Laura G Owens ~ Writer. Raw. Real. Chronically Ambivalent.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do, you apologize for the truth. – Benjamin Disrael

Category: Social Commentary

Barbie: Hilarious satire, sympathetic to both men and women.

Barbie and Ken

(Minor spoilers)

Last week I blogged that a friend invited me to see the Barbie movie with a group of women.

I appreciated the invitation but Barbie?  Pass.

Until I read all the hype and learned that my 25-year-old daughter, a mini-me feminist, the last person I expected to go, planned to see it.

While watching the movie I laughed, clapped and involuntarily cheered to the point a curious (but not angry) teenage girl turned around. I nearly did a standing ovation when the credits rolled.

Not that it’s that good, this is Barbieland we’re talking about.  

But in some ways the movie is brilliant.

Campy and ridiculous with feminist messaging wrapped throughout. Women laugh and nod because they’ve lived it, men laugh and nod because they get it.

Growing up I loved Barbie. The 1970’s blond impossibly thin-waisted, exaggerated beauty and boobs original. I loved her hair, clothes, perfected make-up, high heels and glitz.

The full girliness of all of it.

But as an eventual feminist and mother to a daughter (I bought her a few Disney character Barbies), Barbie wasn’t exactly my idea of female body positivity and empowerment. She was an impossible beauty ideal and bubble-headed arm candy.

And while I love a good satire I assumed the movie would be nauseating.

When my daughter was little we watched every Disney movie, and never once did I suck the fun out of the boy-saves-girl Belle or Cinderella tropes.  

Why would I?

Until middle school, the entry hell of puberty, full of fragile self-esteem, gender expectations, and overwhelming insecurity.

That’s when I taught my daughter about the fight for equality, and the importance of being assertive (to the degree her shyness allowed). And that creating boundaries doesn’t mean “bitch or difficult,” it means self-respect. 

And that it’s okay to have a healthy squishy body (all while I worried about gaining weight).

It’s clear I haven’t been paying attention to evolving Barbie. She’s grown into an individual and kept pace with every complex wave of feminism.

Third-wave feminism, in the 1990s, took a more complicated and nuanced view of the world, writes M.G. Lord in the LA Times piece,  “Yes Barbie is a feminist, just don’t ask her creators.”

“It enshrined, among other things, the idea of a woman’s right to control her own sexual expression, and, you could even say, her right to pleasure. When it came to Barbie, this form of feminism advanced the daring idea that some women might actually take pleasure dressing like the dolls, a practice that some second-wavers might have interpreted as retrograde and submissive to patriarchy.

The largely online movement of fourth-wave feminism that began around 2012 had a big impact in Barbie’s world. It embraces intersectionality and body positivity, challenging the idea that there is only one ideal body type.”

The movie is over-the-top ridiculous, but with playful unexpected existential messaging for both our plastic protagonists (we see Barbie lying on the ground trying to grapple with “Who am I?”).

No major spoilers, but she gets a taste of the patriarchal real world outside her female-centric Barbieland and she’s devastated.

Ken too, experiences patriarchy and becomes fast addicted to the highs of the boys club, finally appreciated as alpha male-powerful, rather than merely Barbie’s beach buff lovesick shadow.

The movie isn’t, as some conservatives insist, a male-bashing bashing angry feminist roar. It’s real-life flipped upside down inside a matriarchy.   

Outside her pink utopia, Barbie deals with catcalls, ass-grabbing, sexual harassment, and being patronized and dismissed.

One man who commented on my first post wrote:

As a *cishet male, I was not remotely offended or threatened by the movie. Definitely not “male bashing”. I hope we see more movies like this. I hear Mattel is already planning a sequel” ~ Daniel.

My guess is the movie’s message didn’t threaten him, it merely illuminated what he already knew.   

While another man added this thought-provoking critique:

The movie is for men, perhaps a bit of a Rorschach test for their ego. While my husband won’t attend a women’s rights rally, he respects strong accomplished smart women. His activism is in his beliefs and behavior.

During the movie we watch Ken go rogue then struggle with toxic masculinity “bro” nonsense. Ultimately we leave the theatre understanding the value of not, bashing men, but rather, bashing gender expectations.

The movie is a good time but in no uncertain terms, a feminist film, although one covered in candy-coated bawdiness, “I’d like to see what nude blob (Ken) is packing under those jeans”

Co-director Greta Gerwig doesn’t shy away from the fact that she made a feminist movie.

Mattel does. Hoping no doubt, to avoid scaring off some viewers.

But controversy invariably draws crowds and Barbie is a box office smash. 

Some people are going because of its feminist messaging.

Some because they think the movie is the antithesis to conservative family values.  “See, more wokeism indoctrination!”

Most people, like friends I talked to, go because they liked Barbie growing up, or their kids want to see the movie.

