What Can the Existential Crisis of the Barbie Movie Teach Us About Marriage?

What does the Barbie movie teach us about marriage? Yes, I'm serious, and I'll address that below.


But first...


Should we “should” the Barbie movie at all?

Should we go see it so we can be culturally informed? 

Is it so woke it leaves men behind? 

Or does it maybe even inadvertently push women farther into the boxes they so desperately want to escape of having to emulate Barbie?

This topic called to me a few times and I pushed it down but it kept rising back up - my daughters are still raving about it, especially our resident type Nine, and continues to remind me of the movie’s success, for better or for worse — perhaps both.


And let's not forget the movie truly EXPOSED my girls and me in the very brief but scarily accurate diatribe about women who watch BBC's Pride and Prejudice seven times while scrolling Instagram.

Alright - let's go.


As it turns out, my girls and I were not alone in our curiosity to see it amidst this community.


On opening weekend, I polled our 32K Instagram account and out of those who answered, there was a 70/30 chance you were seeing this over Oppenheimer. There were a few who said they didn’t care about either, tbt, too!

So, before we head into our next weekly campaigns, let’s talk.

First, you should know what's ahead generationally.


My Gen Z daughters and their friends were sooo excited to see it and they had a ball - they grew up on less of the Barbie doll and more of the movies about more modest, softer and sweeter Barbie imagery of the Millenial era as generations shifted (and we could totally sidetrack here onto purity culture at best and worst, but we won’t).


As a late Gen X, I was excited too, although I grew up with the more stereotyped views of Barbie.


And I'll put my cards on the table for why I was excited here, too.


I played sooooo much more with Barbies than perhaps any of my other toys. Let's put it this way. I played with them long enough to hide that I still l played with them. 

And as a self-pres dominant type, as you can imagine, my Barbies were often without resources, just as I was in my single-income teacher's family. In my creative play by myself, I often “found” them in the frozen tundras of my living room couch and rescued them, lol.

My type 4 best friend growing up had every single Barbie that was in existence along with the cars and castle, and even the perfume, which I still love...

And with types 4 and 7 playing Barbies every day for years, the scripts were flying, and some were not to be repeated, lol! 

But seriously, as part of the last of the Gen X crew growing up in the eighties, the Barbie agenda was what I thought I knew about femininity...


 Be all that you can B - as in, be like Barbie, whatever it takes.


I was sooo grateful when the alternative era took over (We'll talk about generational theory and personality more soon!) and I could lay my pink (and very grungy) coat aside with peer enthusiasm.

So, my own personal history (or vendetta) aside, however you see it, why do I think the Barbie movie is relevant to marriage and culture today?


Greta Gerwig, who also directed another of my daughter's faves, the most modern Little Women, managed to keep a strong throughline of important messaging even amidst the pink haze of the Barbie and "Kendom" empires.


Although it's not perfectly done (and nothing ever is), this movie mainly helps us to see all the crazy hoops women jump through - from Baby Boomers all the way down to Gen Z and onward.


And that's SO worthy of marriage understanding, perhaps especially for men who don't have wives or daughters educating them constantly. (It honestly helped Wes so much when my teen daughters echoed all I had been saying for years).


A few of my fave basic lessons from the movie:


- Super elderly OG Barbie is beautiful and she knows it and doesn't care anymore as much what others think. She knows her worth.
- Sometimes women are objectified. The attractive, nurturing qualities are exchanged for dominance and aggression and frankly, many women don't expect more due to some of the "Barbie-esque" socialization.
- We still have things to teach young men about how to treat women - social groupthink is YUGE!


And so I love this for the next-gen and for ALL of us.


And yet also...


My son - and all men - matter too!


I didn't see a lot of grace in this direction.


I not only prefer a gracious attitude because I want to follow Christ's example but because I know I need grace, too. We all do.


And even if you don’t share my faith or values, I think most of us agree that messages of grace and growth are just as important for young males who maybe don't have all the stoicism of Gen X behind them. So as they walk into the theater in pink solidarity, they need to remember they get grace also and they too can embrace emotion and yet still be masculine - and more importantly - still be loved.


Yet although movies just don't do the grace piece perfectly, sometimes we can still learn from them.


Before I close, here's a case in point. After seeing Barbie with one of my girls, she left with her friends. 


My husband and son and I then watched Seinfeld. We laughed our buns off - it's such a predictably fun show!


And when, predictably also, the comments came on about the guys on the show going to see strippers, I intrinsically bristled, as generations of women before me and after me certainly do.


It happens so often that it's instinct for me - and I'm sure you also in some way.


It's life on this side of eternity.


People are not always fair.


But we take the good. And when we feel like there is no good, I hope we turn away altogether.


I hope that together we bring forth better and better because it truly does not satisfy to demote or objectify another human, regardless of gender.


Perfection is unattainable, even for Barbie, as we already knew and as we come to see in this movie, and it hurts when any of us expect this from one another.


So whether you see the movie or not, let's walk these complexities with wisdom and with love, as well as with justice.


Let's go forward with the guts to stand up for what's important.


Let's set the boundaries we need to, 


Let's share the truths we need to, and, perhaps most important here,


Let's give the grace we all need to give and be given, fumbling forward as we grow.


Love living intentionally with you,


Christa