Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E51: Barbie is a Mixed Bag
Transcript
- 0:00Every single man in the film was portrayed negatively.
- 0:03It's like, oh, when a man gets awakened and enlightened, he's
- 0:06suddenly a power hungry jerk. And it's not true.
- 0:08We are made to be interdependent when it comes to men.
- 0:12We are not made to be their rivals but their partners.
- 0:15And the reality is no, no single person is enough for themselves
- 0:19on your own. No, none of us are enough.
- 0:22That is the hope though, that we are enough with God because God
- 0:25is with us. He is a Father who loves us and
- 0:28he has eternal peace and joy waiting for us.
- 0:36So recently I went and I saw Barbie, actually just saw it
- 0:40yesterday and a few of my friends and I went together.
- 0:43They wanted to see it mostly to be able to comment on it.
- 0:46In Full disclosure, this was a bit of a girl's night, but it
- 0:49was after the kids went down. But it was also.
- 0:51We all are involved in writing op eds or doing podcasting or
- 0:55doing different things in the space of media.
- 0:57And so let's go check out this movie that has raked in over a
- 1:01billion dollars at the box office.
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- 2:09All right, so my immediate takeaways, First of all, it was
- 2:13fun just going with friends. So that I think is one of the
- 2:15biggest reasons Barbie has been so successful is because it's
- 2:18drawing on what is a nostalgic experience for many, many
- 2:21people. And it's something you can do
- 2:23with your friends, with a group of people, no matter your age.
- 2:27I'm going to talk about that more later because I do think
- 2:29it's a major issue that's being marketed to kids.
- 2:31But the reality is groups of women and some men all over the
- 2:35country are flocking to go see this movie.
- 2:37And I understand the phenomenon because people love doing things
- 2:40together and having a reason to go do things together.
- 2:44It was hard to get through for me.
- 2:45There were parts that were really funny.
- 2:47There was some great visuals. The acting was really great.
- 2:50I mean, Margot Robbie is a fantastic actor.
- 2:53So there was definitely some really well done aspects of the
- 2:57film, but a lot of it was a lot of it was just hard to stomach
- 3:01because it was the through line. The one consistent thing in the
- 3:06movie was pretty blatant sexism, mis injury, sexism against men.
- 3:13So we're going to unpack that. I'm going to unpack what I
- 3:15thought about Barbie, what it means at this moment in culture,
- 3:19why it matters. First, we're going to start with
- 3:22the opening scene of the Barbie movie.
- 3:25You might have seen this if you haven't already.
- 3:27Here we go. Since the beginning of time,
- 3:33since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls.
- 3:43But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls.
- 3:48Until. OK, so right now they're
- 4:24throwing the baby dolls into the air and smashing their baby
- 4:26dolls. You're listening to this on
- 4:28podcast and then Margot Robbie shows up as the Barbie and all
- 4:31the little girls are looking at this woman in a swimsuit who's
- 4:34very curvaceous, and then they're throwing their baby
- 4:36dolls. All right.
- 4:37So first of all, it's a clever opening scene because it's
- 4:40reminiscent of 2001 space Odyssey.
- 4:42So kind of there's all these like little references
- 4:45throughout the film that are nostalgic for the film world,
- 4:48for the the the doll Barbie for the, you know, 20th century.
- 4:52But the opening trailer immediately sets the tone, which
- 4:55was pretty consistent in the movie, which is that throw away
- 4:59your bar, throw away your doll, throw away your little baby doll
- 5:03and embrace your empowered, independent, autonomous, sexy
- 5:09Barbie. And I did not play with Barbies
- 5:12growing up. It's not that my parents were
- 5:14like, it's evil or anything. It just wasn't something that
- 5:16they chose to buy for me. I had some friends who played
- 5:19with Barbies. I never found them particularly
- 5:21attractive. I mean, I remember putting the
- 5:23shoes on, enjoying that and like putting the dresses on and
- 5:25enjoying that. But I always thought they were
- 5:27weird. They were weird looking dolls,
- 5:29very skinny, angular dolls that had these like large breasts
- 5:33that I didn't really connect with as a little girl.
