox Business show that I host with Dagan McDowell from 6 to 7 p.m. Eastern. If you don't check it out, you should. It's a great show. But we had a state representative from Georgia, Misha Maynor. She's an African-American woman who is a Democrat who, because the Democrats won't get on the bandwagon

for school choice and the kids in her school systems are failing, you know, two or three percent can read and write. She's been outraged by it and she switched parties. And she just came out recently and said, you know what, I've been getting death threats, vile emails about me switching parties. And whether you look at Misha Maynard from Georgia, whether you look at Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court, Tim Scott. Race is not about supporting a minority race. Race is about power. And they'll support a segment of the population based on race, as long as they agree with this left-wing radical ideology. But as soon as you say, yeah, I'm a minority, and I have a different point of view because I'm a free thinker, they come after you with guns blazing. And it's such a great point. And so interesting that you bring up this state representative.

She was so brave. She's so for school choice because she actually cares about minorities. We'll have more of this conversation after this. From the Fox News Podcast Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy podcast. minorities. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Evita, you talked about the minorities that were hurt in Kenosha. Talk to us about that. And especially I'm curious about some of the Hispanics you tried to speak to me uh on the other hand hispanics who lived in kenosha live right alongside the black people and that neighborhood wise um refused they all said we don't want to be targeted we're afraid and by the way these aren't just like you know i'm a i'm a what third generation hispanic uh these are these are first generation say they're parents or they are speaking spanish or have very broken english and they said you know what what, it's just not worth it for us, which is so telling of the fear and violence that was going on at that time. Right. So what do you think is going to happen with Jason Aldean?

How do you think other country stars will react to the way he's being treated? Will they rally around him? Will they be intimidated by the corporate pressure in country music? What's your prediction? Because I know you follow country music really closely. Well, they're making an example out of Al Jean. He's already lost from a different circumstance. I think he said that he didn't want to see any masks in his audience,

and he lost his agent or the company that was representing him the pr company that was representing yeah so they've done that he he's not getting awards um country radio is still playing him but there's now massive pressure from the left to say country radio you have an obligation to stop platforming jason aldean Aldean. So there is a concerted effort to say, because of your political beliefs and because you've inserted them in your songs, which is the greatest offense that you can have, you will be punished. And I'd like to think that other country music artists would stand with him,, I assume that money is probably more important. I think that he lost

the PR company after his wife made the trans comments, if I'm correct. But either way, he did. He stood right by his wife. He didn't walk away from it. And with the iron,

Jason Aldean's position, his family's position on masks, his family's position on all the COVID measures, the family's position on masks, his family's position on all the COVID measures, the family's position on lockdowns and trans. And in this case, standing up for small town values such as self-reliance and the Second Amendment. That is the culture of country music, of the listeners, of the audience. Of the listeners. But the culture of country music like of the of the listeners of the audience of the listeners but the cultural country music seems to have changed it's become more poppy um and you have seen more

leftists take over nashville and the industry um but what you know i find this a liken to is china where you it's a you can make money you can start a business. You have a lot of freedom in China as long as you agree with the state. As long as you buy into the state's line, you have a lot of freedom of mobility and making cash and getting rich. But as soon as you cross the line of the state, is it Ma, who one of the richest men in China, runs Alibaba? one of the richest men in China runs Alibaba. They disappeared him for two months, right? You can be wildly popular and powerful and rich, and the state can still disappear you for a period of time to send a message that you better get on board. The same thing with Jason Aldean.

They're trying the China tactic to say, as long as you sing about things that we agree with, that promote our agenda and our ideology, you can do whatever you want, Jason Eldian. But as soon as you think that you can sing about issues that matter to your listeners and to many Americans, the force and the power of the government and the ESG wokesters, corporate America is going to try to squash you to make sure you can't make a living. Now, we're not quite to China yet, but make no mistake, this is the China model. Yes, this is, it's the Chinification. I mean, we've been talking about this for a long

