Challenging Male Entitlement and Patriarchy: Promising Young Woman, Barbie, and Contemporary Feminist Theory

This paper examines comparatively the potential feminist work done by two recent films, Promising Young Woman (2020) and Barbie (2023). By employing the concepts of (male) entitlement and patriarchy, we argue that pushing the concept of patriarchy to the center of a discourse propagated by means of commercial success can have the effect of strengthening rather than undermining it. At the same time, this apparent acceptance of patriarchy as a debate topic is accompanied by continued reluctance to address entitlement.