- 5:36And I think the reason for that is because it is not natural.
- 5:40It is not natural to give a little girl a very tall, skinny
- 5:44woman figure with breasts on it and say that this is going to
- 5:49teach her about femininity. I don't think it does.
- 5:52I think it can be fun to dress up dolls and things like that.
- 5:55But the reason historically little girls have been given
- 5:58baby dolls is because little girls love babies.
- 6:03Children love children Little kids love smaller kids than them
- 6:08and are fascinated by little babies.
- 6:11They're not fascinated by grown women adults and want to undress
- 6:14and dress them up again. They're fascinated by little
- 6:17dolls and little children that are newborns and a baby and a
- 6:20little toddler. I mean, my almost 4 year old
- 6:23loves are almost 2 year old and is so excited that we're having
- 6:26another baby about what's this little baby going to look like.
- 6:28Every little kid I've ever encountered has an interest, at
- 6:31least, you know, is excited about other little kids.
- 6:35That's normal. So the fact that dolls from
- 6:38before all time were like little smaller children, basically for
- 6:41the children to play with is normal.
- 6:43It's not the patriarchy. It's actually just human
- 6:46condition and a beautiful part of humanity and human nature.
- 6:50All right, So throughout Barbie, first of all, there was a lack
- 6:54of just kids or children. Babies were only placed in
- 6:58Barbie in a negative light when the babies were smashed at the
- 7:00beginning of the film. When pregnant, Barbie was looked
- 7:03at with disgust or, you know, told, oh, she's been
- 7:06discontinued. And then the only other children
- 7:08that you see in the film really is this snapshot of this mother
- 7:12daughter characters in the film and snapshots from that girl's
- 7:16childhood, which are really beautiful snapshots that show
- 7:19her growing up and getting disenchanted with her own
- 7:23family. So at the end of Barbie, there
- 7:25was a very redeeming scene, which was when and I think this
- 7:29scene also meant a lot to a lot of people who saw and made the
- 7:32film leave many people with a positive impression and make
- 7:37them feel very emotional, which is when Barbie is considering
- 7:40becoming a real person, you know, going to the real world to
- 7:43leave, leaving Barbie land. This is after the Barbies take
- 7:46back Barbie land and she's given this sort of vision of what it
- 7:50means to be in the real world. And that vision is really
- 7:54focused on mothers and their children.
- 7:56And there's all these mothers and their children that she
- 7:59sees. And then that's when she chooses
- 8:00to go back to the real world. And I do think that this had a
- 8:04lot of beauty to it because it was emphasizing the beauty, the
- 8:08value of mothers, intergeneral intergenerations, multiple
- 8:13generations, the value of children.
- 8:16I think when Barbie then chooses to enter the real world, there
- 8:19was kind of a contradiction in that.
- 8:21When she's entering the real world, there was nothing left
- 8:23about her wanting to be a mother or have a family.
- 8:26It was more like, I'm going to go to the gynecologist office
- 8:29again, not the OBGYN office, the gynecologist office.
- 8:33But I do think that was a beautiful moment in the film
- 8:36that gave a lot of people the impression that the film was
- 8:39celebrating that thing, which it was in that moment.
- 8:42So I wanted to call that out as a good thing.
- 8:44Another thing that I thought was good is at the end of the film
- 8:47as well, America Ferraro or the sort of lead mother of the
- 8:51daughter who is helping take back Barbie Land.
- 8:54And, and it's sort of like steering Barbie through the
- 8:56different transitions from real world to Barbie Land.
- 9:00She makes this comment about how it is you don't have to be a
- 9:04career woman basically, and maybe there can just be normal
- 9:07average Barbie that's a mom. And I think that was also really
- 9:12a beautiful moment that deserves praise because it was, I think
- 9:16leveling a kind of aggressive careerism, feminism, which has
- 9:20been a historical feminism, especially in the last century,
- 9:23that says that you, in order to be empowered as a woman, needs
- 9:26to go work like a man or just work in general.
