A less overtly political movie might have gotten the point across even better.
There’s a great scene in the new Barbie movie where Ken (Ryan Gosling) and his fellow Kens all sit around on the beach playing Matchbox Twenty’s Push in order to impress the Barbies in their male-dominated new world order. It’s hilarious, not just because of the setup, but because the song is about an emotionally abusive girlfriend.
It’s pretty much guaranteed that the vast majority of moviegoers who see this film will not know what that particular song is about. The song was controversial even when it came out, in 1997, as a major hit for the band. Feminist groups at the time were outraged, and claimed that the song was about domestic violence and abusing women. Lead singer Rob Thomas clarified that the song was actually about emotional abuse, and sung from the perspective of the abusive girlfriend, but that did little to quell the backlash.
