Hanging Out in Barbieland

Two months ago, if you told me that I would sit in a movie theater watching a movie about the infamous Barbie and Ken, I would have given you a puzzled look and maybe questioned your sanity. The early hype suggested that this was a kid's movie about dolls; dolls that made a toy company very rich. Thanks, but no thanks!

Folks, this was no kids' movie. As I watched I was reminded of the 1998 film The Truman Show where the filmmakers used realistic fantasy and humor to make larger points about culture and society. Barbieland is much like the giant stage that housed the unknowing Truman and a massive cast of film characters and technicians, only in this world the Barbies run things and the Kens hang out at the beach. (For those of you who did not grow up with Barbie, Ken was her male alter-ego.)

Who are we: questions of identity.

In Barbieland, the Kens find their identity only through the Barbies. In one especially hilarious scene, as Barbie and Ken leave Barbieland for the big city of Los Angeles, Ken is dressed in a pink shirt adorned with the letter "B." But while Barbie searches for her creator (if you haven't seen it, I won't give it away), Ken is "corrupted" by a male-dominated world and heads back to share his new reality with his fellow Kens. And Barbieland becomes the Kendom, and the Barbies now find their identities not in themselves but in the newly liberated Kens. Matriarchy is transformed to patriarchy.

No wonder this film has sparked so much commentary and controversy. Barbie has something to upset everyone--progressives, populists, and everyone with a stake in the current gender wars. One progressive critic suggested that the depiction of gender in Barbie is "too binary!" You get the picture.

So, how do we unpack this film? First, I must acknowledge that Barbie has struck a one-billion-dollar nerve for many Americans and Canadians (and others). Barbie taps into the cultural angst we often feel about a world marked by division over fundamental questions like "What is a man?" or "What does it mean to be a woman?" These questions of human identity are front and center in an age driven by technology and large corporate and government institutions. Add to that the expressive individualism that marks our society and you have a recipe for potential chaos.

Those questions even cause division among Christians and the divisions among us can get pretty heated. Yet, I think that the Christian faith offers profound guidance in the first chapter of the Bible: "So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Moreover, "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth" (Genesis 1:28). An image is a mirror, and we are created to reflect God's very character. All humans are created in God's image no matter if they are male or female; or Black, Asian, Caucasian, Latino, or Indigenous.

This raises my second takeaway. Barbieland (and the “Kendom” that temporarily succeeded it) are places where only the beautiful people exist. Women and men of physical beauty, intelligence, and glamor inhabit this society. In Barbieland, the less popular Barbies are shunted to the outskirts of town much like in our own society where persons with disabilities and immigrants often live on the margins of society. Barbieland and the Kendom are false communities where only the beautiful, the rich, and the smart are full members.

New community.

Yet the Christian faith imagines a new community, a multitude of Jesus followers "from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages...standing before the throne and before the Lamb" [Jesus himself] glorifying the Triune God (Revelation 7:9). It's a place where Christ welcomes all who wish to follow him, a place for sinners like you and me, a place where men and women are welcome to follow and serve Christ, and a place where those marginalized by society are especially welcome.

That community is being formed right now in our Christian congregations where Christ is central. Obviously, our churches are far from perfect. We struggle. All of us live with what the philosopher Charles Taylor describes as “social imaginaries,” the beliefs, values, and assumptions we bring to life and living. These imaginaries are much more than what some Christians call a “worldview.” They involve assumptions about life and living that are not only unspoken but unconscious. And they are deeply cultural. We are influenced by culture so deeply that often we don’t recognize it. I could say more, but just like Barbieland and the Kendom, we are formed by cultural values that we simply assume are true. To become a new community, an outpost of God’s kingdom, means we attempt to discover those unconscious cultural assumptions and embrace intentionally the gospel and the teaching of Scripture.

Barbie has much to say about masculinity and femininity. In my view, the men in the film are often emasculated. Look at the male character Allan in the film. His only value is as an ally to Barbie, and that seems to be our modern cultural understanding of the purpose and role of men. I like how Mike Cosper describes Allan: “Allan isn’t really a hero. He’s not a love interest for Barbie, and we don’t know what happens to him in the end. Barbie herself embraces embodied, gendered humanity as the gift that it was meant to be. Ken recognizes the failure of his own “Kendom” and the absurdity of his utopia, but we’re left wondering what he’ll do next. With Allan, we don’t really care—but that’s the point. He’s just Allan the ally, and his only job is to support Barbie.”

If that is the “progressive” understanding of men, the opposite far-right populist version is just as horrid. Again, Mike Cosper: “you’ll find arguments about prepping for economic apocalypse, avoiding seed oils, and determining whether a new father should ever change a single diaper. (He should change thousands, and if he’s a Christian, he almost certainly will.) Unlike that of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, this masculinity is performative and reactionary, interested in aesthetics and display on social media more than the serious, lifelong work of being a good and faithful man. To the extent that it’s meant to be taken seriously (and mostly it’s not), it doesn’t seem interested in the formation of virtues that would make masculinity distinctly Christlike—such as gentleness, self-control, sobriety, compassion, and generosity.” Sadly, the populist right has as little to say as the progressive left.

Greta Gerwig, the creator and producer of Barbie, tries to make several points. The biggest one is the best societies are those where women and men live and work as partners where and value each other. I fully agree. Men and women are created in the image of God and have been gifted by God to exercise stewardship over the creation God has given to us. Yet, that message seems submerged amidst all the entertainment, frivolity, and posturing. The Truman Show had the same problem. Barbie is a film that requires you to process what you have seen. Don’t bring children but go see it. Better yet, see it with a group of Christians and then go out for coffee afterwards and discuss what you saw. My wife Renee and I loved the film and it sparked some good conversation for us.

Mike Cosper’s reflection on Barbie can be found at Christianity Today online. How Then Should Men Live? | Christianity Today, August 31, 2023. Our next film to see is My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 and I don’t anticipate that film will merit a review from me.