After watching Barbie in theaters, I was relieved to read Joe Joyce’s review in the Aug. 11 issue and appreciated that he detected a subtle truth revealed in it. 

As Joyce pointed out, “Barbie” doesn’t declare a winner in the battle of the sexes. Instead, it deftly illustrates how “machismo” parodied by the film’s “Kens” is little more than a reaction to the harmful elements of feminism.

In the creators’ parody, Ken is the compliment that Barbie needs to be a real woman. But by the end, the film cleverly makes the case that equilibrium, not domination, should prevail between the sexes.

Neither men nor women have been created to be accessories for one another. Christianity has long proclaimed that men are men, and women are women: intrinsically different, but equal in dignity.

— Amparo Gonzalez, Valencia