As always I really enjoyed this discussion. I am not a Jungian psychoanalyst (nor any other kind of psychoanalyst!), but when I first saw that movie, I came out with tears in my eyes, but I didn't know why. So I went back to see it again, to better determine what it was that it was tickling in my subconscious. I'm surprised none of you brought up the idea of a hero's journey- but in terms of the female process of growth? I mean, with Ken as the Animus? The phase of the Ken's trying to take over with an overblown and immature idea of power, like a threat of animus possession, as the girl becomes aware of her sexual power in regards to men (and the world in general) and experiments with it, sometimes ignorantly abusing it. Something that happens often to girls as they enter puberty. Also, you did notice the timing of Barbie coinciding with the release of the Birth Control pill. Not long after (when I was a child) women in the US fought for, and got, the right to abortion. The collective had this growing desire threading through it, to release women from pregnancy and be able to experience themselves as sexual beings separate from motherhood. When I watched the opening scene of the girls bashing in the babies (I found it a rather violent scene) that is what I was thinking of. My feminist mother repeating to me, as a child, to never become a housewife, no matter what, and always use birth control (at 7 years, this message was a bit premature!) and all the big movies at the time about evil devil children (The Exorcist, The Omen, Rosemary's Baby, Carrie...) . It always seemed to me, at my young age, that women were doing some violent type of baby bashing in their psyche, in their desire to expand beyond the mother image in the potentials. I remember the pregnant Barbie, but my mom refused me that one - but I did have the one who grew boobs when you moved her arm! But also, in all the interpretations I've seen about this film, no one mentions the horses! It was such a prominent symbol, how could we neglect it? We all know, horses become a focus for a large number of females approaching adolescence. (me included, I became a horse trainer in my adult life). But at any equestrian center, you will find ten young girls to every male. That is usually a girl thing. Finding power between our legs is a big deal. I do not mean the superficial suggestion that girls get sexual excitement from sitting in the saddle (that has never happened to me) but there is something symbolic about being on top of, and directing this powerful being, which is associated with the discovery of our power in the world, that is suddenly available, because of our genitals! I am not educated enough to know if there's been any theories about a "heroines journey", but it struck me that this movie was a good example of it, for many reasons. One being the hero's journey always goes from the concrete exterior world, into a magical trip through the interior world, whereas females tend to have the opposite- going from the internally focused happy unicorn and pink flowers internal world, to discover the harsh realities of the exterior world - with all the oppression, and power, it involves.
I, too, found the smashing of baby dolls disturbing. (Reminiscent of all the Disney movie matricides.) Seemed to suggest all women would prefer to remain maidens, puellas, and reject maturing into motherhood. Subsequent interesting perspective on crone/madness.
The Aphrodite symbolism is brilliant, Joseph. What I immediately saw was the archetypal Lilith, especially when Murdering the babies. But honestly, all of the feminine mythology you all presented here are present in this movie. Funny - BOTH Barbie and Ken remain stunted. It’s also interesting (and true) that Barbie chooses to go toward her individuation and to accept the “soul” and takes on a maternal role for Ken (which creates a Freudian slip 😂). The “men” also remain like Peter Pan and Barbie is Wendy, (perhaps all the Barbies left behind are Wendy). Also regarding race, it’s interesting how the “next in power” are black men and women towards the end. They inherit “the kingdom” of, (at least I think) the “the hegemony”. Where there really isn’t any real diversity but the final blending into homogeneity. As a WOC myself, I pay attention to these things. Anyway, I love you guys! ❤️🧚✨
"One of the criteria by which a society can fairly be judged is the position which it accords to women. " [The Sumerians, C. Wooley, 1996, Ch. Sumerian Society, p. 100]
Joseph I think you really captured it in referring to the myth of Aphrodite and Eros and the Greek gods. I also thought the smashing of the baby dolls in the movie was a little disturbing. And how interesting that there was a lot of laughter as you were talking about this :)
Patriarchy, historically meaning "father," but in today's culture I think it tends to be more a reference to "power and control, both overt and covert." It is not just men who fall under the description of "patriarchy' anymore but anyone can fall under that shadow when they use the more historic toxic ways of obtaining and maintaining power over other groups of people, and maintaining the status quo.
