Questions about gender and sexuality have plagued the evangelical Church since the SBC At APC. Books on the subject proliferate. In this context, it is understandable that some people see the new barbie the film as a new volley in the war of genres. But Greta Gerwig’s latest project is far too complex to be read through a literal hermeneutic.
Rather than offering a blind affirmation of feminism or a critique of patriarchy, the film explores how we use ideology to circumvent the more complicated work of growing up as human beings. The wars between the sexes aren’t so much the plot as the setting. They shape the world in which Barbie and Ken continue to mature.
Consider Ken’s character arc. Condemned forever to be “just Ken”, Barbie’s boyfriend finds his identity through his relationship with her. He “simps“, or submits to her in a flattering way, by following her into the real world. Once there, however, he sees a vision of a different life, one where men rule but, more importantly, feel seen And estimated. By attributing this to Patriarchy™, Ken brings the idea of male superiority back to Barbie Land as a shortcut to his own growth.
The film follows that of Christine Emba recent sightings that modern men are in “a generalized identity crisis – as if they don’t know how to be.” This loss of self, she asserts, is what fuels the popularity of right-wing masculinity gurus of Jordan Peterson has Andrew Tate. These voices seem to offer young men a path forward. The fact that it so often leans toward misogyny, as Ken’s own journey does, is only part of the problem.
Ultimately, Ken questions the roots of his discontent, which are less about the social order than the abdication of self through postures and a performative identity.
Barbie’s journey also moves away from gender stereotypes and towards a mature personality. But unlike Ken, who learns his own worth, she learns to accept her own imperfections.
When Barbie is inexplicably struck by thoughts of death and her heels fall to the ground, she seeks help from Weird Barbie, a guru-like outcast. In a parallel scene The matrixWeird Barbie offers her a choice: either she returns to non-reality, or she advances towards knowledge by undertaking a quest in the real world.
Instead of a blue pill or a red pill, she gives Barbie a pink high heel or a Birkenstock sandal (which will fit her now flat feet). Even though Barbie wants to choose the high heel and return to a state of ignorance, various questions and challenges force her to leave Barbie Land in search of answers.
Barbie and Ken venture beyond plastic tropes to discover their full (and gendered) humanity. While these existential questions are refreshing in a mainstream film, the real magic lies in how they progress toward maturity: through imperfection and error.
As Voice critic (and former CT columnist) Alissa Wilkinson notes, the film is a kind of story of the Fall. In Genesis and barbie, a prototypical woman seeks forbidden knowledge and then offers it to her male companion. Both suffer a loss of innocence and are exiled from perfection.
For evangelicals, framing maturation in light of original sin can be deeply troubling, particularly because Gerwig seems to suggest that experiential knowledge is necessary for human development. In contrast, we understand the Genesis account as a story of rebellion. By choosing what was forbidden, the woman and man disobey and fall under a curse that will torment their entire existence – from the earth beneath their (flat) feet to their own bodies.
Even more so, much evangelical theology and practice aims to reverse this curse. We understand Jesus as the Second Adam, who came to redeem and restore what was lost (Rom. 5:12-20). We look forward to the day when we are perfect again.
And yet, in this context, we sometimes forget process by which God sanctifies us. By confessing our sinfulness, we convince ourselves that life with Christ will be an upward line of increasingly good performance that ultimately results in perfection. Having begun in the Spirit, we are quite confident that we can continue in our own strength. But to the extent that this approach to discipleship denies our humanity, we will have difficulty living with our imperfection. As a counselor said to me recently, “You’re not an angel, Hannah. You are a human being.
Here theology can help us. While rightly viewing the Fall as a loss, theologians from Ambrose to Augustine to Thomas Aquinas to Wycliffe have also called it a “happy fall” – a fall that reveals God’s goodness. ‘a way that human perfection cannot. As John Milton expresses the idea in lost paradise,
O infinite Goodness, immense Goodness!
That all this good or evil will produce,
And evil turns into good; more wonderful
That what creation first begat
Light comes out of darkness!
We do not sin so that grace may abound (Rom. 6:1); and yet, grace abounds. Somehow, God can take our failures and draw from them a richer, deeper understanding of ourselves and His grace. By a divine irony, we only understand grace when we need it. Or as Jesus says in Luke 7:47, he who is forgiven little loves little, but he who is forgiven much loves much.
In this way, sanctification requires that we abandon our plastic ways of being and embrace our God-given humanity, however imperfect it may be. This requires that we move from idealized forms to the complexity of embodied lives. This requires us to leave Barbie Land.
For Christians, this process is supported by Christ’s own incarnation, which affirmed the goodness of human existence, even in a cursed world. And this is ensured by the death and resurrection of Christ, which offers both forgiveness and hope in the face of our failures.
By accepting the imperfection of our lives and accepting a world marked by doubt, sin and death, we do so with confidence in the reality of God’s love for us. Ultimately, it is not our mistakes that heal us but God who redeems our mistakes. It is God who, although knowing our every weakness and disobedience, calls us to rest in his perfect obedience.
Or, as a friend of mine said recently, it is God who, through Christ, says to his hesitant children: “I know exactly why you are Or you are even more than you. The reasons run even deeper than you think. And I will personally vouch for you. Just be.”
In this way, God’s love makes us real.
Hannah Anderson is the author of Designed for more, Everything that is goodAnd Humble Roots: How Humility Anchors and Nourishes Your Soul.