Well, hello and welcome back to the Speak Life Podcast, episode 469. My name is Thomas Thurrogood, media producer at Speak Life, and today what else could we be talking about but the Barbie movie? The brand new Barbie movie. Everyone's talking about it, it seems. It's been a big week for cinema with Oppenheimer coming out as well. And Nate, who you're about to hear in this conversation, did a review of Barbie last week on the Reformed Mythologist channel. So if you want to check that out, go to youtube.com forward slash at Reformed Mythologist. They refer to that review review a little bit in this conversation. So Nate is joined by Glen and Glen's wife, Emma Scrivener. It's great to have her on the podcast as well. And the conversation goes to all sorts of interesting areas, discussions of men and women, motherhood, and much more. This conversation does contain spoilers, so if you want to see the Barbie movie fresh, uh why not pause this episode, go and watch it and come back. Well, enjoy the conversation, and I will catch you at the end.
SPEAKER_05Hello and welcome to Speak Life. We'd like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. I'm Glenn. And I'm Nate. And today we are joined by Emma Scrivener. Hello, Emma. Hello. Yes. And uh we thought we would talk all things Barbie today, because the rest of the world is. And there will be spoilers, really. Probably. Yeah, yeah. But we decided that we were going to begin not with Barbie the movie, because before Barbie was a movie, did you know Barbie was a doll?
unknownA doll.
SPEAKER_05A doll.
SPEAKER_03What is a doll? That's a reference to the review that I gave uh of the Barbie movie. Yes. You can check out on the Reformed Mythologist channel, which is linked below.
SPEAKER_05And we were going to force Nate to answer his own question on this podcast. What actually is a doll? But we will we will get to that. Okay. Because first we need to interrogate um the whole social phenomenon of Barbie the doll. And I did not have a Barbie growing up. Did you have a Barbie growing up? No, I did not. But Emma Scrivener, you had a Barbie doll growing up. Just one?
SPEAKER_01Er one main one. I think I might have had two or three. One of my best friends had five, which is why we were best friends. And um yes.
SPEAKER_05So you were all in on Barbie.
SPEAKER_01I was all in on Barbie. I had a Barbie from about the age of eight through till about 13. I had the Barbie dream house, I had the Barbie spa, and one of the most traumatic memories of my life is associated with my Barbie. I had 22 shoes in the collection, which were lined up, and you know my liking for all things ordered. Um my brother, I had drawn on his action man, I think I drew hair on him or something. Anyway, something small, and he threw one of all of the 22 pairs down the drain. Okay. One of them. Yeah, one of them. One of them. So I was left with the one, the one she. But yeah, I was a big I was a big Barbie fan, and I turned out fine.
SPEAKER_05So that's interesting that you that your brother had an action man.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_05Because one one thing that sort of comes out, and I thought was a good point to be made in the film, is that before Barbie, really, the kinds of toys that girls played with were babies. And so you play it being mother, whereas stereotypic, the the toys that that boys play with are fully grown adults who can, you know, take on a machine gun nest and win. And so with Barbie, you get an adult figure that is that is that that is what you are playing with. And therefore, it is not simply training you to be a mother, but Barbie is training you to be aspirational and to think yourself into the shoes of Barbie herself. Does does that resolve Because so Barbie's different to a cabbage patch doll. Because with a cabbage patch doll, you're the mother and you're you're doting. But with Barbie, well, like how what is your relationship with the Barbie toy?
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, a couple of things. Um I think first of all, it's very interesting. Barbie's been on quite the journey from the feminist icon she is today to the original doll, which was, I think, build Lily, a German doll, designed for men. And uh that was that was where she started off. Um men or boys? Men. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Men which size doll are we talking about?
SPEAKER_01I think we're talking I think we're talking about this size. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Okay. And what age men are we talking about?
SPEAKER_01I don't really know. I haven't delved deeply into it, but that was where she started off. Okay. Um and uh I think she's useful in different ways. I enjoy I liked I liked her house, I liked her stuff, I liked that she had it was the real world, and I could be part of that real world. My sister had Slovenian families, which was much more family-oriented, you know, had they had the little furry things. Um I wonder if my experience with Barbie, because I think Barbie has changed over the years, I think she really reflects the society that we're in. And um so I've spoken to friends of mine who had Barbie who are younger than I have, younger than I am, and they've said they found her very empowering because she did inhabit a whole range of roles. Now I that wasn't my experience. My experience was she had great hair, really great hair. And you could play it, and she had a a swimming pool with bubbles, and yeah, and I just enjoyed I enjoyed all of that.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and so the the Rangers got into there's President Barbie and there's astrophysicist Barbie and that kind of thing. But you had stereotypical Barbie.
SPEAKER_01I did, but interestingly, I think they released Presidential Barbie, um, it was in the last few years, um, and do great fanfare, but she was actually in in market terms outsold by something like five to one by Great Hair Barbie, which is the number one selling Barbie of all time.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_01Great hair Barbie.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's interesting. Obviously, in the film there is this love-hate relationship, and and in all the publicity that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwick have done, they've been at pains to say that Barbie is a double-edged sword. And um double-edged sword Barbie. That one didn't sell well at all. Why not?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Swiss army Barbie.
SPEAKER_05Because on on the one hand, okay, um she doesn't she's not an infant that you have to mother. She is aspirational. But on the other hand, I mean she doesn't have if she was a real human being, she wouldn't have enough butt body fat to menstruate, you know. Like she is impossibly dimensioned. What does that do for a young girl growing up?