- 9:29And that comment from Ferraro in the film was very much the
- 9:34opposite, that no, you don't have to be a career woman.
- 9:37In fact, you can be an everyday woman and be a mom, and that's
- 9:40totally fine too. Of course, the disadvantage
- 9:43there is it's sort of leveling like mom, career woman, whatever
- 9:46choice you make, it's fine. Yes, I think we have the power
- 9:49to choose, but I do think our society at large does denigrate
- 9:54motherhood or says that motherhood is just like any
- 9:56other career when I think motherhood is in a class of its
- 9:59own. You know, raising the next
- 10:00generation, bringing children to the world is not like becoming a
- 10:03lawyer. There's something uniquely
- 10:05valuable about being a mother or being a father.
- 10:08And if you're not able to be a mother or father yourself,
- 10:10supporting mothers and supporting fathers more than
- 10:13just supporting a big corporation or a business or
- 10:15whatever else your career calling, you know, your sense of
- 10:17calling might be. That being said, I thought it
- 10:20was beautiful and I thought that that also left people towards
- 10:23the end of the film with a positive impression of
- 10:25motherhood. So kudos to Barbie for that.
- 10:28And to the many young women who asked the question, am I enough?
- 10:32Am I enough who always are trying to live up to some
- 10:35standard that they are maybe imposing on themselves or maybe
- 10:39someone's imposed they feel is being imposed on them?
- 10:42I think the answer is, as God's daughter, you are enough by
- 10:47yourself on your own. No, none of us are enough.
- 10:52I mean that is a fact. We are not enough.
- 10:55We will die, we will make mistakes, we will fail ourselves
- 10:58and other people, but we were created for love, to love and be
- 11:03loved. And we need to receive love
- 11:05first from our Creator, God, our Father, in order to give love
- 11:09without knowing our identity as daughters of God, who God loves
- 11:14completely and unconditionally, and knowing that God has a plan
- 11:18of good for our lives to help us choose what is good and true and
- 11:22beautiful so that we can live what is good and true and
- 11:25beautiful. If we know that identity, we
- 11:28will find incredible freedom and I think peace.
- 11:31If we don't know that identity, we will always struggle, like
- 11:34failing. We are not enough because we
- 11:36won't be enough. That is the hope though, that we
- 11:39are enough with God, in God who is perfect everything we have
- 11:44everything and that the hardest struggles, the biggest
- 11:48challenges we can overcome with peace, even when things are
- 11:52really, really hard because God is with us.
- 11:55He has a Father who loves us and he has eternal peace and joy
- 11:59waiting for us. So my encouragement to Barbie
- 12:03fans or anti fans, wherever you fall, whichever can't be fallen,
- 12:06is the ultimate message of who are we?
- 12:09The ultimate message is, am I enough?
- 12:11We are children of God. He is our Father who loves us,
- 12:15loves us so much He sent his Son to die for us so that we could
- 12:18be reconciled with him despite our mistakes and our sin and our
- 12:22suffering and with him, yes, you have more than enough.
- 12:27You have everything. Another theme at the end of
- 12:30Barbie was the question of who am I?
- 12:32So Ken is wondering who am I apart from Barbie?
- 12:35Because Barbie's basically saying you don't need me.
- 12:37And like, go off and find yourself Ken.
- 12:39And that that question is like, who am I apart from Barbie?
- 12:42As sort of Ken's conundrum. I just don't know who I am
- 12:44without you. You're 10.
- 12:46But it's Barbie and Ken. There is no just Ken.
- 12:51And there's sort of this idea in the film where Ken's off sort of
- 12:54like in this like mist figuring out who he is.
- 12:57And I do think that there's incredible value to asking the
- 13:01question, who am I? Like, people should ask that
- 13:04question. And who you are isn't defined by
- 13:07your career or the clothes you wear.
