What the Barbie Movie Meant to me as a Feminist Christian Woman

Go Barbie, go Barbie

A Barbie LP nativity felt right.

As 2023 wraps up and I reflect on the year, The Barbie movie stands out to me right alongside the Era’s tour as something pivotal and important for myself and other women. On the flip side, I’ve heard many people say that they either didn’t like the movie or can’t fathom why people loved it so much.

My expression of love for The Barbie Movie is usually a jumble of incoherent thoughts about empowerment, validation, and being a woman. I wanted to more coherently write up what I got out of this movie — specifically as a Christian feminist woman. If you take a closer look (and disregard all of the inflated media against it), you can see how symbolic and meaningful it really is.

Photo by Elena Mishlanova on Unsplash

Eve & Adam

From the beginning of the Barbie movie, you’re immersed in a magical world where women are at the center of everything. You follow stereotypical Barbie as you take in that women have every job, position, and role – including and especially leadership ones. Kens are there too, but it ain’t about them. Seeing women everywhere is…magical.

If Barbieland is some magical garden of Eden, Barbie and Ken must be Adam and Eve. But…as with all things in Barbieland (it’s the whole point of the movie, people) – the gender roles are reversed from our usual narrative.

A Vogue article shares director Greta Gerwig’s take on this. She says, “Barbie was invented first…Ken was invented after Barbie, to burnish Barbie’s position in our eyes and in the world. That kind of creation myth is the opposite of the creation myth in Genesis.”

And she’s not just talking about the movie. Barbie dolls were girl dolls for girls. Ken dolls came after Barbie, and Ken came for Barbie.

Leaving the Garden of Eden 

When Barbie starts malfunctioning and having irrepressible thoughts of death, weird Barbie explains she must now go into the real world to fix it. It’s time to leave her beloved Garden of Eden (Barbieland), and go into the real world (...the real world).

Photo by Arunachal Art on Unsplash

I know that the shoe scene with weird Barbie is a nod to The Matrix, but if Barbie is Eve (or Adam?) then the shoe scene must also be loosely connected to Eve choosing whether or not to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree.

So, like Eve and Adam chose to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and leave the Garden of Eden, Barbie takes the Birkenstock and leaves Barbieland for the real world.

In college, I had an institute teacher relate the Garden of Eden story to any time in our lives we experience a change that is hard but necessary for progress—going on a mission, getting married, or having children. I have thought about this constantly in my life and would also add having more children, getting a degree, starting a new job, deciding to stay home with kids, and probably the most applicable at this time in my life—experiencing a feminist awakening and deconstructing my faith.

As I’ve related big life changes, especially ones that are difficult and uncomfortable, to the Garden of Eden narrative for a long time, the thought of Barbie leaving her very own Garden of Eden felt very poignant to me. She was leaving her home and her comfort for something unknown and uncomfortable.

Girlhood to womanhood

I also think the transition of Barbie going to the real world can very strongly represent the transition from girlhood to womanhood. This is a BARBIE movie, after all. Changing from girlhood to womanhood includes not only puberty and stopping playing with amazing toys like Barbie, but it can also for most include feelings of self-objectification, self-consciousness, and disempowerment.

Barbie even points some of these things out herself, when she says, “I feel very ill at ease, like I don’t know the word for it but I’m…conscious, but it’s myself that I’m conscious of.”

It made me think of the book, More Than a Body by Lindsey and Lexie Kite. They describe that every girl in their life starts out at “More Than a Body” beach before life experiences pull them into the “Waters of Objectification”.

I love the nostalgic feeling that the setting of Barbieland evokes, reminiscent of girlhood itself, followed by the immersion into the real world and the relatable way that the movie points out some of the pains of it — inequality, objectification, self-consciousness, and anxiety.

The patriarchy

Ryan Gosling’s Ken discovering patriarchy in the real world is absolutely iconic and hilarious. However, what hit me even more was the Mattel board – when Barbie discovered the patriarchy. Mattel took her into headquarters, greeted her kindly, and asked her to please get in the box.

She asked first to meet the woman in charge and was confused to find there wasn’t one. The men’s reaction to her probing for a female in charge was so relatable to my experience as a woman. Will Ferrel’s tirade about them all loving women and how they’ve had two female CEO’s in the history of the company was so funny but sad because of how accurate that is in the real world.

I especially can relate this to my experience in the church. Unfortunately, Mattel having two CEOs is actually pretty impressive when compared to the church having zero women prophets, as well as not having females lead congregations at the ground level either.

Sure, women have some leadership callings, but the ratio of those callings to men’s is small and every woman in the church, even those in leadership callings, has to consult with a higher-up man for any final say on things that matter, and even many things that probably don’t matter.