SPEAKER_01Yes. They released Car curvy Barbie not that long ago and she's a size six, which wow again, and that wasn't that long ago. Um well uh okay. I am not speaking for Christian women, nor am I speaking for women. I'm just I'm only my the views herein are only those of quite a strange person called Emma Scrivener, who had a lot of body image issues growing up and uh long-term anorexia and full disclosure. So um how did Barbie feed into that? Well, interestingly, when I've looked when I look back on sort of the mental health issues that I've experienced, including anorexia, I would never until today have even considered Barbie being a part of that. Now, as I think back on it, I think, yes, I you know, there's something about a visual image of actually holding something in your hands that's very powerful where you can see you know those dimensions, and I'm sure it did make a bit of an impact. But as I think back, I also remember at the time I loved reading. I read loads of fairy stories, uh, you know, not something you'd say, a good healthy pursuit for a young girl, etc. So at hands, Christian Anderson. But I loved um reading about the princesses in it and drawing them, and they were like two to a woman, they were waif-like, emaciated, they'd fall over at the drop of a hat, they were described as being very, very fragile, very and and that I would say influenced my view of what a a beautiful woman would be, certainly as much as as the Barbie would have done, yeah. Um at the time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So what what is a doll, Nate? Because because Emma's talking about this this toy that like are you are you invested in that toy? Is that who you are? What are people doing when they're playing with dolls?
SPEAKER_03Well, so to use a Tolkien phrase, it's uh they are sub-creations. Okay. So Tolkien writes in his essay on fairy stories about human beings being sub-creators, so made by a creator to be creative, and so the whole thing with the with a doll, particularly, which is obviously different from a character in a book or a you know uh some other kind of art form, is you have a physical representation of yourself or something else in the real world that is now you're able to manipulate it, you're able to put it into circumstances and stories, and you're able to play pretend what you know of reality or to distort reality in various exciting ways, in fantastical ways, or whatever. Um but you're basically adopting a kind of creator role in that relationship. Um so a doll and a puppet, very simple similar, like a figurine. I mean, action man wouldn't be called a doll in the in the same way, but certainly why not? Why wouldn't Action Man be a doll? Oh, just because dolls has traditionally been used more for female characters than that. But he kind of is though, isn't he? Action Man is a doll. Well, yes in that sense. I suppose if you're saying he's a he's a a toy or a figure. And so the whole toy story thing is kind of built on that same sort of premise that you have these sub-creations uh with all of the kind of gadgets and and and things that they go with, and that you are then going to play out your imaginary life, yes, uh in various ways connected with reality, playing out things you have seen or would like to see in the world, or you're gonna like choose to put it, you know, you're you're gonna express yourself through this doll. And everyone can do that differently. Yes. And you know, I mean the Lego movie looked at this sort of same thing as well. It's like, do you think the world should be ordered structured and pinned down with the craggle with the crazy glue? Or do you think that all these worlds are kind of breakable and you should be a master builder who's reassembling things all the time?
SPEAKER_05And why do children like to do that more than adults? What are what do kids get out of it? It feels like a child's play thing.
SPEAKER_03Well, partly because children don't have much agency in the real world. So they don't the the kids uh kids don't get to make that many choices, but once you give them a doll and you create a scenario in which they can represent themselves and they can they can give voice to something that has more power, then of course a child is gonna embrace that because this is consequence-free action. Yeah, which yeah, I mean, and clearly adults like doing it too. It's just that at various times it's not socially acceptable. Um and you know, the whole realm of creative work is is in one sense the same play-pretend or make-believe that is involved in in so it's not like there's a problem with having dolls, it's what kind of dolls do you have and how do people choose to play with them? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, on that it's quite interesting. This is maybe jumping the gun a bit, but uh you're talking about um people, children particularly playing out the dolls themselves and the dolls. There's a sort of inversion of that almost in the Barbie film, where the the mum, who was the one who originally um played with the Barbie, says, because Barbie starts having these intrusive thoughts of death and you know things that really shouldn't be in a Barbie world, and the the mother says to the Barbie, um, I couldn't be what you are, so I made you what I am, which is almost the reverse of that. And you know, I'm I made an OCD Barbie, I made a menopausal Barbie, I I had to bring you back.
SPEAKER_03But that's an even weirdly, that's a uh the fact that Barbie can't the the Barbie land, Barbie land can't contain mortality, right? Why not? Like it's a weird cultural phenomenon that we have which precedes Barbie, well long shot, which is the absolute fear of death, rejection of death. Right. So to say we've got Undertaker Barbie, right, one Barbie, yeah. Why not have cut like because in a way, if if play pretend and the subcreated world that there's reality and then there's play underneath, if this is an opportunity to try things out and to come to terms with what's in the real world, there's no reason why a child shouldn't be able to express you know their feelings about the world which are less positive using dolls to do it. So so play therapy is like a major thing at the moment, and it's always been fascinating to me. If you do summer camps with kids, is to take puppets along because a puppet's weird as because it's different from a doll, because as a puppet, you now are in a level of control which meets it's you in a way that the Barbie doll you can relate to. So, yeah, in terms of the persona that's being placed into the doll or the puppet or the figure is is a fascinating one. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And there is a weird Barbie in the film who is being played with too hard, which is an interesting, you know, yeah. Yeah. That is dropped into the film. Yeah, yeah. And really that could be a whole film in itself. It's just uh Right.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So why why isn't the moral that's yeah, you you can treat your Barbie the way you would treat your action man, actually, and be rough and embrace mortality and all that kind of stuff. And yet, okay, so the the conceit of the film is Barbie is a Barbie girl in a Barbie world, and everything is plastic and fantastic, and it's she's immortal. Um, and I I thought it was a hilarious moment when just in the middle of her being plastic and fantastic, she's just like, I'm gonna die. And kind of it's one of those sort of record scratch moments. Where did that intrusive thought about mortality come from? And not it's not proper to a Barbie world, the way that we've in you know uh imagined a Barbie world. And so in the film, Barbie has to figure out where this has come from. So she goes to Weird Barbie and she asks her what's going on, and apparently she must have been played with by someone in the real world, and she has to connect with that person in the real world and somehow save them. So off she goes with Ken to kind of save whoever this person is who is clearly troubled, who's feeling mortal thoughts, and things kind of unfold from there. But I guess in the in the film, I guess I guess we've got something that's quite similar to other films in which you become a real boy, like Pinocchio, in which you've got you've got a kind of a play world and a real world.