A friend’s teenage son went and afterward told her, “Mom, my friends and I liked the movie but it was a little….feminist”

He wasn’t disgusted, she said, he was confused. Not a bad thing for a teenage boy to admit when clobbered over the head in a funny way, with a reality he doesn’t fully understand.

Barbie today is every woman. Every color and shape. Every career, or homemaker. Every position of power. Glamorous or earthy.  

The movie isn’t remotely an “All men suck” diatribe. No-thinking woman thinks this, as no-thinking man believes all women are “bitches.”

What we shouldn’t miss is the message for Ken.

That, while Barbie is no longer the poster girl for a one-dimensional female ideal, Ken too, has always been more complex than what people expected of him.

Ken isn’t threatened by feminism, because Ken finally knows who he is.


*This two-part identity means that a person is both cisgender and heterosexual. A cishet person identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth, and they choose romantic partners of the opposite sex.

Why Would I Ever Want to See the Barbie Movie? Now I Know.

The Barbie movie is stirring up buzz on all sides.

A couple months ago a friend invited me to see the Barbie movie. I appreciated the invite but wasn’t remotely excited about going.

Why torture myself? Feminist me at a Barbie movie? Never.

Until I read the massive buzz and learned that my daughter (25), the last person I expected to see it, wanted to go.

We chatted about the movie’s premise and I told her as a feminist and a Devil’s Advocate, I’d heard Barbie was over the top, excessive male bashing, a radical feminist roar.

So I asked her to let me know what she thought.

The following morning she texted:

“It was great, super whimsical, a satirical world contrasted with the complicated reality of womanhood. I think you might find the story over the top, but it conveys some very important messages every woman can relate to.”

When Taylor was little for the most part she ignored the few Barbies I gave her, the character versions like Cinderella and Belle.

My feminist values justified that Disney Barbies were merely cute merch from iconic family films, and that my daughter was too young to internalize the impossible beauty standards Barbie projected.

Which of course isn’t true.

Beauty and gender role expectations douse kids from day one. But I’m a fun mom and personally I liked the character Barbies.

About fifteen years ago my husband got on me after I bought a black Barbie for a (white) friend’s (white) daughter’s birthday party. Without asking the parents.

“It’s not your place to bring up race. She’s not your kid.”

I insisted the parents wouldn’t mind. But he was right, I was wildly presumptuous. it’s just that I was tired of seeing mostly white Barbies.

That’s long since changed.

My daughter never paid much attention to Barbieland. But once she turned into a tween I told her Barbie was an unrealistic bad female role model.

Growing up, indirect feminist messaging was everywhere in my house. Mostly from my dad. Where he got this I have no idea. My grandparents weren’t exactly poster parents for feminist ideals. I just remember, as kids do, loving them. Although Grandpa was apparently a bit of a tyrant to Grandma.

My dad outlawed nearly all TV, notably smut and female-demeaning fluff, like beauty contests and soap operas. Anything he thought mushed the mind or dumbed down women. So of course because it was forbidden, I watched all of it behind his back. The Waltons, PBS and Little House on the Prarie passed.

If my father caught me watching Miss America or Days of Our Lives he’d say, “What the hell is this crap?” Then he’d turn off the TV and tell us to go read a book.

But I was allowed Barbies because no one was paying attention to toys and feminist messaging back then. The few Barbies I owned were the original 70’s blond, buxom, high-heeled, no-waisted models.

I loved her look. The clothes, the shoes, the cool RV camper and the girly hair salon kit. I lived in Barbieland for a time, although I don’t remember ever wanting to look like her, except for that waistline.

Barbie camper

Today Barbie is a liberated bad-ass. But she’s also an individual. Ambitious CEO or homemaker, bougie or boho. A little or all of the above.

I was a stay-at-home mom but I was also career-driven and ambitious before, during and after I stayed home. I’m polite, crude at times, blunt, feminine and feminist. That used to be called an enigma. Now it’s called being who you are.

I wear make-up, high heels and short skirts but I love my hippie thinking. I’m aging with unapologetic vanity. Willing to shout my age but not enter it gracefully. I once thought Botox was an atrocity, now at 58 I embrace it. This doesn’t feel anti-feminist. It feels natural.

The Barbie movie is wildly popular with feminists and wildly unpopular with conservatives. Critics call it a hay day of male bashing, extreme “wokeness,” an angry movie (softened by an iconic beloved doll).

“The Barbie movie has smashed box-office records, brought dress-up back and put feminism in the spotlight.

Specifically, it has many asking: Has a doll long criticized for perpetuating outdated gender norms and unrealistic body image become a feminist icon? Has she always been one?

For context: The movie takes place largely in Barbieland, a candy-colored, women-centered utopia where Barbies hold the positions of power (all of the jobs, really, except for “beach”) and Kens are essentially peripheral. That’s painted in stark contrast to the “real world,” of course.” NPR. Rachel Treisman (Host). July 27, 2023. Is Barbie a feminist icon? It’s complicated.

