The world may have been caught up in Barbie mania last summer, but Shakira and her family certainly weren’t. In a new interview with Allure, the Colombian superstar said her sons Milan, 11, and Sasha, 9, “absolutely hated” Greta Gerwig’s award-winning film. “They felt that it was emasculating. And I agree, to a certain extent,” she said.
The artist went on to say that she wants her sons — whom she shares with her ex-partner, former soccer player Gerard Piqué — to “feel powerful too” while also being able to respect women. “I like pop culture when it attempts to empower women without robbing men of their possibility to be men, to also protect and provide,” Shakira said. “I believe in giving women all the tools and the trust that we can do it all without losing our essence, without losing our femininity. I think that men have a purpose in society and women have another purpose as well. We complement each other, and that complement should not be lost.”
It’s certainly an interesting take for a singer who’s built her career around themes of women’s empowerment and female agency. (Something that the Allure interview claims to celebrate, headlining the cover story “Shakira’s She-Wolf Feminism.”) Her comments were praised by some right-wing commentators, such as British host Piers Morgan, who wrote on X, “Hurrah for @shakira — finally, a high-profile woman prepared to stand up for men being men.”
Ever since its release, Barbie has been bashed as “anti-men” — but Gerwig wasn’t too ruffled by the criticism. “Certainly, there’s a lot of passion. My hope for the movie is that it’s an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of the things that aren’t necessarily serving us as either women or men,” she told the New York Times last summer. “I hope that in all of that passion, if they see it or engage with it, it can give them some of the relief that it gave other people.”
Maybe Shakira and the kids should consider a rewatch with that in mind?
By Andrea González-Ramírez , 2024-04-02 21:39:37
Source link