SPEAKER_03But what are what what would you say are the differences with with Greta Gerwig's kind of Well part of the problem I part of the problem I take have with the film is the fact that in setting up an interdimensional, you know, there's a play world, there's a real world, and there is a threshold between the two, and there is set up in the opening act the dynamic, the relationship between real world and play world. You're like, oh, that's really interesting, right? You've done some world building here, and there's a very short kind of piece of exposition that that Kate McKinnon's character gives, where Barbie gives to stereotypical Barbie about how to go about it, and so they set themselves up for what is potentially a fascinating engagement of how these two worlds interconnect, how salvation from the problem can be brought by action in one world and action in the other world, yeah, and what the relationship, and then they just forget about it. Yeah, they just go oh, yeah, we don't need to worry about that anymore. And so the threshold between the two, which is again set up interestingly, you have to go on this long quest, the call to adventure, and you've got to do all these steps and you know, wear all these outfits in this order until eventually you'll roll a blading on Venice Beach. Yes, and then you have to do it backwards. The problem is the real world, there are too many places in the real world which are still governed by the caricature of Barbie land. So Mattel is not a real world place, and so the Mattel officers when they go on that chase sequence around the round the uh what are they called? Those little cabinets. Yeah, yeah, okay. And and Barbie and whatever Will Fowl's character is called, yeah, they run into each other.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And then they run past each other, and then they're all going, and you're like, now this would work in Barbieland. Yeah. This is a perfectly legitimate, coherent dynamic playing out in Barbie land because this is playland. Yeah. It isn't appropriate for the real world if the real world is a real world. If it's just another Barbieland. So that's where I think Greta Gowig and No Baumbach, in terms of their world building, were I think they were actually quite lazy because they don't follow through on what they set up in the first act. Yeah. It's they have their cake and they eat it, but I mean, but that's less to do with like the messaging and more to do with how I think they they have such a they're so disinterested in this kind of storytelling. Greta Goig and though back doing the Barbie film was insane because they make Ladybird, Meowitz stories, yeah, uh Squid and the Whale, they make they make stories about people coming of age in Manhattan or in Sacramento. They don't make fantasy stories in which there is a semi-permeable threshold.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and they didn't stick to those rules.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they didn't so from just from a storytelling and a mythological sort of perspective, I just found that kind of weak. And people might say, Oh, it's supposed to be a joke and it's it's uh kind of satire on all this sort of stuff. Yeah. Well, actually that just wears thin after a while because I need you to believe in your own world building if you want me to believe in it too.
SPEAKER_05So that's that's the take of a mythologist. Uh Emma, how did how did you respond to the movie?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so um I I I absolutely agree, I see what you're saying, but I think the film raises so many questions and so many issues that it would be impossible for any film to contain the answers and the narrative to answer them all. I just don't think I don't think that would be possible. Um I um and I think what but I do think that what you're saying about the interaction of the worlds is very interesting, and there I suppose there are three things that I find the intrusion of death is fascinating because in the Barbie land everything stops and you know you can't talk about it, you dance over it, you sing over it, which is exactly what we do in the real world as well. I also like the sort of the narrative, you know, playing on the matrix of the red, the the red pillar, it's marvelous, but still letter.
SPEAKER_05She keeps resisting the call to adventure.
SPEAKER_01Well, wouldn't you? Yeah, yeah. I would. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. You know, I don't think you would jump into the and also that this, you know, obviously the narrative of do you stay where it's comfortable and safe, or do you accept, you know, do you enter into free will and therefore you know bring about your mortality and yeah. Yeah, although I what what is I think is very interesting about the the film is that uh failing is is what really what it what's centred around and that that raises all kinds of issues that it can't then answer later on. But to return to your original question, I loved the film. I um I do not like cinema. I don't like going to cinema, you know this, and um normally I'll come out of a great film like The Godfather or something, and I'll just say, Well, that was noisy, and I I did not want to see the Barbie film. I am not interested in the story or in the Barbie particularly, but I found it uh really like I found it like it was a big bottle of coke or candy floss, and I'm saying to my son, have a sip of that coke. It's really yummy, but don't drink it at all, you know. And and as a I I suppose the the messages mentally I'm going, those messages are Right, and that is not the gospel, and therefore it's not right. But on a visceral level, on the feeling level, I found it hilarious. I laughed the whole way through. It was bright, it was it was funny, it was intelligent, it caught me up, and I think that's interesting as well. And a feeling that puts in a movie that puts feeling at the center, part of the way the power of it is not just that it says feeling is important, but you actually feel that when you're in the film. You come out of it going on a bit of a high. You've come out of it and you feel like you're in a musical. You want to sing and you want to dance and you want to say things like smash the patriarchy. Exactly. All that kinergy. So um, so I I feel I feel quite conflicted. I with what I agree with absolutely in my head with what you're saying, and yet I I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it, and I think the issues that it raises are are fascinating, and they're issues that are being discussed, hopefully, within an audience, because it's featuring so many people that wouldn't otherwise be looking at this sort of thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um now, is that to say the messages are it's not to say that the messages of it are you know good and true or whatever, but then I also think, well, what films are? There are very few films that are that are explicitly Christian. And are we going to those films in the same way and coming down on them? Now, there are, and I know you'll go into this, there are many things that it says that are profoundly disturbing, and that and therein for me lies the well, this is what I this is what I feel. You ask me, I feel conflicted because I loved the film. I thought it was funny and hilarious, and I thought the the casting and the production was amazing, but there are some things that this fun film that catches you up in its spirit says that are really, really and I really disturbing. Okay, like what? The first scene where the small children are smashing um smashing dolls and the portrayal of motherhood and family units in the film.
