So, let’s talk about Barbie. Essentially, I’ve heard a lot of positive reviews on it, but also a lot of Bible-thumping about it. So basically, we’re going to be talking about how typically, the church kind of insults feminism and says that it’s inherently bad. And the reason that this occurs (besides the patriarchy!) is because there are several verses that clearly give man, the lead of the family. And in order for him to be the lead of the family and women have to be a little bit lower, right? Let’s think about it a bit more.
So, what happened with this Barbie movie is that, people say “oh, this is like the femininist agenda,” and then a lot of Christians then say, “Well, forget that movie, I’m not going to go watch something that’s about feminism because feminism is anti-Christian.” But then we’ve kind of lost the ability to talk about feminism because we’re avoiding conversations and we’re avoiding concepts that theoretically, we should be the experts of.
As an example, in the Bible, Paul is really good at doing this. I think of Acts 17 that basically say Paul is walking around Athens and there’s a plaque to an unknown god. And instead of going off on a tangent, angrily about how wrong they are and how there’s only one god and screw them and their entire culture and what have you, Peter has a very different approach.
What Paul does is says “Hey, I see that you’ve got this this hole in your way of thinking. I like where you’re going with this, so let me explain what God says is the true answer to what you’re concerned about as being unknown. And you leave the conversation for clearing up that there’s only one god for later. And also, you will inevitably leave out some other things to discuss for later- you don’t need them to believe everything you do in ten minutes, you are simply using this concept as an opportunity to bridge Christianity to a person; as opposed to as an angry flag in the face of a stranger.
Now, over the last 50 years or so in Christianity, we have done this in so many instances. Many have advocated that Christians only listen to Christian music or only watch Christian movies. We’ve cut other ideas out when thinking about politics largely as a church. When it comes to feminism and the traditional family, we’ve basically just thrown out anything that sounds remotely feminist and given up entirely on listening. We’ve essentially responded with a “know you’re wrong, shut up” in the face of people who were trying to find truth about something. And instead of giving an answer in love of what God says, we’ve largely just responded with anger and avoidance.
Obviously, a lot of people saw Barbie over the last few weeks. But that’s one of the many responses I’ve seen on social media, and something that I’ve been concerned about in the Christian community for years. We as Christians need to work on learning how to respond wisely, but also in love about things that are not particularly Christian. And the reason that this is always on my heart, the reason why I have so many blogs on unchristian movies and finding Christian principles in them, the reason I’ve done this for years is because this is part of a Christian’s job here on earth. If we go back to the redemption mandate, God really had in mind for our jobs to redeem, improve upon, and further cultivate and expand to the world. And as long as we’re sitting around avoiding the world, we’ve completely lost a big part of our ability to redeem. Looking through the bible, God tells the Christian leaders that he chooses- Abraham, Moses, Israel (as a country)- He would tells them again and again that He’s teaching them these things so that they can one day teach it and expand it to the rest of the world.
He’s not teaching biblical concepts so that they can hold it for their own inward truth and use it to determine their ideals and what actions they live, but so that they can use it to improve upon the rest of the world. And if we’re determined to not watch or listen to the things that the rest of the world to say, then we completely lose our ability to speak why wisely to these real questions that people have.
I know that deconstructionism is a thing that I’m hearing in Christianity a lot. Essentially it comes down to admitting that Christianity as a whole is largely not answering helpful guidance as to the way that the world is changing right now. And I think on some level that’s fair, the world has changed, and the way that people typically think about a lot of problems has changed, and instead of being a voice of wisdom far, too often the church is just saying nothing about how to think about important concepts.
Now, part of the reason that Christianity has refused to watch movies like this is because they’ve cut out, it’s because of purity culture. We’ve said, if you just don’t expose yourself to things, then you’ll be a better Christian. Be in the world, but not of the world, and I totally agree that Christians need to have boundaries. It is important to watch the way the world influences you. So, I have many friends who do not drink alcohol, because they know how difficult it is to get from a reasonable drinking level to not being drunk, and the easiest way to manage that is to stay away from it entirely; and I and I get that that totally makes sense. However, we can’t afford do that with the entire world that we live in.
When it comes to something like Barbie, all for going to see it and making my own opinions on what it actually says, what truth and what untruth is being conveyed. The bible says the invisible things of God are clearly seen through his creation. And, we as humans are all his creation whether we follow and believe in God or not. So you see hints of Christianity in all kinds of movies were made by people that are not Christian- a great example is the Matrix. It’s a great analogy for the Christian life, even though that’s not what the writers were intending at all. I love to go to movies and look for the hands of Christianity that do exist.
And I think what’s beautiful about the new Barbie movie is that it speaks so well to perfectionism. Women as a whole really struggle with this concept of this perfect Barbie with perfect features, perfect clothes, every single job in the world, and perfect family in a perfect house. She really does have literally everything, and it creates this kind of unwritten expectation that makes you feel like you should be able to achieve what Barbie has achieved in your life. Even though her life isn’t real, it still creates this ideal in our minds. And I think the new Barbie movie doesn’t incredible job at expressing this.
Now many have said that this is part of the feminist agenda and on some levels it is. Whether or not that’s a good thing is, I think probably getting into the weeds a bit too much because we all have different ideas of what we think that should look like. The one thing I would say about the movie is there are not necessarily a lot of great male role models. They were hilarious. But I wouldn’t want my child to grow up and emulate them, if that makes sense. And that’s where any movie, honestly, anything that the world does, cannot perfectly, portray something biblically accurate like a healthy concept of masculinity and feminism. That will always be true. But this movie did a wonderful job of hitting on things that truly do need to work on as a culture. What does a healthy woman look like and how can we portray it in a healthy way?
Overall, the real reason I watch movies is because I live in the real world. I work in the world. A world that is far too often not clear about it’s ideals and full of negativity, misplaced family models and trauma, and injustice. I work in a world where there are horribly evil things happening and it’s literally my job as a doctor to try to put people back together. And more than that, I live in a world where I go to work with non-Christian co-workers, and I chat with family members who are loving or bashing them; and I choose to listen, prayerfully and intently to what the culture is saying are problems in their lives. And the reason I’m not afraid of doing so, is because I see it as my God-given goal to do so. Since medical school, I had to create my own ideas of what was going on by looking biblically at what’s true but also listening to what my teachers were saying. I’ve been doing it in the real world for years and so I’m not afraid to watch a movie and say that look, this may not have the ideals I expect it to but I choose to listen, find the places where you are saying something crucial, and let that be as stepping off ground to being able to talk with someone who otherwise I don’t have much in common with.
I grew up with Barbie dolls and I thought this movie would be a fun way to express the new concept of Barbie from a different generations perspective, and I think they did it really well. But the only way I can speak to that, is by choosing to listen.
And we, as Christians. Need to stop yelling and shutting people out so much. And choose to listen.