Barbie with Alyse and Josh

Alyse, Josh, and I discuss Barbie! I loved the film and started to immediately write an essay on it which I have attached below. I still have lots more to add to it. Alyse and Josh really helped to shed new perspective on the film for me as well!

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Barbie

 

Starts out with homage to 2001 Space Oddysee ... the girls only have baby dolls and therefore only ever play and dream about being mothers and housewives.

 

But then The Barbie, a giant monolithic Margot Robbie, is introduced and suddenly a new form of play, a new way to dream, a new horizon of possibility becomes available. The girls destroy their baby dolls. This act symbolizes the growing dissatisfaction of women being relegated to the scripts of mother and housewife.

 

The film then goes into idyllic Barbieland where the Barbies rule the supreme court and white house. They can be any occupation. We see Barbie as doctor, president, journalist, author, even construction worker. It's a utopia where everyday is positive, beautiful, and fun. 

 

Barbie hosts a dance party at her dream house. All the sudden, in the middle of dancing, out of no where Barbie blurts, "You guys ever think about dieing?!" The record screeches, the party comes to a halt ... Barbie is confused, uncertain of why she's said that. She recovers with a, "I mean you guys ever think about how much your dieing to dance?!" 

 

The outburst brings to mind the Lacanian understanding of the unconcious: a nothing that becomes a something through slips of the tongue, dreams, nightmares and jokes ...these all point to the ways our symbolic and imaginary identities do not correspond one to one with our actualities. In other words the unconcious makes itself known through the difference between the map and the territory.

 

For Freud such outbursts point to an unconcious desire or uncognized traumatic past event that conciousness is not yet ready to fully confront and take ownership of. Barbie seeks to repress the intrusive thought of death. She covers over the slip with a, "You guys ever think about how much your dieing to dance?!" Which alows the party to resume. We engage in similar acts of repression anytime we shrug off intrusive thoughts that may cause us to challenge our given status quo when we utter thought terminating cliches like, "it is what it is," or, "boys will be boys," or, "just trust the plan." Such phrases stave off for the moment cognitive dissonance and allow for the continuation of the functioning of a given structure. However, for Freud, what we repress always returns through symptoms -- sometimes bodily symptoms as seen with Barbie after she tries the repress the intrusive thoughts but finds that her feet have inexplicably flattened. (It should be noted that Freud eventually came to believe that repression is necessary ... for example its necessary that the ceaselessly questioning child eventually is stopped by the thought terminating cliche, "Because I said so." Such a statement is a necessary tautology. For more on the necessity of Law as form see Todd McGowan's video.)

 

Barbie's friends tell her that she must go to Weird Barbie to be fixed. Just as the children of Israel had to return to the wilderness and to their prophets when things went wrong so too must Barbie venture to the outskirts of Barbieland. Weird Barbie, a kind of John the Baptist type figure is the only one who can help Barbie ...

 

to be continued...