- 13:10Those things can be aspects of how you live out who you are.
- 13:14But you know, the film didn't answer the question in terms of
- 13:18who are you? You're human being made in the
- 13:20image of God and you're created for love, to love and be loved.
- 13:23And, and often for many people, that love is discovered for all
- 13:26people. It's discovered in community.
- 13:29Some people that's discovered in a vocation to marriage or the
- 13:32vocation to a religious life or a vocation to serve the
- 13:34community in a in a unique single way.
- 13:37It didn't obviously answer that questions to that degree.
- 13:40But I do think there's value in encouraging people to ask the
- 13:43question at a very deep level. Who am I?
- 13:46And to think past, you know, culture saying, well, you're
- 13:49you're your job or you're your education or you're just the way
- 13:52that you look. So again, kudos to Barbie for
- 13:55unearthing that question. I do think it's a important
- 13:58question. Question wasn't answered.
- 14:00And I do think there's a danger in sort of endlessly going off
- 14:04into the mist and saying, who am I?
- 14:06And then, you know, finding out, well, I am this feeling of
- 14:09wanting to be, you know, this famous artist or I am this
- 14:12experience of wanting to, you know, make all of this success
- 14:16in this way. You know that separated from I
- 14:20believe our fundamental identity as human beings created by God
- 14:24in his image will lead to bad paths if we don't see our
- 14:29identity as God's children created for love to love and be
- 14:34loved. I do think The Who am I question
- 14:36answered in another way will lead to dark paths.
- 14:40That's a topic maybe for another episode, though.
- 14:43And you know, Barbie didn't full on answer that question or try
- 14:46to. It didn't seem to anyways, but I
- 14:49think it was positive that I even had the question in the
- 14:51film. So apart from the blatant sexism
- 14:55and, you know, some of the, you know, very, I think intense
- 15:00feminist ideology, those are some good themes.
- 15:04Now back to the moment when America Ferrara is talking
- 15:06about, you know, you can be a mom and you know what about
- 15:09average Barbie? And then Barbie has that vision
- 15:12of all of these women throughout history and that
- 15:14intergenerationalism. Again, a beautiful what was
- 15:18missing though, right? Men, like men were not included
- 15:22in that vision. Ken can go off and be himself
- 15:25and Barbie can kind of have children and exist with other
- 15:28Barbies without men. I mean, that was a part of the
- 15:31imagery there. And I think that that is not
- 15:33true. Obviously we we need men.
- 15:35Men need us, especially when it comes to future generations.
- 15:39There was a lot of animosity placed between Ryan Gosling, the
- 15:42Ken, and between Margot Robbie, the Barbie.
- 15:45And the whole film was about their dynamic and the animosity
- 15:48between them and about how Ken was basically useless to Barbie
- 15:51and he had to understand ultimately that she didn't need
- 15:54him and that he needed to go find himself and that they
- 15:57weren't, they didn't really belong together.
- 15:59And I thought that was really sad, a really sad take away for
- 16:02the film because it basically said that men and women don't
- 16:05need each other, that Barbie is better without Ken.
- 16:09And all the men in the film were shown to be these basically
- 16:11idiots who were either mean or power hungry or clueless, and
- 16:17they didn't really have much to offer the women in their lives.
- 16:20Barbie has a great day every day, but Ken only has a great
- 16:25day if Barbie looks at him. Hi, Barbie.
- 16:27Hi, Ken. This wasn't just the dynamic
- 16:31between Barbie and Ken. This was the dynamic between the
- 16:33other character of the mother and her daughter.
- 16:36They talked about do we need to tell dad that we're leaving town
- 16:38at one point? And they're like, no, he's fine.
- 16:40And they show him kind of babbling, almost like an idiot
- 16:44on a couch trying to learn Spanish.
- 16:46And he doesn't even know how to do that.
- 16:47He was clueless. And they basically just didn't
- 16:49need dad. He didn't know where they do
- 16:51what they were doing. They didn't need to tell him
- 16:53what he was doing. There was no need for there to
- 16:55be any communication between them.