time on our podcast, the Chinification of America. And the only thing that will save us, and we saw it during COVID, the doctors could have saved us. The doctors, let's be honest, the medical community were cowards and they had the power to save us all. And they had the voice of authority to do that. With Bud Light, I think we saw consequences and now corporate America is a little bit afraid of the boycott. And that was the common people, conservatives who said, we're done with you. In this case, again, we're going to see whether the lack of courage, which I think is at the heart of so many of the problems we have in America that we haven't stood up for ourselves. ourselves. We're going to see if other country stars rally around Jason Aldean, or if they also lack the courage to do that. And we're going to see whether country music listeners have the courage to stand up to corporate media. And I mean, right now, CMT has made themselves the target. I hope people boycott the award shows and say, you know, this is BS. Maybe somebody will start another award show that actually reflects the views

of the, of the, of the listeners. Well, listen, if you want to support him and, and you're still a member of one of those powerful boycotters themselves, Apple music, they still have LDN song up. You can download it, you can play it. And that's how you support the song and keep it at the top of the charts um and and push back and support an artist who's a free thinker and putting product out that he thinks you all want to hear so that that's the way to do it and and and show who's in charge not corporate not the corporatist but the actual consumer is still in charge of the

american economy and support him online yeah and i i was gonna say he's he's he and his wife have both responded to this and tried to defend the song and say it's not racist if jason aldean is listening which i don't think he is but if he is i i have some advice i don't think that they should be um explaining themselves it's more evident that this is not a racist song and that actually it's a critique of leftism and the chaos that has ensued from their policies. What they do is lean into it, say 100%, this is my song, I own it. And there's a market for that because people are starving for artists to actually side with them, but also to respond to the culture that we're living in, because no one's really right now. And that's that there's an opportunity for Jason Aldean.

It's not just a critique of left wing policies, although it certainly is. And we're seeing it. And I love that he used those images because they're trying to tell us those were peaceful protests. And we saw the burning and we saw the billions of dollars lost. The cops who actually died from violence during that riot, for sure. But also it's an embracing of a culture of small small town culture values. It is saying, listen, we're for law and order. We're for, you know, protecting our family and our town our town and taking care of each other. And so there's the other flip side that I think we need to, Sean, is for you, especially coming from a small town. They don't want people to take pride in their small towns. You know what I'm saying? This is a song that makes you proud. If you're from a small town, it makes you proud to

say, you know, this small town will take care of itself. You know, in a small town, they kind of know your business, but they also protect your business, right? There's a lot of rumor mills that happen in small towns and a lot of gossip, you know, people in other people's business, but they, in tough times, they really stick together. And just another point on the race front, you can woke, white kids out there protesting, destroying cities. So it was a whole montage of America, but a lot of rich, white kids that engaged in those riots. And not only that, but then also in small towns.

Small town America is not white. It's made up of a smattering of every minority group and background because there's a certain style and way of life that a small town offers. And especially today, Rachel, you see more Americans after the COVID lockdowns and the mask mandates and the crazy people on the streets and also the violence that happens on the streets and in large cities across this country people who can are trying to move where the small towns that there's there's an influx in my small town in harvard wisconsin people are coming from minneapolis and st paul they want to get the hell out and come to this small town so they can get away from the craziness of the city. And so it's actually a testament to how attractive that small town mentality is

to so many Americans who now live in the big cities. Yeah. And during Kenosha, Sean, you got my mind sparking. Remember, they tried to present the altercation between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Antifa kids as a racial thing. All three of the people involved in that incident were white. And so you're so right to point out that it was oftentimes the rich white trust fund babies who are out there causing most of the ruckus. Yeah. I was also going to say that they're mad about the video right because the song has been out for two months and everyone's kind of like okay with it the video and the images i'm almost talking about the video came out recently it came out last friday yeah so if you actually watch the video

and the images that they show i could not not, I went through it slowly. I actually slowed down the speed on YouTube to watch. And I did not see a single Black person in the videos. So there might've been Black people that were covered because there's a lot of individuals who were face masks, had all their face masks, but all of the altercations of BLM protesters, spitting in the face of cops, throwing things, that was all, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, massacres, nearby there had been a real life lynching of some of a black man you know decades ago um you know during the civil right or prior i think it was in 19 i'm going to pull up the date here um so they're they're kind of hanging their hat on the fact that they chose that courthouse where he's singing his song from um my guess is i I mean, I don't know if the people

who chose that courthouse, Tennessee, I mean, look, Nashville's in Tennessee. The guy lives in Tennessee. They chose this location. I'm sure that they didn't do that on purpose as some sort of dog whistle on that. And so that's what, to be clear, that's part of what they're using to hang their hat on.