SPEAKER_05Right. Let's think about that because so a sort of homage to 2001, a Space Odyssey, and that opening scene, and here is the origin story. The origin story where Helen Miriam, the narrator, kind of tells us girls used to play with dolls, and then Barbie came along, and then there's like this 20-foot kind of Margot Robbie kind of statuesque statue, as people are just wowed by her, and then all the girls smash their dolls in slow motion, and it's a really disturbing kind of uh a rejection of the old model of motherhood being something to attain, and instead the aspiration towards being Margot Robbie kind of perfection. Yeah, and that is maintained throughout the film. You know, the there are multiple jokes made of how there was a pregnant Barbie called Skipper Midge. Midge. Yeah, the Midge. Yeah. So pregnant Barbie was discontinued, and we're constantly marginalizing pregnant Barbie, and there are no real children in Barbie land, and you know, and you cannot describe Barbie Land as a matriarchy because there are no maters. There's no mothers. It's not a matriarchy at all. And the the flip side, the patriarchy, it's not, you know, their vision is male and female, like detached, atomic, just you know, without family relations.
SPEAKER_01And yet the mother, the mother-daughter relationship, which whether you you you think it's a plot device or you know, whatever, is one of the most genuinely emotive parts of the film. More so even than Margot Robbie's discovery of self.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, completely. Yeah. I think in spite of itself, it found an emotional heart in the mother-daughter relationship when it was doing its very best to say motherhood is entirely optional, it's in and we're going to show you the smashing of dolls so that you can fulfil yourself by yourself. Um yeah. What what did you make of that kind of the the atomistic vision of humanity?
SPEAKER_03I mean, I wanted to say one more thing about the the 2001 Space Odyssey homage at the beginning. So Stanley Kubrick didn't have a narrator speaking over his no you can say, well, he's making a completely different type of film. But what he he was doing there in terms of having these kind of strange, you know, grey columns that sort of appear and these, you know, primates are kind of clawing at each other trying to work out what's going on. Um that the the little girls who are happily playing with their dolls and their tea sets and their prams at the beginning could have looked up suddenly as this great statue of Margot Robbie sort of appears and and sort of then put down their little dolls and walked over and just sort of stared at it. And we all would have worked out what happened. You could have shown quite simply that they've rejected these little baby dolls, and now they've turned their backs on them and they want to look at that. Now that's enough to be able to make the point. Now, I totally get that this is a this is a a comedy film, and so the narrator is there, Hannah Mirroring gives you some more gags, you know, about ask your own mother what it's like in the first line, and also they want to make the kind of joke of someone smashing up, you know, a doll because rather than just putting it to one side, they're doing it. But as soon as you stop and you look at that image of not just putting this down and turning it and engaging somebody else, but literally breaking up, you're like, Yeah, oh wow, this is you know, I mean it's it's proper cinema, right? There's action that is happening when you want to see action on screen. That's one of the reasons why it's it's not a monologue. But when you actually give any thought to that at all, yeah, it is really scary. Yeah, just what is going on, and then when it's raising big, big questions, as I say, it's a deep film, it's raising questions of what is a woman and what is a man, what is a doll, and and how does society function. Now, because you've raised those big questions, we are all permitted to re-watch this film with the big questions in mind, which means that we have to return to little girls literally smashing baby dolls apart, yeah, and think about it. Yeah, yeah. And that again, it's like you can't you can't say, Oh, it's just a joke, and then be talking about the fundamentals of human society. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05However funny Ryan Ryan Gosling is.
SPEAKER_01Um, and it's interesting as well because it is uh in many ways you have this great cartoon sensibility, but even in the real world, there isn't the only other episode of any violence is when you've got Michael Sarraz Allen trying to break his way out of the world. But in in the violence of it, it that really that first scene stands out as it's it it it just there's a jarring moment there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it really, it really hits hard.
SPEAKER_02Hi folks, it's Thomas Thoroughgood here, media producer at Speak Life. You might recognise my voice as the guy who does the filler bits on the podcast. It's part of my job to think of how we can include you more in the work of Speak Life and bring you behind the scenes, if you will. And so we have a very exciting thing called the Speak Life Discord server. It's an online platform where you can interact with other Speak Life supporters and the Speak Life team. We have bonus content, creative theological discussion, and lots of fun along the way. So if you want to join that, you can just go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash give. Okay, back to the podcast.
SPEAKER_05Let me draw that together with an interview I did with Mary Harrington earlier this year, because Mary Harrington is a feminist herself and really doesn't like Barbie. Um, and I think we'll see in this clip why she doesn't like Barbie, because I think there's a there's a clash, and it's not it's not a clash between feminism and the rest. There there is a there are different kinds of feminism. And Mary Harrington would say she's on the side of a feminism of care, but what has triumphed since the 1960s has been a feminism of choice, of freedom. And and when when Mary said that back in March, I was like, oh yeah, that's so true.
SPEAKER_03And then when I saw the Barbie film and I saw that opening scene, I was like, that is precisely the triumph of a feminism of choice and freedom over a and I think in watching this, we'll probably get back to that question you actually asked me, was it about the atomistic idea and and the way that the conception of the human being has changed? Let's have a look.
SPEAKER_00So let's call it a paradigm for what a person is. Um the gov the the governing paradigm for within modernity for what a person is is somebody is separate by default. Um, you know, and connection is something which which we can opt into. Um and this is you know, I mean you you you you find this in Rousseau, um, all the you know all the way back to Rousseau, and yeah, I think there are there are liberal thinkers. You find it in Hobbes, you find it in Locke, you know, this this idea that the state of nature is something radically isolated and radically atomized and radically competitive and mutually hostile. You know, the Hobbsian war of all against all. You know, different different theorists um have different ideas for how what we do about that, but the basic assumption is that we're all we're all radically separate by default, and coming together is something is is something which which we hope will happen on top of that. Now, this is all very well if you're a guy, but if you're a mother, it's just not true. It's certainly not true in the same way. And Rousseau was that Rousseau kind of said the quiet part out loud a long time ago on this. He explicitly excluded women from his vision of liberal personhood. I mean the the what he proposed for women didn't is frankly didn't sound very appealing. You know, he thought of us as kind of charming compliant support humans who were there to kind of pop out babies and generally be nice and and raise and raise raise the children of the real liberal subjects. Um needless to say, a lot of feminists since then have had a few things to say about that, and like, well, no, this is obviously nonsense.
