I was surprised by Barbie. The film had a few heartfelt moments throughout, and they definitely made me tear-up a bit. But when I got home, and I was alone with my thoughts about what it all meant, that was when I cried . . . and it felt good. Like Barbie, I have been through a crisis of identity. Unlike Barbie, I don’t have the excuse of being a fish out of water. The world, the real world, has always been my home. I have no excuse to haplessly float through it with no real sense of purpose, identity, or self-worth; but I do; and I am not the only one.
For the first twenty-three years of my life, I was a student. I truly believed that the better my grades were, the better I was, and the more potential I had. This comparison is both inaccurate and damaging. I willingly assigned an irrelevant numerical measure to my ability to value myself, and it took me decades to notice. Eventually, I let it go. I realized that grades had limited bearing on real knowledge, intelligence, or preparedness and that realization enabled me to look for other ways to measure my value, but new doesn’t always mean better. After graduating college, being fired from my first corporate job, and spiraling over all of my recent life choices I learned that lesson once more from this movie; I need to stop seeking external validation. This is easier said than done.
In addition to making some poignant observations of the toxic nature of consumerism, Barbie (both the film and its title character) faces the central element of developing self-esteem: that external validation, whether it be romantic love, monetary value, popularity, etc. is not a substitute for loving yourself. This idea isn’t new to media - and is arguably better articulated by Scott Pilgrim’s final battle in which true love is thematically inferior to self-respect, however the way it is presented in the Barbie movie resonates with me, and many other women, at a deeper level.
Barbie, to me, represents a solid contribution to feminist media. The resolution of the films central conflict is literal self-actualization. The director, Greta Gerwig, also humanized Barbie in a symbolic way by contrasting her traditional narrative with how she would be treated were she an actual person. When she enters the Real World, this isn’t just a meta-commentary on the slow, sometimes backwards progress of feminism; but it’s a clear statement about how the direction taken thus far is unacceptable and unrealistic in many ways. One of the biggest hinderances to any social movement is to try to deny its necessity. Black people are often told affirmative action, or the Obama Administration had already rectified all injustice towards our community, so we have no right to be angry. Queer people are often told they have so much more representation now, so we have no right to be angry. Frankly, I don’t see this any differently from telling women they already have the exact same opportunities as men, so we also have no right to be angry. We have every right. But this works both ways.
At the beginning, Barbieland is presented as the antithesis to the Real World. Men are objects who are seen as less capable, overly emotional, and uncomfortably codependent on the women in their lives. This depiction carries a certain degree of catharsis because of the way it shows the audience an inverted reality, but truthfully, it is just as unfair to them in Barbieland as it is to Real World women. There is a joke near the end of the script where one of the men asks the President if he can be on the Supreme Court, and her response is, in essence, “aim a little lower.” The end of this story isn’t some picture perfect, instant-equality coat of sugar. Like "uppity negros", and "overly ambitious" women before him, progressing to true equality in his world is going to be a long process involving constant advocacy, animosity, and adversity.
It's hard to spend your entire life being told your value is your net worth, your academic performance, or your adherence to a standard of beauty, or any other meaningless attribute. It’s hard knowing that comparison is the thief of joy, but failing to apply that wisdom to your own life. It’s hard to permanently change your own mind about who you are. But the things that make life so damn difficult are the same things that guide us towards what we need to fight for.
The only constant in life is change, and whether the changes in our lives are for better or worse depends on what we are willing to fight for, and what fights we walk away from. I am grateful to have autonomy in my life, but it doesn’t mean anything if I don’t use it for something important to me. More specifically, not something important to society, or my family, or my peers. My agency has to serve my priorities, and hopefully, one day, I’ll actually let it.