But make no mistake, I think it'd be just right. When you see them getting upset about something and trying to censor it, pay attention to what they don't want you to talk about. And I think what they don't want you to talk about is the Second Amendment right to defend yourself. And they don't want you to tell the truth about the violence and the

bullshit that happened during during the 2020 riots that they want you to believe were peaceful protests, the violence, the damage, the billions of dollars of damage done and the lives that were lost. You're 100 percent right. And again, you mentioned the Second Amendment. And it goes back to one of the first points I made, which is you have to have complete control for the state. You can't have any power yourself, which means they have to take your firearm away, which is why our founders in this balance of a government that was for the people by the people, they enshrine your Second Amendment right that you can possess a firearm so you can push back against a rogue government. And that's why Cuba, Venezuela, China, so many countries have taken away the individual's right to bear arms because they have no right then to push back against an authoritarian regime. In Cuba, the results have been far different in the protests from a couple of years ago if the people actually had guns. They would be able to fight the regime

and potentially win. But when they're using rocks and sticks to fight back, that's the problem because the power differential is so huge. John, you know what they were left to using? They were left using those protesters in Cuba. They were using their phones. They were trying to send the images back to us so we could see them protesting and also document all the people who were rounded up, the leaders. By the way, Afro-Cuban leaders, artists led that protest in Cuba two summers ago. Artists led that that protest in Cuba two summers ago.

And those those those people were rounded up and we weren't able to tell the story. Do you know why? Because the communists shut down the Internet, the Internet there. begging Joe Biden to just let them give them some sort of internet satellite connection so they could send out those images and Joe Biden. So that's because Joe Biden is running the Marxist regime. And why would he be opposed to his good friends that run another Marxist regime? He's not going to side with the people like he hasn't sided with the people in America. He sided with the regime and the power that crushes the individual and the freedom. I hope we can end this with advising people. If you care about this issue with the things we're talking about, there's a brave guy named Jason Aldean who's trying to send a message. And so, as you said, Sean, download his song, support him on social media, send a message to CMT by boycotting them and everything to do with corporate country if you can. We'll have more of this conversation after this.

So I'm going to move to another cultural touch point, because while Vida is an expert in country music, American country music, I am an expert in Barbie. I grew up on Barbie. I was always obsessed with Barbie. They were my best favorite gifts that I got for Christmas and birthday presents when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. And as a little girl, and I just, I love Barbie. And so here we have a movie, Barbie movie that came out that I was excited. My girls love Barbies, by the way. There's Sean, we probably have two or Barbies in our house.

I'm not exaggerating. They just love Barbie. And so they've been passed on through all the kids from Evita on down. And they keep buying them for Christmas and so forth. So the main problem with the Barbie movie, in my view, Sean, is that the movie was written and directed by people who hate Barbie. And I know that because the actual ad for the Barbie movie says, if you hate Barbie, this is the movie for you.

Imagine that as and Mattel's on board. I mean, Mattel is fully on board with this movie. So from a visual point of view, the movie is delicious. It's brilliantly casted. The set design is incredible. It's just, if you love Barbie, it's a visual delight to watch. It's a visual delight to watch. And yet there is a feeling that you can't allow, you know, little girls and their moms like me to revel freely, guiltlessly for two hours in the femininity of that, you know,

you can't have this unadulterated fun of just being a girl without the intrusion of all these sort of ideological LGBTQ plus agenda without the intrusion of envious men. There's a trans story in there as well. By the way, the only Dr. Barbie is a trans man. So it's actually as a trans. It's actually a man, which is super ironic. And the intrusion of joyless feminists who are anti-child, anti-family. And so Barbie gets pulled out of her Barbie dream world and into the real world where she's being forced to choose between

basically guilted and shamed for wanting high heels versus Birkenstocks, which in our family is really funny because you might know I love high heels and I hate Birkenstocks with a passion. So that was just really hit home for me. But I mean, it's weird, right? I mean, like you have this movie that is supposed to celebrate Barbie and at the same time is trashing Barbie and making people, girls feel bad for loving the girliness of Barbie. Yeah, it's an interesting, I haven't seen the movie, but what it seems is this weird dichotomy of the message being Barbie is like the old of barbie is actually bad and we should embrace this sort of third-wave feminist girl boss version of barbie but then also exploiting the the color and fashion

and music and like all the things that people actually like would love about barbie but i'll also say this when i'm in like the 2010s like 2010 to like 2015 there was this anti-disney movement like anti-disney princess movement where they said we don't want our girls we don't want our girls to be watching snow white we don't want that we want them to be we want them to be princesses right that's that that have to be saved by a man um and then there was some you know reactionary films to it sort of making fun fun of this conception of Disney princesses. And then a few years later, when I was late high school, early college, they started to say, you know what, actually, this is kind of silly. articles um and and parents committing to never let their kid watch it women should be allowed to actually embrace the femininity and it's actually kind of anti-feminist to say you can't be feminine that's the whole point of being a woman but this this bargaining be

seems to be completely backward to where i thought um modern feminists were i thought they'd actually made a really nice realization that this silly man this silly woman hating um anti-feminine uh strain of their movement was actually detrimental to women and now it seems like it completely backfired the male characters are like all dumb they're they're like either evil dumb losers and so there's a weird message about it's very frank it's very anti-male male movie well so one that would fit in with the demonization of of men and young boys and toxic masculinity that has taken over our culture number one but i wonder you know again you go back to the business side people companies make movies to one, make money. And two,

as we see now, more recently, they're trying to make cultural statements or trying to move the culture in a certain direction, but they can't do that unless they make enough money to pay their employees and their artists and give a return to their shareholders. I want, I haven't seen the numbers on how this movie is going to do. I don't know if you guys have seen that either, but I wonder, are moms going to take their young girls to see this movie with these really mixed messages or bizarre messages that they actually want to protect them from? The moms and dads who've been protesting trans books in the school system and trans lessons in the classroom, are they going to bring their kids and pay?

I mean, God, movies are expensive. Now was it 12, 15 bucks a movie. I haven't gone to the last one I went to was a top gun Maverick, which was last summer. I mean,

we all went together. I've been calling since then, but I wonder is the consumer is though, is the girl, is the mom going to go see this movie and the images that they're presenting in, in in in barbie which is actually kind of anti-barbie it's such a great question sean and and so i there's there's a couple there's a couple strains in that that i i want to i want to i want to hit on

but first the movie is full of really weird references to like Prowse and the people. And there's also the film is directed by a female director who, you know, so there's some, like there's, there's a lot of like nerdy sort of film references in it to like 2001 space odyssey and, and movies that like girls either don't know about or their moms hate it.

You know what I mean? So it's, it's weird. Like who is their mean? So it's, it's weird, like who is their audience? Right. And so it's, it's conflicting in that regard to like visually appealing to the audience, right. To girls and they cast Margo, Margo, Margo, Margo Robbie, who's gorgeous. And Ryan Gosling, gorgeous. And like all that. So like it has this visual appeal, but it can't just let you revel in the gruelingness of it. It's got to hit you over the head with all these social justice,

feminist messages, because ultimately as the thing says, if you hate Barbie, you'll love this movie. It's got to, it's got to hit the femininity about, about Barbie. And,

and so it does that. And so here's what's interesting, Sean, because you talked about money. So ultimately Barbie is still this plastic doll with this tiny waist and these little feet stuck in the heel position. So you can slip her little plastic high heels on and strappy shoes on um so it ultimately is that which is sort of like not in the corporate moment so what they've done is they've made this deal right so it's corporate esg is you know if you could hit on hit barbie from the feminist perspective and make fun of it and degrade and denigrate her on the one hand, it kind of gives Mattel permission, like a permission slip, if you will, to have this

doll with this tiny waist in this cultural environment. So as long as she spews a bunch of girl boss, feminist bull, then, you know, Mattel can have their cake and eat it too, if you will. here's another angle sean that really concerns me and it goes back to what we talked about with the men the way men are portrayed in this movie so initially i think a lot of moms my age gen x moms are going to take their girls to watch this movie um they're not going to take their boys it's not visually appealing to most boys but eventually this is going to end up on Netflix or on one of the Apple TV or whatever. And people are going to pay to buy this movie.