SPEAKER_05So, yeah, a radically atomistic, individualized, competitive vision of male and female that is that far more easily sits within a male view of the world because men are not biologically connected to their offspring in the same way that women are. And if you think as a woman, you just can't think in the same atomistic sort of sense. And so Mary Harrington is kind of saying a real feminism of care um has profound questions about Greta Gerig's vision of feminism and says that actually that feminism of freedom um smashes up something that is absolutely fundamental to womanhood.
SPEAKER_03It's not even specific to uh the the female characters in the film. Ken is told it is good for a man to be alone, you need to go and identify yourself. Right. You need to to to extract yourself from this uh and ken thing. You need to be Ken enough, you need to be ken off, and how dare you Ken try to come to an understanding of who you are, which is in relationship to anyone else, and I think that is the most terrifying thing about the movie is that and this was put as a positive point. So I I in looking for it and having done popcorn parenting, in which we think about talk about uh films with your kids, um I found a website called Common Sense Media, uh, which does reviews of uh films for parents and with all these really specific ratings on things like drug and alcohol use or sex and nudity or or profanity or whatever else it is. So I clicked on it thinking, oh, this is gonna be one of those like Christian kind of discernment things, where like, oh, you shouldn't watch this film because it contains this many swear words, or there's this violent scene, or someone smoking a cigarette or something. And at the top of it it said um uh good messaging or positive messages, and you clicked on it, it said this film shows a kind of vision of feminism that includes all women, which I didn't really understand what I meant, but um, it then went on to say, and it includes um the idea that you identify yourself separate from your relationships as a positive message. Now that is the most ghastly message ever. Like it's also patently untrue that we can identify ourselves without relationship with one another, right? But the film demands that can be can by himself, yeah, alone, yes, and that Barbie be Barbie by herself alone, yes, and that's all we ever are. Yeah, and and I think that is it that's the thing that's gonna undermine humanity, not just women. Just it's like no, decide today, who are you by yourself?
SPEAKER_05And don't use any relational terms, don't say son, father, auntie, whatever.
SPEAKER_03Because you remember how you spontaneously generated out of nothing as an individual, yes, and then you lived your entire existence. It's why no like no one can age in in Barbie Land, right? Because they're all like full-grown adults who aren't married and who aren't in dependent relationships.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That is the the horror of Barbieland. Everyone has their own dream house. Except for Ken.
SPEAKER_05Ken doesn't have his house. He has his dream. Until he gets his mojo.
SPEAKER_01But you could argue that actually the the film is portraying relationships, but it is the sisterhood. It is the hi Barbie, hi Barbie, hi Barbie, or the Ken's who multiply each other, you know, and the who are who have got each other's back. Because even in those pivotal moments, whenever Ken is separating out what you're seeing of the other Ken's alongside him and cheering them on. Now, yes, at different points the Ken's are turned against each other. And in the real world, um, I think it's the the mother makes the point in her you know barnstorming speech that what is it, uh, women hate men hate women and women hate women.
SPEAKER_03I think it's actually Sasha, the the daughter makes the point in the card. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you could so there are definitely relationships of some kind that are that are going on there, and Ken is certainly throughout the whole thing reaching out for this relationship, which is seen as a real weakness, you know. Let's have our house. I only see myself in the warmth of your gaze, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which is very interesting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then, of course, the mother-daughter relationship, which is so pivotal, you know, as we've said, the to the film relations you can't you can't separate out these relationships.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And you would say that Ken is codependent on Barbie in a way that's unhealthy for him. It's just that the solution to that is not can look within, but have some mates, for goodness sake. And is there any vertical relationship with your maker and all that all that kind of stuff? So there, I mean, the so it's it's easy for them to say can look within, because it is obvious that Ken is codependent on Barbie in an unhealthy way, right? And so so there there is a category for unhealthy, unhealthily finding your relationship in one another. And because they've like caricatured that so well, I think that's why the the story of I am kenough kind of lands.
SPEAKER_01Though there is a there is a point in the film where um Will Farrell, who's the head of Mattel, says they're talking about, well, what would a happy ending look like? And he says, Well, you guys fall in love, and the film goes right, let's let's let's crack online. But in a genuine sense, in a Christian sense, there is you know there is you could have something where you have got Jesus looking in love and saying, right, bringing you guys together, here here's uh my love for the church, here's the the man, the woman, and you know, in a very real sense where that that could have been just and and even if it's not because we don't want to say, therefore, it's one man and one woman riding off into the sunsets, and there's just that romantic vision as though that's the only kind of love that there is.
SPEAKER_05Um you can you can still resist that and say that there's other kinds of, you know, there's at least three other kinds of love that that C.S. Lewis kind of spoke about. And what about friendship? And what about finding your identity in all sorts of other relationships? So again, they they they make the the good point that um the the happily ever after doesn't always have to be Margot Robbie ending up with Ryan Gosling. It wasn't in other movies, and it's not in this movie, you know.
SPEAKER_03But if they're Barbie and Ken, which prior to this film coming out, you would have said these are these are archetypal categories a Barbie, a Ken. Barbie is the word you use for woman, Ken is the word you use for man. Yeah. But every like apart from this Alan guy, who the heck is this Alan guy? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You just go, right, there's a bar, there's Barbie and Ken. And once you've got stereotypical Barbie and stereotypical Ken, you are showing in the way that you portray that relationship what you think is the kind of basic relationship between the sexes. Yeah. And to then say, no, stereotypical Barbie must become Barbara and live her own truth or whatever it is, and Ken must have no real character progression whatsoever, and just be Ken off and be, you know, and but they be separate. You're saying we don't have a vision for male and female in union, we only have a vision for these two independent, independent, separate and often at odds with each other in a competing kind of type of world. Yeah, because yeah, the only options are Barbieland or Kendam.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What about some union land between the two?