Good discussion all around! I found myself largely repelled by the movie for some of the reasons discussed (which is disappointing, because I was delighted by the concept and even dressed up for the theater.) I feel that the movie was trying to balance so many potential themes that it never fully matured into one real powerful theme, and like a juggler, dropped most of the balls it had put into the air. Two additional things that came to my mind when watching and while listening: One, the speech that "deprogrammed" the Barbies really put me off as a woman. I felt a nearly violent repugnance to her infantile tantrum about the world wanting different things from her (It feels to me that growing up and self actualizing is the recognition that any path you choose will be ridiculed by SOMEbody. If you listen to ALL the voices you'll be lost forever, and that applies to BOTH men and women.) It's a decent concept for a character to have this feeling (we can all be immature), but I didn't get the sense that the movie saw her as immature; I got the sense that instead, because I'm a Woman, I should understand and agree with her 100%, which I don't. And two, I felt that the movie did not give Barbie a plausible reason to WANT to become real. As you discussed, the Kens return to infantilization at the end. So, too, I question why Barbie would choose the real world. All she's been shown in the "real world" is ugly, sexist, and cynical, sans the bus station scene, which is beautiful, but out of place narratively, since it comes at a time where Barbie still fears the flat feet and the fat deposits and she's had no narrative reason to see things differently- to see the old woman as beautiful. I'd say there was NEVER a narrative moment that shows us why she changed her mind, she just DID. It's tragic, because the themes of motherhood and wanting to join the course of nature that way are planted in multiple places and are just waiting to be watered. A mother and daughter in the real world harboring a living doll who's never been a mother nor had a mother, and eventually wants to join the world, ultimately, for that (helping mother and daughter grow in the process), would have been really touching. Anyway, lovely analysis! Thank you. (PS- Enchanted did the theme of a fictional woman wanting to become real much, much more sincerely and beautifully, if anyone would like my unsolicited opinion on that. Lol.)
What, or who dies? is a fundamental inquiry! Recollection on a daily basis of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and absence of fixed self is to be titrated, lest we freak out!
I saw the movie with my 14 year old son. My 24 year old son had recommended it highly...My favorite scene was when Barbie comments on the older women's beauty. I felt that she was becoming ensouled and able to see through the superficial notion of external beauty. Margo Robbies teens was spent on the Gold Coast in Australia its a sort of Barbie land(perhaps like Florida?), very focused on external beauty. I I felt she carried something of the Australian soul in her lighthearted intelligence. But that my bias. Awesome , awesome insightful discussion.
Lisa: hearing what you say about 'patriachy: 21st C trope🙄' but I grew up in a conservative rural community in the 1980s and I saw my male peers absorbed into society in a way that was not available to female kids until we aligned sexually with socially appropriate male partners 😳 the clear communication was : go to university, leave this place, find your own tribe: this is not your home here. That was not an ambivalent message. 30+yrs later I moved back. EVERYONE IS LOVELY🥰 but it is not an equal society, some are more equal than others. 😫 There are women who are winners, but it is a patriarchal economy with support and mentoring in place for men and penalties and grudging acceptance and acclimation in place for women who aspire to achieve in 'traditional' male realms.😢 to be fair; it impoverishes everyone🤦 but apparently they all like it that way
One other thought in response: my sense of the visit to the gynecologist was that Barbie was at last real-in psychological terms, perhaps, she was on her way to becoming an individual. But I think Joseph is right in seeing this framed in the antiseptic terms of a culture that distrusts sex and hasn’t a clue about complementarity as the way to real individuation. And, Lisa, I think you are right too in saying that there is a strong Puritanism in this as well. All that said, I liked the movie as a sassy exploration of the meaning of the Barbie image.
I love this discussion, embedded with teaching, reflections on current culture, and feeling comfort that I'm not alone in feeling alone, and vulnerable when I go outside! "Eye-rape"???? I'll be on the look-out!