I’ll decide what I think once I see the movie. I’ll be fair. I make a point not to knee-jerk fist-pump with my progressive friends and family on any subject.

And I can laugh at myself, so I can certainly laugh at any woman or man who acts the fool or bimbo or whatever light caricature I’m presented.

I am however, dead serious about equal rights.

Despite its bad reputation, feminism has never been about pushing men down. That’s a paranoid ultra-conservative reductionist narrative that translates into “feminists hate men and are bad for family values.”

Huh?

I like men. Some, not all. I like women, some not all. It’s the person, not the gender that makes me like or detest someone.

Feminism has never meant, at least in later waves, male-bashing or getting off on emasculating men. It does mean unraveling patriarchy and ending culturally manufactured and reinforced male toxic behavior. Which by the way hurts men too (Big Boys Don’t Cry)

Feminism on the whole is simple.

It means equality for both genders. Not at the expense of one, but to the benefit of all.

Today, (Mattel’s) online store boasts Barbies modeled after inspirational female figures — from Jane Goodall to Naomi Osaka to Laverne Cox — and people with disabilities, from a doll with Down Syndrome to those that come with props like hearing aids and wheelchairs. — NPR. Rachel Treisman (Host). July 27, 2023. Is Barbie a feminist icon? It’s complicated.

Westboro Baptist Church

How even the most hateful views can shift. Former Westboro Baptist member converts to love.

Westboro Baptist Church
Westboro Baptist Church

Last Sunday my Unitarian Universalist Reverend spoke about a former Westboro Baptist member, Megan Phelps-Roper.

“At 5, She Protested Homosexuality, Now She Protests The Church That Made Her Do It.”

Westboro Baptist if you aren’t aware, protest at LGBTQ funerals. Members wave signs at grieving loved ones that slur LGBTQ people and support divine killings:

God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” “America is Doomed,” “Don’t Pray for the USA,” “Thank God for IEDs,” “Fag Troops,” “Semper Fi Fags,” “God Hates Fags,” “Maryland Taliban,” “Fags Doom Nations,” “Not Blessed Just Cursed,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Pope in Hell,” “Priests Rape Boys,” “You’re Going to Hell,” and “God Hates You.””God hates faggots” “Fags doom nations” “Thank God for 9/11”

Members protest at travelers disembarking from LGTBQ cruises.  

This includes parents with kids in tow unprepared for the verbal onslaught.  Westboro, also with kids in tow, proudly pass on their hate-disease by enlisting little ones to hold “God Hates Faggots” signs as their kid’s faces shine with confused giddiness.  

These poor children have no idea why they’re so excited to scream vile phrases at innocent families, except that mom and dad told them that hating “those people” is God’s will. 

And so, it must be.   

What I feel about Westboro Baptist can’t be printed. Although I blogged about them for the Huffington Post after the Pulse tragedy in my hometown, “To Westboro Baptist, We Win.”

It’s no surprise that when people challenge our deeply embedded worldview we double down on our argument. It’s the boomerang effect. Calling someone a “fascist pig, libtard, baby killer or evil disgusting homophobe” feels good in the moment but does nothing to change minds.  

We try to convince people that we’re obviously right and that they’re obviously wrong with their stupid thinking. Even if we don’t call them stupid, we imply it.  

This never works. You and I know that.

Nonetheless, I continue with my rage-du-jour on Facebook. I’m deeply into social activism and frankly, ranting is cathartic. Ranting releases my psychic outrage which seems to be growing exponentially as a Florida Democrat (in the news lately, DeSantis’s dystopian book banning).  

I never call names, of course. I save that for the privacy of my home where I shamelessly and grossly let loose in the most unChrist-like way.

I avoid face-to-face politics. And online I present rational arguments with great passion and occaisional snark towards select politicians (thus igniting the tribalism at the root of “us vs them” thinking).

On Sunday my reverend presented five suggestions for how to disagree better.

1) Assume good intentions

I admit that I don’t assume good intentions for Neo Nazis, Westboro Baptist or people in favor of forcing a rape victim to carry her pregnancy.

Now, if I went way down deep into a Christ-like place I might find a morsel of “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” But I won’t, not for the real damage they’re doing.

2) Ask questions

I learned that our question shouldn’t be “Why do you think this (stupid) way?” rather, “May I ask where you learned your beliefs?” Then listen. Meet people where they ARE. We don’t know why they feel the way they do. Upbringing. Brain-washing. A bad experience. A need to belong.

3) Stay calm

If nothing else, do this.

I stay relatively calm in my posts except when referring to laws that take women’s rights away, ban books, marginalize the LGBTQ community, and the like.

Since 2016 I don’t engage in face-to-face opposing politics. It’s relationship dynamite and puts me in a bad mood.