And then little boys are going to watch this movie. And the message to little boys is so negative. It's so negative. You would not want your little boy to watch this because there's nobody redeeming. There's no male redeeming. There's no celebration of Ken as a masculine figure. I know that Ken lacked anatomy and he's sort of this plastic, emasculated sort of afterthought. And I love that they played on the afterthought of Ken in the movie. He really was always an afterthought.

And it was fun to play on that. But also all these other male characters are just, there's only girl bosses and redeeming themselves with these feminist messages. That does concern me because I don't think you would want, I don't think any woman should take their kid to see this film or rent this movie where there's little boys watching. I don't think you would want, I don't think any woman should take their kid to see this film or rent this movie where there's little boys watching. So first off, go ahead, Evita. I wonder how many progressive parents, moms specifically, are bringing their boys to Barbie on purpose.

I think there's a lot of parents in America, not conservative ones, but progressive ones that say, you know, we have to deconstruct the masculinity within my boy. I want him to, you know, be open and realize that he can light a barbecue. And it's so blamming because I, I'm, I'm convinced that that's probably what's happening is they're, they're doing it on purpose and sending their boys to, to watch a bunch of other feminine things, put them in ballet to, to make sure that if they, if they question their gender, that they have the opportunity to do that. It's so funny. It brings me back to when I was a kid.

So my brother did G.I. Joe. Remember the G.I. Joe Barbies, Sean? They were like Barbies. They weren't Barbies. They were G.I. Joe guides. They were action figures. But they were like Barbies in that they were the same size as a Barbie. And my brothers had all the G.I. Joe dolls, action dolls.

They were tall like Barbie. And then they had like the tanks and all this stuff and and and war equipment. And I was always trying to be nurse military Barbie. I was wanting to let them let me play with their, you know, with them. And then my brothers were a little older than me. So they were always like, no, you know, like they wouldn't they wouldn't let Barbiebie play with gi joe back then but that's an interesting point of you that so so but let me ask you so first off uh uh there might be some woke liberal women who want to bring their sons to that movie and expose them to it shame on them it'll be a horrible horrible experience for any boy who's a boy um But I guarantee you, Rachel, in our house, that if

the girls, and I'll try to stop it, but if for some reason we're not home and they put on the Barbie movie, I guarantee you our seven-year-old Patrick, there's not a chance in hell he'll sit there and watch that movie. Or even John Paul, who's going to be 17, you couldn't force him to sit and watch that

Barbie movie. Boys won't watch it. They don't want to. Both me and Evita are here shaking our heads because JP, our 17-year-old, will not watch that movie. 16-year-old, almost 17, he's not going to watch it. He's going to be uninterested. However, Patrick, who is all boy, by the way, he loves blowing things up and everything else, he still will sit down and watch it because he's totally outnumbered by the way, he loves blowing things up and everything else. He still will sit down and watch by the girls because he's totally outnumbered

by the girls. Yeah, and it's also a very stimulating movie. Mind-wise, there's just a lot of stuff going on which can captivate a kid, whether it's a boy or a girl. And he's a little boy, so he looks up to his sisters. And so I think if they were to put it on, they'd put it there and watch it. Okay. Well, we can have an experiment, but

I've seen the girls watch movies and he'll just stand up and he'll start running around and jumping and fighting with whatever teddy bear he has in the house and we'll walk away from what you're doing. But I want to make a different point as well. The message, and it goes off of what you said, Rachel, the message to girls, and it kind of goes into a lot of the conversations that we've had, which is what makes you happy? Finding love makes you happy in life. Having a family makes you happy.

And to find love for 95% of the population is to find someone of the opposite sex that you find attractive and that you actually respect if you want to have a healthy marriage. And if you have a movie like this that demonizes men, it sends a message to girls that one, they're stupid and two, they don't really need a man. And frankly, I'm not saying that women need men. I think men need women and women need men. That's where we were made to be together in marriage and have families. if you demonize that, it continues to send this cultural message that families aren't important. Marriage isn't important. Maybe your car, your bank account, your professional career, that's the most important thing to you.