As regards the drop in the birthrate, i think women are choosing not to have children if they have to do often all the parenting (of children and men) plus have a job, so that when the relationship ends they can sopport themselves plus children.
I thought Joseph’s comment about GI Joe worth following up on in one small way. I too had only GI Joe to play with, and I had a large collection of GI Joes and their paraphernalia. I didn’t think this figure was a role model. GI Joe’s world was a place for play, not emulation. The same was true of our neighborhood games, which were often shoot ‘em ups. These were never, for any of us, practice for real world imitation. None of us became soldiers; none of us became violent actors in other spheres of life. And I wonder whether the same isn’t true of Barbie and her role in the life of girls. Do we literalize the doll persona too much by supposing that it is taken to be a role a model rather than a object of play?
If you look at it in the sense of the "hero's Journey" playing with these military figures in the sense of battling with the demons and "bad guys" of one's own internal drives, (instead of outer enemies) it makes a bit more sense, in terms of working towards maturity. The female journey is different- we live in an inner world of pink flowers and unicorns, until we have to face the exterior world and real facts, in which we have no power, except our sexual power. We have to face the exterior world and pressure to embody motherhood and pleasing men. In other words, the guys travel from the exterior world, to learn the interior, while females have to travel from the interior to the exterior, and these exterior objects give us suggestions of what is possible in the REAL world. We were looking at our Barbie's as real possibilities in the world, not just imaginary archetypes.
Haven't seen the movie, probably will. This won't ruin it! I had "girl" dolls, but also animal dolls: a bear, a lamb, an octopus and a horse:) I know I'm going to love the movie. I've watched Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood" 8 times in prep for a psychoanalytic-sponsored discussion. I've been thinking about death lately too.
I think the movie is simply a rite of passage for girls. The last movie that explicitly talked about girls' periods, "Turning Red," was HUGELY controversial and it was just a Disney cartoon! The movie is ultimately about moms taking care of themselves to they can help their daughters get through their first periods, and as the movie is directed at TWEENS, it's clearly declaring that TWEEN girls should NOT be sexualized, period. Sexualizing tween girls is what is gross, not period blood, not gynecologists, not being a growing woman.
If theres one thing I learned after watching a lot its that the ladies have a strange trauma reaponse to the Aphrodite, the sexy feminine. They ought to sit with this.
That opening scene scared my mother from the movie. She saw abortion hypnosis in mass disguised as a joke. 🙈 I didn’t laugh at thats part but at many others😅 I also didn’t see space odyssey. So imagine my first impression seeing this movie. The entire thing seemed like a giant psy op of hell 😂
I think Barbie was subliminally wrestling with motherhood, as the baby dolls at the start were being destroyed… and the movie ended I’m with a gynaecologist gag. The more weighty moments were with Ruth Handler (barbies creator), but it made jokes about ‘pregnant barbie’ as being a misfit. I also think it unconsciously proved the point that women see men as second class citizens, and their way of undermining the ‘patriarchy’ was to introduce debauchery and polygamy to Ken-land. I think these subtexts make the film a dreadful manifesto for young women to follow.
*Nope. •* Ken wants to dedicate himself utterly to barbie, but the social currency he is lacking is any emotional reciprocity in a female self-obsessed society. It’s not commitment issues, it’s men being seen as an accessory and being portrayed as utterly useless to the barbie’s society. (Ken’s lifeguarding for example). Ken actually commits himself to going with barbie to the real world.
As always I really enjoyed this discussion. I am not a Jungian psychoanalyst (nor any other kind of psychoanalyst!), but when I first saw that movie, I came out with tears in my eyes, but I didn't know why. So I went back to see it again, to better determine what it was that it was tickling in my subconscious. I'm surprised none of you brought up the idea of a hero's journey- but in terms of the female process of growth? I mean, with Ken as the Animus? The phase of the Ken's trying to take over with an overblown and immature idea of power, like a threat of animus possession, as the girl becomes aware of her sexual power in regards to men (and the world in general) and experiments with it, sometimes ignorantly abusing it. Something that happens often to girls as they enter puberty.