- 16:57They could leave dad to basically rot in a sofa and it
- 16:59wouldn't matter. And they could go conquer the
- 17:01world together as women. That was the message.
- 17:04You know that. And then the only other men that
- 17:05you got to see were like bad characters in the patriarchy
- 17:08land. And then you got to see the bad
- 17:10board or the silly board of Mattel, which is the toy company
- 17:13that makes Barbie. So every single man in the film
- 17:17was portrayed negatively. Every single one, even the non
- 17:22Ken doll doll that was supposed to be a man that kind of ended
- 17:25up helping the Barbies take back Barbie land was shown to be kind
- 17:29of an idiot as well. There are no multiples of Alan,
- 17:33he's just Alan. Yeah, I'm confused about that.
- 17:36And I think that overall pervasive sexism in the film
- 17:41made it very hard to watch for me.
- 17:43There were some innuendos in the film that were pretty overt and
- 17:47pretty intense, and I thought that was also really sad because
- 17:52this is a film that's being marketed to children.
- 17:54I mean, Margot Robbie in part of the PR for the film shared.
- 18:00No, it is for kids. It's for everyone.
- 18:02And we layered it to make it for some themes for adults and some
- 18:05themes for kids. Is this a kids movie or is it
- 18:08not a kids movie? It's this is such like a thing
- 18:11people say when they do press for a movie.
- 18:13They're like, it's for everyone, but it was literally crafted to
- 18:16be for everyone. Comedy plays on so many
- 18:18different. The whole movie plays on so many
- 18:20different levels. And there's comedy in there that
- 18:22I think, you know, they're gonna go over to the kids heads and
- 18:25adults are gonna, you know, laugh a lot.
- 18:28And there's things that there really is something for
- 18:30everyone. And so they put in raunchy
- 18:32themes and jokes, like the joke about beach as an example, which
- 18:35has these sexual connotations, and they put that in there, but
- 18:38they're like, oh, it's not a big deal because little kids won't
- 18:40understand what they're talking about.
- 18:41I don't buy that. I don't like this idea that you
- 18:44can layer in sex jokes into a film, but make them ambiguous
- 18:47and so little kids can watch it. It's not a big deal.
- 18:49Little kids are smarter than you think, and they're growing up in
- 18:52this culture of whatever innuendos you're stuffing in
- 18:54your films. So don't make a film that you
- 18:57want kids to see that have sexual innuendos in it.
- 19:00Just don't do it. I would be annoyed and I should
- 19:03be, and any parent should be. If like some cartoon maker is
- 19:06making a cartoon that has sexual innuendos in it and you would
- 19:09say this is disgusting your grooming kids, why is it OK then
- 19:12to make a live action film that you're saying is for adults and
- 19:14kids that has sexual innuendos in it?
- 19:16It's not OK. So that I took serious issue
- 19:18with. And I think it's just because we
- 19:19don't take, we don't take sexual innuendos, pornography, sexual
- 19:26objectification seriously enough.
- 19:27As a culture, we just don't we think it's a joke.
- 19:30We think it's OK and it's not being approved to say no, don't
- 19:33sexualize kids. Like that's not prudishness,
- 19:36that's protectiveness. It's a protectiveness that kids
- 19:39deserve. So that is a big issue that I
- 19:41had with the film. All right, one last major take
- 19:44away to share. I want to mention the
- 19:46patriarchy. So there are a lot of themes
- 19:49about the patriarchy and how Barbie was going against the
- 19:52patriarchy, what it was implying.
- 19:55And it showed, like past founding fathers who were all
- 19:58supposedly patriarchs and part of the patriarchy and how the
- 20:01world is a man's world. And Barbie was somehow trying to
- 20:05disrupt that. Listen.
- 20:08Historically, when men have been rulers, especially in this
- 20:11country, when men have been rulers in government, etcetera,
- 20:15yes, there has been a very male centric political system.