But why would you give all of that up for a stupid man in your life little girls wrong message for them which is why i think all decent parents should keep their children away from this movie i'll just so you know i mean i have not had more um requests begging and pleading from the girls than to watch this movie. Our girls love Barbie. They want to watch this movie. It's like they're just dying. The interesting thing is when I've seen long, I haven't watched the entire thing. I've seen long clips of it. She's in dream world, Barbie dream world, and then she's in the real world. I want to stay in the dream world. I'm loving all the dream world when she's in her element of Barbie.

And I don't want her out in that other world. That's kind of funny. But I do think back to your point, Sean, it is ironic that truly outside of the women's studies department, outside of the TikTok feminist influencers who clearly influence this movie, feminism, in my view, has always misunderstood the true desires of real women. And anyone who falls for that ideology ends up really unhappy and bitter. And so I just think it's really sad that we allowed feminism and all these Wokey messages to infect this movie, because it really could have been super fun. It should have been something that moms could take their daughters. i want to mention

one more thing um the whole so what it does talk about in the film is this transition there used to be pre-barbie had baby dolls which had a very maternal feel to it right like they were taking care of baby dolls was this um you know foreshadowing of the maternal that they would eventually become and then along comes barbie in what like 1960 1959 and so now little girls are playing with barbie barbie's not exactly that maternal right she she's this hard figure with a tiny waist and she's like ready to have a good time and so in the movie what they do is you see the little girls crushing the heads and the baby dolls and sort of this transition to Barbie. And I do think that there's a certain generation of women who went through that transition, you know, this feminist transition. They're the angry, they're the boomer moms who are still angry at men and the patriarchy.

And they've been trying so hard to um make other young women angry like them the truth is when i had my barbie and i grew up on barbie and she was my favorite toy to play with and i had lots of them and i had the furniture and i had the whole thing i never had the barbie dream house which is always a little you know i have a little bit of regret about that. But my girls have it. And what, but I don't have those resentments. I grew up with Barbie. I don't, I don't have this, like throw away my baby dolls because there's now Barbie.

Barbie is part of my, and I like men and I like masculine men. And I, I, I, I wanted my Ken Barbie to marry my Barbie. And, you know, I don't have all those issues. And what they're trying to do is inject these issues into girls. And I think that that's a really interesting thing that, um, I don't know where it's coming from. I don't know why they want to make people so bitter and unhappy. Well, I was, I was going to say, I think they're trying to circumvent a, something who trying to circumvent something. Barbie's and say, all of your dressing up, all of the lipstick and the high heels and the pink, you know, maybe that's not such a good thing. And I think that is a really negative thing to tell women because, and I've written

a couple articles about this, but in order to have a family and in order to even attract a man, you have to emphasize the femininity. And so to say that all of this stuff is dumb and that girls need to sort of remove themselves from stupid Barbie and her looks and instead focus on being a girl boss is actually a really negative thing to tell women because unity is not the most important thing, but it's a very important thing that people have now decided to denigrate and really belittle about women. Well, it's actually against nature, right?

Men are attractive. Sean, do you like me in high heels or Birkenstall? I like you in high heels, honey. Keep that up. Good, because you can't marry a Latina and want a girl in Birkenstown. All right, well, this is a fascinating conversation. Moms, if you're considering having your girls watch this movie,

you should watch it first yourself and decide if it's right for you. It's a really hard one for me to resist. I'm just so sad that mattel um went for the for this um wish they had embraced barbie and all her feminine glory um but me me too rachel me too and so i i'm gonna hope and advocate you don't actually go see it you don't give them their money your money you don't support uh this woke ideology but it's your choice, your call. But I think it's good advice. Watch it in person, see if it's appropriate

for your kids. Make the call yourself as a parent. Listen, I want to thank everyone for joining us on our podcast from the kitchen table. We need to thank you for joining us as well. We appreciate it. If you like our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. You can go to foxnewspodcast.com

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