Also, you did notice the timing of Barbie coinciding with the release of the Birth Control pill. Not long after (when I was a child) women in the US fought for, and got, the right to abortion. The collective had this growing desire threading through it, to release women from pregnancy and be able to experience themselves as sexual beings separate from motherhood. When I watched the opening scene of the girls bashing in the babies (I found it a rather violent scene) that is what I was thinking of. My feminist mother repeating to me, as a child, to never become a housewife, no matter what, and always use birth control (at 7 years, this message was a bit premature!) and all the big movies at the time about evil devil children (The Exorcist, The Omen, Rosemary's Baby, Carrie...) . It always seemed to me, at my young age, that women were doing some violent type of baby bashing in their psyche, in their desire to expand beyond the mother image in the potentials.
I remember the pregnant Barbie, but my mom refused me that one - but I did have the one who grew boobs when you moved her arm!
But also, in all the interpretations I've seen about this film, no one mentions the horses! It was such a prominent symbol, how could we neglect it? We all know, horses become a focus for a large number of females approaching adolescence. (me included, I became a horse trainer in my adult life). But at any equestrian center, you will find ten young girls to every male. That is usually a girl thing. Finding power between our legs is a big deal. I do not mean the superficial suggestion that girls get sexual excitement from sitting in the saddle (that has never happened to me) but there is something symbolic about being on top of, and directing this powerful being, which is associated with the discovery of our power in the world, that is suddenly available, because of our genitals!
I am not educated enough to know if there's been any theories about a "heroines journey", but it struck me that this movie was a good example of it, for many reasons. One being the hero's journey always goes from the concrete exterior world, into a magical trip through the interior world, whereas females tend to have the opposite- going from the internally focused happy unicorn and pink flowers internal world, to discover the harsh realities of the exterior world - with all the oppression, and power, it involves.
I, too, found the smashing of baby dolls disturbing. (Reminiscent of all the Disney movie matricides.) Seemed to suggest all women would prefer to remain maidens, puellas, and reject maturing into motherhood. Subsequent interesting perspective on crone/madness.
The Aphrodite symbolism is brilliant, Joseph. What I immediately saw was the archetypal Lilith, especially when Murdering the babies. But honestly, all of the feminine mythology you all presented here are present in this movie.
Funny - BOTH Barbie and Ken remain stunted. It’s also interesting (and true) that Barbie chooses to go toward her individuation and to accept the “soul” and takes on a maternal role for Ken (which creates a Freudian slip 😂). The “men” also remain like Peter Pan and Barbie is Wendy, (perhaps all the Barbies left behind are Wendy).
Also regarding race, it’s interesting how the “next in power” are black men and women towards the end. They inherit “the kingdom” of, (at least I think) the “the hegemony”. Where there really isn’t any real diversity but the final blending into homogeneity. As a WOC myself, I pay attention to these things.
Anyway, I love you guys! ❤️🧚✨
"One of the criteria by which a society can fairly be judged is the position which it accords to women. "
[The Sumerians, C. Wooley, 1996, Ch. Sumerian Society, p. 100]
Joseph I think you really captured it in referring to the myth of Aphrodite and Eros and the Greek gods. I also thought the smashing of the baby dolls in the movie was a little disturbing. And how interesting that there was a lot of laughter as you were talking about this :)
Patriarchy, historically meaning "father," but in today's culture I think it tends to be more a reference to "power and control, both overt and covert." It is not just men who fall under the description of "patriarchy' anymore but anyone can fall under that shadow when they use the more historic toxic ways of obtaining and maintaining power over other groups of people, and maintaining the status quo.
I find it interesting the Stevie Nicks Barbie just sold out online.
Good discussion all around! I found myself largely repelled by the movie for some of the reasons discussed (which is disappointing, because I was delighted by the concept and even dressed up for the theater.) I feel that the movie was trying to balance so many potential themes that it never fully matured into one real powerful theme, and like a juggler, dropped most of the balls it had put into the air.
