I didn’t want to see Barbie. I had no interest. But my friend and I were talking about how our daughters really wanted to see it and decided we would go by ourselves first to see if it was appropriate for them.
We laughed and we cried. And then I saw it again with my Mom. To my surprise, it’s a really good movie on so many levels.
There are men that I love and respect that say this is not a movie they want to see. They don’t have an interest. They say this is not a movie for them.
They are misled.
This movie is more than a discussion about a doll or women. It is a conversation about how we see, treat, and understand gender as a society – and it is brilliantly done. I saw an interview from a while back in which Meryl Streep compared gender to language, which I thought was amazing. She said, women are raised in the language of men.
I agree.
It is how our history is taught, is how the world is run. We need to speak and understand it to succeed in this world. But men don’t need to speak women. And why should they? That language isn’t required to survive or to better their situation in this world, per se.
One of the reasons I love this movie so much is that it is so hopeful. It takes us on a journey of what it means to be a woman, but also what it means to be human. And it is ridiculous and beautiful and insightful. I find how society treats the concept of gender fascinating. How threatened and confused we seem to be by it.
No matter our gender, we all have the same capacities to learn and grow. We are equally capable – intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.
I would argue that we are more alike than we are different. We are equally human and should be respectfully treated as such. It breaks my heart that the world doesn’t see that. That we let superficial differences, such as reproductive equipment get in the way of us essentially evolving as a species.
After all, in the grand scheme of things, those differences are just accessories.
