AFP via Getty Images\/Justin Tallis, Henry Nicholls<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWithin my close circles, I\u2019m famous (or infamous) for obsessing about movies after seeing them. Unexpectedly, \u201cBarbie\u201d became one of those movies.<\/p>\n
As a Middle Easterner and a convert to Christianity from Islam, I\u2019ve taken a particular interest in this movie. After all, the Middle East isn\u2019t known for being the bastion of women\u2019s rights. Islam has been criticized for its views of women relative to men. As I examined the life of Jesus as accounted for in the Bible, I saw something profoundly different about this Middle Eastern man. He bucked the misogyny of His time in ways that gave life to women and men alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarbie,\u201d sadly, does the opposite. It simply perpetuates bad stereotypes and degrades the beauty in the God-ordained gender binary. <\/p>\n
The film echoes contemporary criticism that Barbie contributes to body-image anxiety in young girls and perpetuates harmful female stereotypes. In fact, the film\u2019s lead character is named \u201cStereotypical Barbie.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Consider \u201cBarbie\u2019s\u201d glaringly binary imagery and content. There is no mistaking that both Barbieland\u2019s female utopia and the Real World\u2019s dystopia are populated by distinct males and females who act in traditionally (and comically) masculine and feminine ways. Men love trucks, powerful animals, sports, and \u201cThe Godfather.\u201d Women dress in pink, care about hygiene, and are nurturing (of each other, not so much men). The filmmakers inadvertently put an exclamation point on the binary statement in the movie\u2019s last scene when Stereotypical Barbie \u2014 now a real woman \u2014 checks in for a gynecologist appointment. Perhaps the filmmakers didn\u2019t intend for the glaring binary to emerge, given that Hari Neff, a transgender actor, portrays one of the Barbies. <\/p>\n
But emerge the binary does.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the Bible is denounced for describing the world with the same gender binary. Like the imagery in \u201cBarbie,\u201d the Bible declares that humanity is made up of women and men, distinctly, without a sense of fluidity or continuum. Genesis 1:27, Genesis 5:2, Matthew 19:4, and Mark 10:6 declare that God made humanity in His image, specifically \u201cmale and female.\u201d The very fact that \u201cBarbie\u201d is so widely applauded as a statement of women\u2019s empowerment yet depicts distinctions between men and women provides at least some evidence that no matter how much we wrestle away from it, the same binary reality that the Bible has been declaring for centuries pulls us back in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps more subtle, yet no less striking, is the parallel between Barbie and Ken on the one hand and Adam and Eve on the other. Ken dolls were created solely to be Barbie\u2019s boyfriends. In the film, despite his efforts at self-definition through cartoonish machismo, Ken can\u2019t escape the fact that he\u2019s derivative of \u2014 and therefore inferior to \u2014 Barbie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eventually, Barbie urges Ken to find his sense of worth apart from her. But Ken\u2019s angst persists. He only exists because of Barbie and was made for her. But Stereotypical Barbie eventually persuades (stereotypical) Ken. \u201cBarbie\u201d gets at least this quite right: the order and\u00a0seeming\u00a0<\/em>purpose of men\u2019s and women\u2019s creations don\u2019t dictate the degrees of their dignity and worth. This subtle gem in a not-so-subtle movie shatters the stereotype of Eve\u2019s creation as a declaration of women\u2019s inferiority to men.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe stereotype goes like this. Eve\u2019s creation from Adam\u2019s rib in Genesis 2:21\u201322 assaults us with the idea that Eve is a derivative of Adam and that God created her not as an equal partner for Adam but as something like his Stepford wife (she\u2019s Adam\u2019s Ken). But Eve\u2019s creation in Genesis 2 actually speaks to the equality the original couple was meant to have. Adam lovingly calls Eve \u201cbone of my bones and flesh of my flesh\u201d (v. 23). The apostle Paul advocates humility for any man who sees in Eve\u2019s creation anything that might justify male preeminence. \u201cFor as woman was made from man,\u201d he writes, \u201cso man is now born of woman. And all things are from God\u201d (1 Cor. 11:12). <\/p>\n
Couple this with the fact that men and women each are created in God\u2019s image (Gen. 1:27). Since no aspect of God\u2019s image can be inferior to another, males and females bear God\u2019s image equally. Further, Adam (men) and Eve (women) were created to have relationships with each other as an expression of their relationships with their Creator. Thus, the order of their creation has nothing to do with the quality of their value and purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarbie\u201d\u00a0puts the degrading shoe on the male foot to make men uncomfortable, to show men how women feel when they see degrading female stereotypes paraded on screens and elsewhere. Fair enough, but it goes too far because, throughout the film, women\u2019s value emerges at the expense of men\u2019s dignity. Therein lies a contrast with Jesus. In numerous instances, Jesus vaunted women to their places as equals to men. He used women as proxies for God in His famous parables. Women are heroines at His birth, part of His ministry, and faithful at His death. Indeed, they were granted the honor of being the first witnesses to Christianity\u2019s pinnacle miracle \u2014 Jesus\u2019 resurrection.<\/p>\n
While He chastised men\u2019s treatment of women, He never belittled men. He shattered stereotypes that held women back without creating new stereotypes about men. A friend told me that during a conversation with a prominent atheist thinker in the U.K., the atheist acknowledged that, \u201cJesus was not a product of his time.\u201d As a Middle Easterner, I heartily agree. That\u2019s why women fled other religions and flocked to the fledgling Christian movement in the early centuries.<\/p>\n
If\u00a0\u201cBarbie\u201d\u00a0offers us something of value, it is its contrast with Jesus\u2019 way of dignifying women without denigrating anyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBarbie\u201d\u00a0goes beyond male-female power struggles.\u00a0\u201cBarbie\u201d\u00a0is about what it means to be human and explores the messy real world where we forge our dignity and purpose through achievement, beauty and recognition. When Barbie encounters the ghost of her creator, Ruth Handler, she tells Barbie that humans create concepts like patriarchy and Barbie dolls to bring meaning to a messed-up world. Barbie\u2019s response is thought-provoking. She wants to be part of those who make meaning, not the meaning they make.<\/p>\n
Each of us makes our meaning and forges our value by creating social structures and plastic idolizations of ourselves to deal with our shortcomings, only to be riddled with more angst because we fail to live up to the very idols we make. The Bible confounds that stereotype, warning of the harm that befalls us when we look to man-made idealized images instead of focusing on the image of God we each bear. Since God\u2019s image is infinitely beautiful and valuable, our reflection of His splendor defines our worth and meaning.<\/p>\n
For the Christian, the cross is a striking declaration that our value is so high that God paid an infinite price to redeem us. To be sure,\u00a0\u201cBarbie\u201d\u00a0is not a Christian film, but it can get us to think about far more than we might think.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Abdu Murray\u00a0offers the credibility of the gospel message as a speaker and writer with Embrace the Truth. He has authored several books, including \u201cSaving Truth,\u201d \u201cGrand Central Question,\u201d \u201cApocalypse Later\u201d and his latest, \u201cMore than a White Man\u2019s Religion.\u201d For most of his life, Abdu was a proud Muslim until a nine-year historical, philosophical, theological and scientific investigation pointed him to the Christian faith. Abdu has spoken to diverse international audiences and has participated in debates and dialogues across the globe. He holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan \u2013 Ann Arbor and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. Abdu lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their three children.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Website | embracethetruth.org<\/a> | Twitter | @AbduMurray<\/a> | Instagram | @abdumurray12<\/a> Facebook | \/abdumurray<\/a> | YouTube | @AbduMurrayOfficial<\/a> | TikTok | @abdumurray<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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