- 20:20That is a fact. It's a historical fact.
- 20:23But that's not because women were seen as less than, it's
- 20:27because property holders were primarily the ones that were
- 20:31given the vote. And it's that many women shared
- 20:35property in common with their husbands and there was one vote
- 20:38for the household. In addition, the reason that men
- 20:41held office in many of these cases is they were seen as
- 20:44political leaders because they were often military or business
- 20:47leaders. So it wasn't that women are not
- 20:51good or valuable or women don't have a equal dignity to men.
- 20:57It was a more sense of we are family units and you know,
- 21:01Abigail Adams is a unit with John Adams as opposed to Abigail
- 21:06Adams is a separate political and economic unit from John
- 21:10Adams. Now, I'm not saying that it's
- 21:11bad that people who are in the same economic unit like a
- 21:15household have two votes. I'm not saying that that's bad.
- 21:18But I'm saying that it's much more nuanced, the story of the
- 21:21patriarchy as they call it in America then this movie paints
- 21:25it to be. And that's no surprise because I
- 21:27think the popular trope of I'm a victim as a woman today needs to
- 21:33pretend that there is this, this secret society that has existed
- 21:38before the dawn of time by men, not so secret even, but
- 21:41sometimes secret in order to basically control and harm
- 21:44women. And that's just not the case.
- 21:47That's not to say that some men don't control and harm women.
- 21:50That is a fact. They do.
- 21:51Some women control and try to harm men.
- 21:53There will always be bad apples, but there's nothing in the male
- 21:57nature that wants to control and harm women.
- 22:00I think there's a brokenness that men can have that can lead
- 22:03them to controlling and harming women, but women have the same
- 22:07brokenness. The way the control and the harm
- 22:09looks different. I mean that is true.
- 22:12Men are stronger than women so they can be more physically
- 22:14harmful to women. Like that is true.
- 22:16But I don't think women by nature are more innocent than
- 22:20men and don't do as many bad things as men by nature because
- 22:24we're just better people by nature.
- 22:26I think we're both human beings, men and women.
- 22:29We share human nature. We have unique differences as
- 22:33men and women, but one is not better than the other.
- 22:37And unfortunately the message of Barbie loud and clear.
- 22:41Besides, you need to go find yourself by being completely
- 22:44independent from everyone else, especially men, was that men are
- 22:48bad too. And I think that's just a really
- 22:51sad and untrue message. So you could say, well, come on,
- 22:55you're taking this too seriously.
- 22:56This is just a fun Barbie movie, and they're so full of random
- 22:59stuff and like, why are you reading into it so much?
- 23:02I think it's reading into it because in Hollywood and a lot
- 23:05of media today, there is a lot of messaging that says that as a
- 23:10woman, you don't need children or men.
- 23:12As human beings, we are made to be interdependent.
- 23:17When it comes to men, we are not made to be their rivals, but
- 23:20they're partners. And men and women, I think
- 23:24together from a spiritual perspective, make the image of
- 23:27God so beautifully. And that's why they can also
- 23:30bring life into the world and they need each other for that.
- 23:34And that's a beautiful thing. So back to the competitiveness
- 23:40that we are in competition together and men bring us down.
- 23:44I think that has done so much damage to a generation of women.
- 23:49Can I blame feminism for that? Probably.
- 23:51I mean, a lot of feminist people who consider themselves
- 23:53feminists have this talking point.
- 23:56But ultimately it's one that is not going to bring joy to people
- 24:01because we are made for communion.
- 24:04We're made for relationship. We're made to be loved.
- 24:07We are not made to go it alone, and that's why the plan, I think
- 24:11God's designed for marriage, where man and woman marry each
- 24:13other. They share each other most
- 24:16intimately. They're committed to each other
- 24:17for life. They give each other their
- 24:18bodies. They can bring life into the
- 24:19world, and they have children now.
- 24:20That child has a intact family with a mother and a father.
- 24:23That design is so beautiful. That's the design that we should
- 24:27be upholding and celebrating and exploring in media and art and
- 24:31movies as opposed to glamorizing radical autonomy and the
- 24:37rejection, the rivalry with men. Another example with this in pop
- 24:42culture is the recent super hit song by Miley Cyrus called I Can
- 24:47Buy Myself Flowers. And a very clever account on
- 24:50YouTube did a mash up between Miley singing I Can buy myself
- 24:54Flowers with Bruno Mars singing the popular pop star singing I
- 25:01Wish I had bought you flowers. I think it's the line.
- 25:05Let's take a listen. All right, so on the one hand,
- 25:28Bruno Mars is saying I wish I bought you.
- 25:30I should have bought you flowers.
- 25:31And she is my only singing. I I can buy myself flowers.
- 25:35I should have held your hand. And she's saying basically, I
- 25:38don't need a man. And it's just back and forth
- 25:40between them. This is a mash up, obviously,
- 25:43but the point is, OK, he failed me.
- 25:46And Bruno is sort of admitting in the song, oh, I should have
- 25:49done all these things. I should have valued you more.
- 25:52He's taking responsibility for that.
- 25:54And Miley's sort of, you know, response song in the mash up is
- 25:57I don't need you anymore, right? And I think this is another
- 26:01aspect of the rivalry is that we do fail each other.
- 26:05Men feel women and women fail men.
- 26:07That is a fact. I guarantee you I'm married.
- 26:10I make mistakes in my marriage. That is a fact.
- 26:12I am not perfect. No human being is perfect.
- 26:15OK, What do we do with the inevitable failures?
- 26:18What do we do with the inevitable failures between men
- 26:20and women? Do we seek to heal the rift?
- 26:24Or do we double down on the failure and say we don't belong
- 26:28together anymore? And again, people say, well, you
- 26:31know, some marriages need to be separated because of abuse.
- 26:33I mean, like, I already can, like, hear the comments coming.
- 26:36And this is not about that. Like, that's not what I'm even
- 26:39talking about here. Obviously, if there's some
- 26:40severe abuse in a marriage, then their separation can be the most
- 26:45loving thing for both parties, especially the people being
- 26:48abused. But the point here is there is
- 26:51no perfect man. There is no perfect woman.
- 26:53We're going to fail each other. We're going to misunderstand
- 26:55each other. The only way forward is for us
- 26:59to try to understand and love one another.
- 27:04It's not the message of Miley Cyrus.
- 27:06She's celebrating her hurt and her radical autonomy.
- 27:10They say that the song was written actually to her
- 27:12ex-husband, which is really sad. They apparently had an on and
- 27:16off relationship for years and sincerely loved each other.
- 27:19But you know, Miley's complicated and they separated.
- 27:22And, you know, it's about basically, I don't need you
- 27:24anymore. And, and, and it's not just I
- 27:26don't need you, it's I don't need you.
- 27:28And I'm enough for me. And the reality is, no, no
- 27:32single person is enough for themselves.
- 27:34We are made to be interdependent.
- 27:36We are made to be in community. Some of us might not marry, but
- 27:39we're made to have deep and, and, and responsible
- 27:43relationships, meaning we actually have a responsibility
- 27:46to a community that we're helping to care for and love.
- 27:48They help and care for us. That might be our immediate
- 27:50family, might be adopted family, but we are made for community
- 27:54with each other. We're not made to go it alone.
- 27:57But that's not the message of most pop culture today.
- 27:59One more note on the rivalry thing.
- 28:02In Barbie, Ken was depicted as going to the real world, meaning
- 28:07basically America today, and being so excited by how men were
- 28:11in charge and everything was about men.
- 28:13First of all, that's not the way the world is today.
- 28:15By a lot of standards, Women are faring better with mental
- 28:18health, economically in their longevity, how long they live.
- 28:22Women fare better. They more women graduate college
- 28:25today. So that's just not a that's not
- 28:26a fact. But in addition, it had the
- 28:29scene where Ken goes to the real world and he wants to all of a
- 28:33sudden be in power. Like he wants to be be more
- 28:37important and more powerful than anybody, especially Barbie.
- 28:41And I think that's really sad because it's like, oh, when a
- 28:44man gets awakened and enlightened, he's suddenly a
- 28:47power hungry jerk. And that's not true.
- 28:50I think when a man gets enlightened and awakened and
- 28:53really understands who he is and has in his masculinity, he
- 28:56realizes the power he has to do good and to love and to serve
- 29:01other people. And that brings out his manhood,
- 29:04his power to provide, his power to protect.
- 29:07These are things that can be uniquely masculine, especially
- 29:11in a marriage, in a, in a, in a family, to bring good.
- 29:14So what's the lasting impact of Barbie?
- 29:17Is there lasting impact? What does this mean for the
- 29:19future? Any final thoughts here?
- 29:22I think Barbie as a doll and what it did for a generation of
- 29:26girls and as a movie, it will have impact.
- 29:29Of course it does. It's made over a billion dollars
- 29:32and well, it can be fun to watch and nostalgic.
- 29:35And I totally get that. And I'm not saying it wasn't fun
- 29:37and taking that fun away from people because it was there is
- 29:39fun to that. Going to the movies is fun with
- 29:41your friends, period, and watching something that looks
- 29:44really, you know, pretty and glitzy and it brings nostalgia
- 29:47back to you and has all of these like fun references and a lot of
- 29:50good jokes. There were some good jokes in
- 29:52there. I totally understand why people
- 29:54loved it. I totally do.
- 29:57But when the take away message is I don't need you, I can do it
- 30:02on my own. And the take away message is men
- 30:06are basically useless. It's a very sad take away
- 30:10message. OK, what do we do?
- 30:13I know there's some people like, oh, you know, there's all these
- 30:15crazy movies out there and all of this woke content and, you
- 30:19know, this proportion stuff, the culture is so rough.
- 30:22Listen, we just have to invest in the things we care about.
- 30:27If you want to see good media out there, help invest in it.
- 30:31You don't have to be the creator yourself.
- 30:32You can invest in the creator. My company, GTB is producing
- 30:36this podcast. We're a low budget operation
- 30:38right now, but we're starting to, we're starting up.
- 30:40I would love your investment. I would love you to become a
- 30:42patron. We have feature length films you
- 30:44want to produce in the future. We have other podcasts.
- 30:46We have a dating podcast we want to produce.
- 30:48We have a lot of cool stuff that we're planning on in the future.
- 30:50We need partners. Put your resources behind the
- 30:53things that you might believe in or you want to see out there in
- 30:56the world. That's how we change culture,
- 30:59OK? It's not like, oh, we need to go
- 31:01and just sit and suffer. Oh, poor us.
- 31:05Look at Barbie, like no, choose to create the things you want to
- 31:11see in the world or help other people create them.
- 31:14I'm really hopeful. There's been a lot of amazing
- 31:16stuff. Sound of Freedom did so well in
- 31:18theaters. We interviewed Eduardo
- 31:20Verastigi, the lead producer on the podcast last month and he
- 31:23was fantastic. And I know those guys and
- 31:24they're making more stuff. And I see, you know, people out
- 31:27there doing great content online, making a difference.
- 31:31You know, there are good kids shows, Bluey as an example.
- 31:33It has a lot of good values. There's nothing bad in there
- 31:35that I've seen so far. There's good stuff that is
- 31:38happening. Go out and help be a part of it
- 31:41because that's how we're going to change culture.
- 31:43That is the only way forward is for us.
- 31:47Just like the message that I had earlier, the message for Barbie,
- 31:51you're not a victim. Take responsibility for your
- 31:52life. Your life is about service of
- 31:54others. That is the message for us too.
- 31:56When it comes to the complaints about culture, we are not
- 32:00victims. We got this.
- 32:02Do our parts we can make a difference.