SPEAKER_05And that's the problem with the setup of the world, is that because Ken doesn't have his own house, right? Um, that is not how humanity happens. Humanity happens because male and female are in the same house and they learn to negotiate with one another and have a relationship, and and we have learnt over the generations that we are not twin tracks in parallel. That's not how humanity works, right? It's how Barbie land works, but but therefore it is not a good approximation for how patriarchy worked either. Because that's the whole conceit is that matriarchy in Barbie land is just the the mirror image of patriarchy, but it's not, because it's not even matriarchy, there are no mothers, and we are not independent in the first place. But there's there's one thing about the um the origin story that the movie begins with that it's important to kind of clarify. Um the the girls go from smashing their dolls to looking up to statuesque Margarie. That's not where Greta Gerwig wants us to remain because you know there is it's this double-edged sword. You know, here is this plastic vision of perfection that no girl could possibly live up to, and maybe we need to lower the standards. And and so actually the story that Greta Gerwig wants us to go from is yes, lay aside your dolls, and but don't be left with plastic perfection. Um be okay with imperfection, be okay with your mortality, be okay with your cellulites, live your the best version of you that you can be, and figure it out all by yourself. And so that's kind of where the film goes, but that's that's kind of an uninspiring vision, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03I think the the mortality that that that Barbie embraces by becoming real, right? So she in communion or in conversation with her creator chooses life and death over a pristine kind of existence as as the stereotypical Barbie. We've seen that play, like that's a really common sort of story in terms of like Pygmalion turns his statue into a real woman so he can marry a Geppetto and Pinocchio and all that sort of stuff. So you've you've got that. But the question is what is what is driving that choice to embrace mortality? Right. Is it love? In this case, only for yourself. Like it is only the sense that she would like to have an experience for herself and with her gynecologist, which is more fully orbed than she currently has in a stereotypical Barbie in Barbie land. There there is no It's not like I am a choosing to embrace mortality for the love of someone else. Which of course is the gospel, you know, story. You know, he didn't consider equality with God, somebody to be grassman made himself nothing, taking the nature of a servant.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03For the purpose of submitting himself to death. Yeah. Why? Just so that he had a like, oh yeah, fulfill himself. You know, bucket list, you know. No, it's like in order that he might redeem those from who were held under the bondage of slavery and death. There was love that's driving it, not just this sense of do you know what? Barbie Land's been like kind of boring because every day's back like the same. It's always amazing, and it's always girls' night. Wouldn't it be interesting to embrace something different?
SPEAKER_01I didn't see it, I didn't see it quite like that. I saw it as being that she death comes in because her in a sense, her sort of semi-creator, the um the mother figure, was herself experiencing rejection of her own daughter, things like menopause, life, basically real-world life, which is mentioned a few times in the film. You know, they do mention a lot of things with mental health and so on. Um yeah, and and so it was that that was that meant it wasn't necessarily that Barbie just woke up one morning and went, Well, I think I'll uh you know, that was forced into her world by her sort of the the smaller creator. Um so it's a which would set it up which would be a different premise then entirely, and sort of talks about the other world coming in. What I also think is quite interesting is the way that the um the way that the creator and creation relationship is set up as well in the film. Um so obviously you've got the little girl who that goes into the mother who is picturing Barbie and her own life as intruding into it. But you've also got, you know, one of the reasons for Barbie embracing death is because she meets her own creator, Ruth, and Ruth says to her, and Barbie says to her, Look, I don't want to be just um I don't want to be just an idea, I want to be a creator, and and that is the most human thing anyone could ever say, isn't it? I mean that is that is the definition of human. I want to be God in my own world. And Ruth says to her, Ruth takes her hand and says, What you need to do is to fail, you've just got to fail. And so that is what calls her into it. And I think that's a bigger, if that's the case, and I might be reading it wrong, but that is a that is a that's a very different narrative to her, you know, sort of, well, Barbie Land's a bit boring, and I want to you have then got something that is breaking in from outside, and also reflects what I think is a good feature of the film and what Ruth herself says, this world is irrevocably broken. So Ruth the creator says to her, you know, here's the problem the world is absolutely smashed to pieces, and that's very, very true. And I think that reflecting in the death breaking in, um I saw that as something that wasn't just Barbie reaching out, rather, that was the brokenness of life, the brokenness of this world, which the film helpfully does acknowledge to some extent. It just that the film the film raises lots of different issues and it does it it answers them with you know things that are outside of the gospel, which means it doesn't really have any it's there's no truth, there's no hope in real terms, but it does it does raise these concerns in a very good way.
SPEAKER_03Do you think the Barbie's embrace of humanity as in becoming human at the end of the film was how connected would you say that was to Gloria's humanity? Because I I think that's again where this when they set up. Sorry, Gloria's the mother? So Gloria's the mother. Yep. Um and so so it's her anxiety and menopause, whatever it is, and and fru uh concerns are b bleeding over into Barbie land.
SPEAKER_01Well, I can't be you, so I'm making you into me.
SPEAKER_03Okay. And so so Barbie then becoming human is a way for her to embrace save her.
SPEAKER_05I mean, the the very first time she goes, isn't that isn't that to heal whoever it is, because she doesn't know it's an adult at that stage. It's Sasha doesn't sort of. Yeah, so to begin so to begin with, she does she does cross the threshold. Yeah, yeah. But but it is it is kind of inverted in that you know, like in the gospel, um we down here cause death, and then someone from up there crosses the threshold out of love for us to save us, that we might be raised to immortality. It is the inverse in Barbie, isn't it? Um death comes from outside, and then the solution is to embrace that scary world of mortality and to go out into mortality. You know, it's so it's it's an interesting in-version of the gospel in in that sense.
SPEAKER_03And and I suppose because uh Gloria and Sasha cross over the threshold into Barbie land, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah perform a selvific role.
SPEAKER_03By speaking, declaring, and then they take Barbie with them back into the real world. So in that sense, there's a like just a really interesting dynamic whereby effectively America Ferrara's character Gloria saves Barbie from a problem that America Ferrara's character Gloria gave Barbie because she was playing with her daughter's doll and and drawing kind of scary existential pictures. Um which I just find that is a really dramatic, no one's allowed to save anyone, really. Okay, embrace your own path. Again, there's no kind of federal, you know, there's no one who is who is helping to act as a substitute for someone else, other than exactly as you point out, in that painful sense that you are a kind of voodoo doll for a while for my anxiety and existential dread. And did did that help? Like, are you over that now? Did you was it redemptive for you, Gloria? And I don't think it really is. I think what Gloria says in that amazing, you know, amazing speech.
SPEAKER_01Which is a sermon. Which is preaching. It's yes by preaching.
SPEAKER_03The preachiest thing. Um I don't think there's any resolution there either. There's there's nothing that is an awakening. It's just an acknowledge. It's like can you see these contradictions? Yeah, it's an awakening, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05It sounds terrible. Yeah. Yeah. What did you make of that, Emma? So that that's that's the speech that's kind of gone viral, and you can find, you know, it's it's being published in full in all these, you know, um articles, left, right, and center. It is um uh America Ferrara Gloria who is in Barbie land with Barbie, and Margot Robbie Barbie says, I don't feel pretty anymore, or something like that. I'm not beautiful anymore. Which provokes Gloria to preach to her about how impossible it is to be a woman.
SPEAKER_03Well, it also provokes uh omniscient narrator Helen Mirren to say no to the filmmakers. You can't cast Margot Robbie.
SPEAKER_01She might not feel beautiful. She is still beautiful.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, we might come back to that about yeah, is Margot Robbie the p not the right person to be playing Barbie if if this is the message that we want to give. But um, how did you respond to the the barnstorming sermon, as you called it?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I mean I think a lot of what is said there is true. I I I hear that and I go, yeah, that has happened. But I think a lot of what was said there, the the film could be done from a male perspective and have a similarly barnstorming man saying the contradictions of of male identity that would be just as powerful. And some of the things that that you know were that are sort of being referenced just for women are actually true for everybody. For example, everyone has to be extraordinary, and that is something you see in in Ken and in the others all the time. And interestingly, so I I thought you know, it's a it's a it's a great piece of movie making, it's it's very well written, yeah, absolutely, you know. Um but I I found the narrative, the identity narrative of Ken far more um compelling than than of Margot. And I think that um it does raise these issues, you know. Ken says, Why why is he so attracted to patriarchy wherever? He says, I people respect me. Yeah and this is a world where men have no respect. And it's very interesting as well because I read an article um in which one of the actors who plays, Ken, was talking about um Greta's vision of the Ken's and he said, I think it's great. He said, Look, I think one problem is that um you know we're being vilified as if Greta says men are evil. Men are not presented as evil in this, he said. That's absolute nonsense, they're just children. But I think that that's even more problematic because if someone is evil, you've got to take them seriously, right? They're an equal, you can engage, you can if if the men are just children, well they're just an inconsequential. And this this is what Ken is reeling against. And this is actually, I think, just as big an issue for men as those those um things that were mentioned in that speech. You know, where does where in this world can can a man stand? Work how how does he get respect? How does he have any say in a world where he's a child and he's completely knocked out of the equation?
SPEAKER_05You know, so America Ferrara's husband, for instance, you know, Gloria's husband in the film. We didn't we had no idea she had a husband until they I think they just remembered, oh, she must have a husband. And you know, he's not the most impressive man, is he?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and Ruth the creator, in real life, Ruth set up um Barbie with her husband.
SPEAKER_05Right. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01Well, we don't we don't see him, we don't see him in there. Now I uh I I say all of that, uh but but also there's part of me that wants to go, okay, but yes, but what about what was good about the film? Because I really, I really in many ways, I really loved it, and I I think it's very funny, it's very intelligent, it's very bright, it's very sparky, and there is a sense in which they're doing, you know, they're making these things themselves. So they put into the Sasha's mouth all of the you know the the contr all of the controversies about Barbie and you know, and and that's very annoying. And I don't think any film could resolve all of the different tensions. The question is, you know, is it that the film is, you know, do we sort of rule it out um because it can't because it raises questions that no film could possibly answer, and because it's not explicitly Christian film, which most films aren't anyway, and or do we say, well, look, it's taking one aspect of one part of society and one part of you know sexuality, and it throws a very interesting light on that. But inadvertently, or maybe advertently, it also says, you know, because I came out of that going not just, I didn't come out of it going not just, oh poor women we've been oppressed, which is what you might think that speech does. I came out of it thinking, wow, where does Ken go in this? If I was a man, I'd be coming out of that feeling like I've been massacred. I came home and even the last few days I've been thinking, you know, about our our portrayal of men, pepper pig, oh silly daddy pig, da-da-da-da-da, you know, or or in real. Now, if the movie can raise things like that and give a dialogue right across the board, then that's a really, really positive thing.
SPEAKER_05But I think that would be inadvertent because I I think where does Ken where does Ken go from here? And as soon as I like saw the film, I started thinking, like, Ken is basically and and all the men are now going to go their own way. And the there's there's a whole movement called Men Going Their Own Way, and you can kind of Google it, and it's caught up in the manosphere, and it's caught up in in all kinds of ways in which men are basically opting out and saying, it's it's too difficult to play this game. And and in that sense, like has this film created the kinds of people that this this film like really despises? Like the men going their own way and the manosphere and that that kind of thing. Because if we are twin tracks, and if it is a tug of war in which one one wins and the other therefore must lose, then how do you avoid not actually creating the kinds of men that that Greta Goid you know does not respect in the first place? Okay, so the girls smash their dolls, look up to Statuesque Margot Robbie, but Statuesque Margot Robbie realizes that plastic perfection is not the goal, embraces her mortality, goes out.