Two additional things that came to my mind when watching and while listening: One, the speech that "deprogrammed" the Barbies really put me off as a woman. I felt a nearly violent repugnance to her infantile tantrum about the world wanting different things from her (It feels to me that growing up and self actualizing is the recognition that any path you choose will be ridiculed by SOMEbody. If you listen to ALL the voices you'll be lost forever, and that applies to BOTH men and women.) It's a decent concept for a character to have this feeling (we can all be immature), but I didn't get the sense that the movie saw her as immature; I got the sense that instead, because I'm a Woman, I should understand and agree with her 100%, which I don't.
And two, I felt that the movie did not give Barbie a plausible reason to WANT to become real. As you discussed, the Kens return to infantilization at the end. So, too, I question why Barbie would choose the real world. All she's been shown in the "real world" is ugly, sexist, and cynical, sans the bus station scene, which is beautiful, but out of place narratively, since it comes at a time where Barbie still fears the flat feet and the fat deposits and she's had no narrative reason to see things differently- to see the old woman as beautiful. I'd say there was NEVER a narrative moment that shows us why she changed her mind, she just DID. It's tragic, because the themes of motherhood and wanting to join the course of nature that way are planted in multiple places and are just waiting to be watered. A mother and daughter in the real world harboring a living doll who's never been a mother nor had a mother, and eventually wants to join the world, ultimately, for that (helping mother and daughter grow in the process), would have been really touching.
Anyway, lovely analysis! Thank you. (PS- Enchanted did the theme of a fictional woman wanting to become real much, much more sincerely and beautifully, if anyone would like my unsolicited opinion on that. Lol.)
I would love your opinion on Enchanted! Thank you for so eloquently putting into words the very same thoughts I had about the film!
The 2001 spoof is amazingly done.
What, or who dies? is a fundamental inquiry! Recollection on a daily basis of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and absence of fixed self is to be titrated, lest we freak out!
I’m so glad y’all discussed this movie! I did feel like it touched on some good narratives but was unfocused. Great analysis and discussion.
I saw the movie with my 14 year old son. My 24 year old son had recommended it highly...My favorite scene was when Barbie comments on the older women's beauty. I felt that she was becoming ensouled and able to see through the superficial notion of external beauty. Margo Robbies teens was spent on the Gold Coast in Australia its a sort of Barbie land(perhaps like Florida?), very focused on external beauty. I I felt she carried something of the Australian soul in her lighthearted intelligence. But that my bias. Awesome , awesome insightful discussion.
I would totally buy Jungian Analyst Barbie 😆. I feel so at home with you three!
Lisa: hearing what you say about 'patriachy: 21st C trope🙄' but I grew up in a conservative rural community in the 1980s and I saw my male peers absorbed into society in a way that was not available to female kids until we aligned sexually with socially appropriate male partners 😳 the clear communication was : go to university, leave this place, find your own tribe: this is not your home here. That was not an ambivalent message. 30+yrs later I moved back. EVERYONE IS LOVELY🥰 but it is not an equal society, some are more equal than others. 😫 There are women who are winners, but it is a patriarchal economy with support and mentoring in place for men and penalties and grudging acceptance and acclimation in place for women who aspire to achieve in 'traditional' male realms.😢 to be fair; it impoverishes everyone🤦 but apparently they all like it that way
An awesome discussion. Thanks.
This was fun, and at a theater near me! I note Margot Robbie gets around.
anyone know of a list of ancient greek psychological terms? emotional states like 'acedia', 'anhedonia', 'apophenia', ect.
One other thought in response: my sense of the visit to the gynecologist was that Barbie was at last real-in psychological terms, perhaps, she was on her way to becoming an individual. But I think Joseph is right in seeing this framed in the antiseptic terms of a culture that distrusts sex and hasn’t a clue about complementarity as the way to real individuation. And, Lisa, I think you are right too in saying that there is a strong Puritanism in this as well. All that said, I liked the movie as a sassy exploration of the meaning of the Barbie image.
