The Barbie Movie Does Nothing But Dance Around the Real Problem
The elephant walks on stage as the movie opens. It reappears later and stands in the background through the most important developments of the plot. And in the final scene, its trunk waves us goodbye.
[I’ll name the elephant in a sec, but first a warning: spoilers ahead.]
The filmmakers’ refusal to address the elephant results in a very awkward plot point: when Blond Ken returns to Barbieland from the real world, ready to implement patriarchy, the Barbies magically forget their previous lives as empowered individuals and suddenly want nothing more than to dote mindlessly on their beaus. And the unbelievably weak-ass explanation given is that they “have no immunity” to patriarchy because they’ve “never been exposed.” So, this could be accepted as a cute explanation in a zany world of make-believe if it weren’t for the fact that in real life there actually is something that makes strong and independent women forget their ambitions and abandon their careers: motherhood. And I know because I am one of those women.
Unfair Gender Expectations Are a Tiny “Gnat” Compared with the Heavy “Camel” of Economic Pressure
It is true that one problem faced by women in contemporary society is that there are conflicting expectations, as articulated in the speech by America Ferrera’s character. But personally, as a woman whose formative years and professional experiences have been in solidly feminist social environments (and specifically, solidly feminist religious social environments, which in my experience helps to resolve some of the remaining problems of secular feminism), I really did not find the “anti-patriarchy” speech particularly relevant to my situation. In some circles people actually have moved far enough beyond that stuff that it really is not a huge deal at this point.
But it is a very big deal that one parent in a two-parent family will normally have to put their career on hold to provide care for their young child(ren). And it’s usually mothers who end up sacrificing their careers to stay home with the kid(s).
There is not an easy solution for this. It is not a simple matter of demanding that men do their fair share of the child rearing or that the government provide free childcare from birth to school age. I would not have put my child in a government-funded daycare in order to work, anyhow. The problems here are systemic and they are related primarily to the absence of community support for families. NOTE: not the lack of professional services, but actual community — which I know is a difficult concept even to comprehend at this point, because we have so little experience of it, but believe me, it does have meaning.
The Real Issue: Unchecked Consumer Capitalism
The Barbie movie — not surprisingly, given that it is a Mattel product — gives only a patronizing nod to complaints about Barbie as a symbol of the global capitalist system that is destroying the planet and human society. That opinion is put into the mouth of a jaded teen who is reacting to Barbie off-handedly, without taking time to really get to know her. A teen whose critiques are simply left behind as she discovers, with her mom, how Barbie really can be a relevant feminist icon in today’s world.
But the empty cop-out of an answer to the question of how Barbie can be a relevant feminist icon today being that it’s “only limited by our imaginations” is exactly the kind of status quo non-solution that kicks the can down the road instead of facing the situation honestly. It’s just another way of saying, we haven’t reckoned with the actual problem because we like all the niceties of unchecked consumerism and can’t face a future of scarcity and having to live within our means. So instead, we’ll pretend that magical solutions are out there, just waiting to be discovered.
The consumerist/capitalist system that is, in fact, destroying the planet and human society is what really stands in the way of progress toward resolving the dichotomy between motherhood and career. Now, in recent history, that system did help to equalize gender roles in society. It did. I will give it full credit for that. But it could only take us so far.
An economic system that is built on exploiting human vulnerabilities for corporate profit is the reason that if you want a job, you’ll have to accept the terms predetermined by an employer, according to what works best for their bottom line, not your flourishing or even your survival. And that limits the kind of work that is available for people whose kids need them at home during some of the workweek.
The current system is the reason that your parents and in-laws and siblings and the friends you used to be close to live in different cities and can’t be a part of your child(ren)’s everyday life. That system is the reason you need a car to take your kid(s) and yourself where you need to go (to get to work, and get your kids to school or daycare), restricting your schedule so that you can only be available certain hours per day, either as a parent or as an employee.
That system is also one of the reasons for the painfully distorted gender expectations imposed on women today. Corporations exploit human psychology to sell their products and Barbie’s unrealistic “standard of beauty” is one of the most infamous examples — and the movie doesn’t even touch the issue of how to change that.
Maybe Mattel’s movie could be taken seriously as a social critique if the in-movie CEO had had an epiphany and decided to end production of the standard Barbie of impossible physical proportions, to be replaced with a variety of realistically proportioned dolls (actually realistically proportioned, not “slightly less impossibly thin,” as has been done before). That would be a pretty obvious first step toward repenting from the evil of exploiting female sex appeal for corporate profit. But, oh dear, that would cut into the bottom line! Can’t have that. Well, solutions are only limited by your imagination — and whatever sells.
What the World Really Needs
What is much more disturbing than the Barbie movie itself (for which one would not reasonably have had high expectations) is that there aren’t legions of anti-capitalist reviewers ripping it to shreds on the internet. Somehow, by celebrating a marketable brand of wokeism, the Barbie movie has slipped past its likeliest critics, a sort of Trojan horse under the cover of mocking the patriarchy and promoting “girl-power.”
So, I am here to say that Barbie is not a worthy feminist icon for today’s world. Barbie is still a corporate whore. That is not what we need. And just changing Barbie’s body shape would not fix the problem, either. The changes that would need to be made to the product, in order to extricate it from its association with exploitative capitalism, are so radical, the product wouldn’t be recognizable as “Barbie” anymore.
Instead of products that exploit human psychology, we need products that are designed to serve real human needs. We need to replace the cultural norm of doing whatever will make money (as long as it’s not against the law) and trusting that somehow any problems caused by that will just sort themselves out. We need to replace it with a cultural norm of thoughtful consideration of the impact that business/commercial decisions will have on people and the environment. It’s time to stop letting the desire for money determine the shape of human society. Instead, we need to rediscover, from the new vantage point of a modern scientific understanding of ourselves and the world, the spiritual basis for human community.
And as for how we do that … I’m working on a resource that can actually help you get started. (A resource to be shared for free, not at a profit, by the way.) I’ll publish more about that when I can.