SPEAKER_01While also looking plastic perfect.
SPEAKER_05Also looking absolutely perfect. And that and that's my one of my questions is I saw it in a cinema full of teenage girls and younger looking up, and I I wondered to myself if plastic Barbie doll is crushing for a young girl to look up to, is not celluloid Margot Robbie even more crushing to look up to because she's she's also like kooky and sassy and and she can forge her own way in the she's brave enough to forge her own way in the world and not care what other people think. And if it's crushing to have to be astrophysicist, Bob.
SPEAKER_01Arguably driven by the fear of cellulite. Um, arguably, that is what drives her out, you know, as well.
SPEAKER_05But she she will embrace that cellulite because because, you know, at the bus stop, she saw the older woman all by herself. This older woman was not a matriarch, this older woman, you know, has no family around her, but this older woman is sassy and she looks across at her and says, You're beautiful, and she says, Don't I know it? And and so she's embracing that. She's embracing a trajectory towards being alone, I would say, um, but choosing her own path. And if the doll is gonna crush an eight-year-old girl, isn't Margot Robbie and and the message of this film going to crush eight-year-old girls even more.
SPEAKER_03I think part of the reason it will crush them is because there are only physical imperfections and vulnerabilities within Margot Robbie as Barbie in this film. There is no recognition of a of a of a compromised soul. Arguably you could say Ken is actually better, and that that any young guys who go and see this film could look at Ken and could say, Oh, hold on, I recognise a little bit of myself in him because the Ken that is re is shown from the beginning of the film is a jealous Ken. Flawed. Yeah, he is just a jealous guy. And if I see in myself, you know, a competitive streak and and a desire to kind of win someone over and and kind of and play guitar at someone. At somebody, right? Yeah. And to impress people, if I see that in myself, okay, now I've found a character who has is doing that same thing. I think the challenge we're for I would guess for young girls looking at Margaret Robbie's character in Barbie movie is what do they do when they see things in their own soul that don't that they haven't seen in Margaret Robbie. She's she's you know, she's flawless spiritually speaking. Yeah, she did say sorry once.
SPEAKER_05She did say sorry to Ken that one time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Um for not for having Girls Night every night. Girls' night every night. Yeah, um, yeah. I I think and that's where what is it what is your film saying about human nature? How optimistic or pessimistic is your film about humanity? And I think when we're talking about having films which are good, true, and beautiful, one of the true things that they do is that they show human beings the way human beings actually are. And we a lot of the time really suck, we're really compromised, and we do all sorts of things for really terrible reasons, and we have to come to terms with those aspects of our character. And I think this film is too optimistic, it puts the problem out there in some weird kind of structural imbalances in society, but it doesn't actually it doesn't give you any forgiveness, it doesn't give you any any salvation in that sense.
SPEAKER_05And and that goes back to the Rousseau point that Mary Harrington was was saying, you know, Rousseau saw us as we're all born free, but we're in chains because of the systems that are outside of us. And he had a real denial of original sin, which means, yeah, there's a perfection to us, the real problem is out there. Um and when you deny original sin, then you deny the need for all of us, not just those in power, to have to humble themselves and and and repent and that sort of thing. Um so sorry, just just to I I I think that's great.
SPEAKER_01I think what Ned said is great. That's absolutely on, that's absolutely spot on, you know, as a diagnosis of the film. What the film does do however that I I think is good is it expresses the longings and the brokenness that we have. So it sets that up very well, but as you say, there is no gospel, and therefore it's a bit like you have, you know, it's like I was talking about the high of it earlier on, like you eat too much canned leaf loss, and you come out of it and you're on a high and you're like, ooh, but when you actually sit and think about the problems that it raises, there is no hope, there is no answer, and there's a big sugary come down from it.
SPEAKER_05We will um draw stamps here. We we've got one more question um for you, Emma. We're gonna ask you about the ending, the ending of the whole movie and what it actually means. Um, but uh if you're not subscribed to our channel already, uh please do uh hit the subscribe button, and right next to it you might find the join button. And uh at the join button you can uh support us, uh Speak Life We Exist to make Jesus known in so many different ways. And you can uh join us either as a supporter at $1.99 a month or as a partner at $4.99 a month. And one of the things you'll get is uh extra content like our final question with Emma Scrivener. But uh Emma, thank you so much for joining us for this episode. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01It's been a joy.
SPEAKER_05Brilliant. Thank you, Nate Morganla. Thank you, Glenn Scrivener. See you again soon.
SPEAKER_02Well, there we go. What did you make of that? Why not send us an email to info at speaklife.org.uk and we will read some of those out on the show. Did you agree with Glenn, Emma, and Nate? Do you think they missed something? What did you make of the Barbie movie that everyone is talking about? Glenn mentioned at the end that there is some bonus content. He and Nate recorded ten minutes of extra conversation with Emma. And if you are a Speak Life partner, which means you give at least four pounds ninety nine a month to the work of Speak Life, you will have access to that bonus content. And the easiest way is to join our Discord server if you haven't already. So if you go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash give and scroll down to the Discord section. There's a short form that you fill in where you let us know your Discord username and that you are a regular giver, uh, which can be via YouTube or uh via any of the other ways on our give page. So whatever works best for you, lots of options there in terms of how you can give to the work of Speak Life. If you fill in that short form for the Discord and let us know that you are a regular giver, and we will give you access to the Partner's Lounge on the Discord where we will be posting all this bonus content. So we really look forward to bringing that to you in the coming months, and we uh pray that that will be a blessing to you. By the way, we're so grateful just by listening to this episode, you are supporting the work of Speak Life, otherwise, we'd be talking to ourselves. So thank you so much for listening. And uh do share this episode with your friends if you think it would be a blessing to them. And we're so grateful to all who pray for our ministry and who give in any way they can, uh, big or small, regularly or one off. Uh we really appreciate you and we thank God for you. Well, I think that's everything. God bless. Thanks for listening, and we will see you next week.