I love this discussion, embedded with teaching, reflections on current culture, and feeling comfort that I'm not alone in feeling alone, and vulnerable when I go outside! "Eye-rape"???? I'll be on the look-out!
As regards the drop in the birthrate, i think women are choosing not to have children if they have to do often all the parenting (of children and men) plus have a job, so that when the relationship ends they can sopport themselves plus children.
I thought Joseph’s comment about GI Joe worth following up on in one small way. I too had only GI Joe to play with, and I had a large collection of GI Joes and their paraphernalia. I didn’t think this figure was a role model. GI Joe’s world was a place for play, not emulation. The same was true of our neighborhood games, which were often shoot ‘em ups. These were never, for any of us, practice for real world imitation. None of us became soldiers; none of us became violent actors in other spheres of life. And I wonder whether the same isn’t true of Barbie and her role in the life of girls. Do we literalize the doll persona too much by supposing that it is taken to be a role a model rather than a object of play?
If you look at it in the sense of the "hero's Journey" playing with these military figures in the sense of battling with the demons and "bad guys" of one's own internal drives, (instead of outer enemies) it makes a bit more sense, in terms of working towards maturity. The female journey is different- we live in an inner world of pink flowers and unicorns, until we have to face the exterior world and real facts, in which we have no power, except our sexual power. We have to face the exterior world and pressure to embody motherhood and pleasing men.
In other words, the guys travel from the exterior world, to learn the interior, while females have to travel from the interior to the exterior, and these exterior objects give us suggestions of what is possible in the REAL world. We were looking at our Barbie's as real possibilities in the world, not just imaginary archetypes.
Haven't seen the movie, probably will. This won't ruin it! I had "girl" dolls, but also animal dolls: a bear, a lamb, an octopus and a horse:) I know I'm going to love the movie. I've watched Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood" 8 times in prep for a psychoanalytic-sponsored discussion. I've been thinking about death lately too.
I think the movie is simply a rite of passage for girls. The last movie that explicitly talked about girls' periods, "Turning Red," was HUGELY controversial and it was just a Disney cartoon! The movie is ultimately about moms taking care of themselves to they can help their daughters get through their first periods, and as the movie is directed at TWEENS, it's clearly declaring that TWEEN girls should NOT be sexualized, period. Sexualizing tween girls is what is gross, not period blood, not gynecologists, not being a growing woman.
If theres one thing I learned after watching a lot its that the ladies have a strange trauma reaponse to the Aphrodite, the sexy feminine. They ought to sit with this.
In this world, most women dont get along. Its a switch of rolls.
The Atlantic's article on the "Sex Recession". is excellent on the topic of why youngsters are not getting it on.
That opening scene scared my mother from the movie. She saw abortion hypnosis in mass disguised as a joke. 🙈 I didn’t laugh at thats part but at many others😅
I also didn’t see space odyssey.
So imagine my first impression seeing this movie. The entire thing seemed like a giant psy op of hell 😂
Lol Jungian Barbie😂😂😂💐
I think Barbie was subliminally wrestling with motherhood, as the baby dolls at the start were being destroyed… and the movie ended I’m with a gynaecologist gag. The more weighty moments were with Ruth Handler (barbies creator), but it made jokes about ‘pregnant barbie’ as being a misfit. I also think it unconsciously proved the point that women see men as second class citizens, and their way of undermining the ‘patriarchy’ was to introduce debauchery and polygamy to Ken-land. I think these subtexts make the film a dreadful manifesto for young women to follow.
It's less so that it introduces "polygamy" and more that it pokes at an aspect of psychologically immature men having commitment issues.
*Nope. •* Ken wants to dedicate himself utterly to barbie, but the social currency he is lacking is any emotional reciprocity in a female self-obsessed society. It’s not commitment issues, it’s men being seen as an accessory and being portrayed as utterly useless to the barbie’s society. (Ken’s lifeguarding for example). Ken actually commits himself to going with barbie to the real world.