Photo by Brendon van Zyl on Unsplash

Church leaders often proclaim how much they love women and how special women are to the Lord and the church. They say they need righteous women who love the Lord.

But when it comes to practical ways to include women in decision-making or provide simple ways for women to be represented as leaders, they consistently prioritize patriarchal hierarchy and keeping women in their allotted box. If you’re questioning my claims here, take a listen to this podcast.

Many are hopeful that things will change and progression will happen. I am one of those people. However, the extremely slow pace of progress is pretty discouraging for the people waiting for equality—in the church and in society as a whole. The Barbie movie provides some validation and comedic relief for those of us experiencing that frustration and hurt.

The Mattel board hits the nail on the head as far as patriarchy is concerned. 

Get in the box, Barbie

The Mattel board’s solution to what was going on was to get Barbie in a box. This was the perfect representation of how the world wants women (but really, all people) in a box. America Ferrera’s speech in the movie says it best,

"It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.

"You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.

"But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

"I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know."

Photo by Belkaa Photographer on Unsplash

This is true about the world and society at large, but I experience this specifically in the church.

In 2015, in his talk titled A Plea to My Sisters, President Russel M. Nelson said –

We, your brethren, need your strength, your conversion, your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom, and your voices. The kingdom of God is not and cannot be complete without women who make sacred covenants and then keep them, women who can speak with the power and authority of God!

This sentiment is great and even empowering. But in my lived experience the church also wants women who defer to male leadership, women who forego careers to stay at home with their children, women who never criticize or complain, women who don’t speculate, women who pray only to a male God, women who are mild-tempered, agreeable, kind, and always put others first.

They want strong and convicted women, but only within the box.

As America Ferra says “IT’S TOO HARD, IT’S TOO CONTRADICTORY.”

God as a woman

When Barbie was running away from Mattel (the patriarchal structure trying to put her in a box), she came across a dreamy room fashioned like a kitchen, with an old woman sitting at it. The woman offers her tea and she sits for a moment. It’s a peaceful part of the film and Barbie finds rest and refuge before running from the chase once again.

We find out later in the film that the woman is Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie. As in, Ruth Handler who created the first Barbie doll in real life. Amidst the chaos, Barbie has a moment of rest with her creator.

There’s more—Margot Robbie shared that when Ruth Handler hands Barbie her teacup, it is meant to mimic the scene painted in the Sistine Chapel by Michaelangelo—of God touching Adam’s hand to give him life.

Again, the creation story, but flipped.

The close-up of their hands touching is shown again later, at the end of the movie when Ruth holds Barbie’s hands and Barbie breathes in life and sees nostalgic scenes from real life, right before she is given life and becomes real.

When Mattel CEO (Will Ferrel) says, “You can call me mother,” Barbie President says, “Umm, no thank you.” It’s hilarious and yet again, so relevant. She recognizes that this man is not her mother, and this makes me think about how in the church, we only worship Heavenly Father even though many women feel the need to worship Heavenly Mother. Even more so, how church leadership insinuates that Heavenly Mother worship is unnecessary.

Another glimpse of the divine feminine that I saw in Barbie—and it’s completely itching at me to know if it was intentionally put in there or not—is the focus on the tree.

When Barbie is overwhelmed with how to find her human and she’s sitting on the park bench thinking, she sees and feels glimpses of her human’s life and starts to cry. She then looks around and sees a range of human experiences and emotions around her—joy, anger, sadness. And within all of this, the camera pans upward to show a beautiful, large pine tree.

Trees symbolize feminine deity in several cultures, most notably as the Israelite goddess Asherah who should be featured in the Bible. Whether it was a way of showing Barbie connecting to nature as a human experience in the real world, or a nod to the feminine divine, seeing the tree in that emotional scene touched me so deeply.

Photo by Taylor Jacobs on Unsplash

Barbie’s choice to be real

I love that ultimately, Barbie chose to break free from being stereotypical Barbie, and instead chose to join the real world and be real. As a woman, specifically as a Christian woman, I have struggled consistently to try to be what I am “supposed” to be, rather than just being real instead—always trying to be perfect by society’s and the church’s standards for the sake of everyone around me and to be worthy. Again, “getting in the box”.

I love her happy ending, where she isn’t perfect anymore, but she’s human. She’s taking the exciting step of going to the gynecologist. She is now living her life. I love how this movie makes the ordinary extraordinary and shows the beauty in authenticity.

The Barbie connections abound

There are so many significant parts in The Barbie Movie that I could talk about all day. In the end, Barbieland saw its need for improvement and equality. Ryan Gosling’s quest for self-love and learning that he is “kenough”. The importance placed on friendship over competition—by the Barbies and later by the Kens. And, the inspiring portrayal of motherhood and the mother-daughter relationship.

If you’re a Barbie nerd like me, please share your insights into the movie and what applications you’ve found in your real life.