The last Trump fan I spoke to about Trump was about 5 years ago. This woman insisted nothing was wrong with his character, and as for the Me Too movement?

She said women “overreact” at work when men make lewd comments. She said she was smarter than most people in business because she knew how to use her looks to get what she wanted. For example, she agreed to get a boob job suggested and paid for by her boss to “boost her sales numbers with men.”

Sad and brimming with flawed arguments. But do I have the will or energy to guide her to reason? No. 

4) Make the argument

And I do, with facts, mainly with centrist media sources like the Associated Press, Pew Research etc.  Look for reporting that doesn’t lean left or right. Check media sites with mediabiasfactcheck.com.

5) Speak with love and grace

I’m pretty damn gracious if I do say so, but do I speak with love? Sort of.

Love is a big word, wildly overused and diluted. I can be open to why someone is the way they are.  God knows I have issues that shaped my least-best traits.

I can be compassionate until someone uses words and actions that harm (“God hates faggots”). What do you think that does to a teenager struggling with his or her sexuality?

Or the 15-week ban on abortion in Florida with no exception for rape and incest. A girl is raped by her father but has to bear the burden of that horror for 40s weeks? There’s not enough crisis counseling in the world to counter that sort of psychic torture.

People much more patient than I, people willing to open the door with Westboro Baptist, engaged graciously with Megan Phelps-Roper on Twitter. Enough people who vehemently hated her views remained calm, open, asked good questions and listened.

And over time it worked. Megan did a 360 and is now helping change people’s hearts.  

It would take Jesus himself to tell me, Come on Laura, do better and graciously engage with people who spew hateful venom.

And even then, I’d need to be heavily medicated.

But we can all do better to close the gap between our divisive worldviews. Stay calm. Don’t insult, walk away, be gracious.

I noticed over the years that a few Trump friends unfriended me. They did it quietly. I just looked them up and they were gone. I completely understand. If I loved Trump, I’d hate my posts too.

And honestly it’s for the best that my QAnon friends went away. I don’t see much hope for us coming together when their views include the conspiracy theory that Hillary runs a secret chain of pizza restaurants as a cover for child sex trafficking.  

Sometimes there’s zero wiggle room to disagree lovingly. So just quietly unfriend, walk away, don’t discuss. You won’t change their mind, but you won’t make your relationship worse.  

 Former Westboro Baptist member Ted talk

Public preaching

When street evangelists scream preach I just ignore. But this guy is interrupting people working out.

I saw a viral video years ago of a girl at my daughter’s college in tears because a kid with some Christian group, was screaming that she was a “whore” for the way she dressed.

Certain places on campus allow these sorts of public soap-boxes.

Me personally, I’d just tell the guy he was a bully, and that I’d worn my favorite short-shorts that day, which I believed were not REMOTELY-whorish.

And that I’ve never taken a single dime for sex. So “whore” is not quite accurate. Then I’d tell him he was an asshole, likely in need of getting laid. Then I’d smirk while he turned away from the girl and shamed me instead. Sacrificial lamb and all that.

But this poor girl was genuinely shaken. Slut-shamed on her way to class. Fortunately a few kids spoke up and rallied around her and gave her a hug.

Bullies always lose. Mello Jesus wins.

Does this really work? Bullying people towards God? Seems counterintuitive.

Dude, read the room, no one wants you screaming while they’re working out.

Is this need to YELL the Good News a sickness? I was a Methodist. I know the Good News.

And calling people sinners is a huge no for me.

This being “born” a sinner is weird.

Seriously when was a baby a sinner? In the womb she sucked in too much amniotic fluid?

I’m wildly flawed, but preach “sinner repent!” and we’ll have words. I hate guilt preaching. I makes me want to run away from God. (My God is very LGBTQ friendly, pro-choice and doesn’t support burning in hell for non-believers).

Listen, I don’t go to my gym and preach the word of my Unitarian Universalists while someone jams out on their cross trainer.

The gall of ANYONE to preach ANY religion AT people, astounds me. Which is I why I get giddy when LDS folks come to my door.

They smile, hand me a pamphlet, share the Word. I then kindly and gently (I swear) share my Word (Unitarian Universalist: Nutshell: We don’t care if you’re protestant, Catholic, pagan or an atheist. Just be loving compassionate and open-minded.

My favorite preaching is when religious folks want to tell me about preparing for the “end of times” so that I’m not Left Behind while the sinners burn.

Now THERE’s a super upbeat conversation at my doorstep.

If you want to share Jesus, please quietly hand out pamphlets, invite people to your church, start a blog.

I wish people would stop YELLING God AT people in public places.

Jesus was a gentle peaceful guy. He’s well-known. We’ll find him if we need him.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén

Site last updated November 7, 2023 @ 2:26 pm

%d bloggers like this: