It is the time of year again when pink hearts and all things sweet are shared between men and women everywhere, but in Barbieland, it seems Valentine’s Day is a holiday stripped right off the calendar. I remember watching Barbie summer of 2023, yet something about it felt off as the film played on. At its heart, the movie is undeniably about the two genders and their struggles. It rightly notices that not all is well when it comes to how women and men get along in modern society, but its prescription leaves something lacking. During the ending sequence where a montage of clips of real women celebrate the female sex’s strength and beauty, I was undeniably touched. However, as it went on, I couldn’t help but think “I’d like to see just one man! Just show me one…”
🪞 Ken’s Crisis: Searching for the Self in Barbie’s Shadow
In a world run and ruled by women (Barbies) and where men (Kens) act as their adoring footstools, what the film ultimately advocates for is not a harmonizing cohabitation between the two sexes, but rather, an atomization of them. Ken’s main struggle throughout the story is that he feels undervalued by Barbie because, being a Ken doll, his main reason for existing is to literally be her boyfriend. When he is then continually ignored by her, he naturally faces an existential crisis. This interpersonal conflict reaches an apex when the two dolls finally have a heart-to-heart in the climax:
KEN: I don’t know who I am without you!
BARBIE: You’re Ken.
KEN: But it’s Barbie AND Ken. There is no just Ken. That’s why I was created - I only exist within the warmth of your gaze. Without you I’m just some blonde guy who can’t do flips. . .
BARBIE: Maybe it’s time for you to discover who Ken is. . .
BARBIE: Ken, you have to figure out who you are without me. You’re not your girlfriend, you’re not your house, you’re not your mink.
KEN: Beach?
BARBIE: No, not even beach. Maybe all the things you thought made you you aren’t... really you. Maybe it’s Barbie AND... it’s Ken.
🧠 “Kenough” or Not Enough? Why Autonomy Can’t Be the End Goal
Despite his petulance, Ken’s anguish up to this point is justifiable. Even though Ken states that he was created to be in relationship with her, to “exist in the warmth of your gaze” (almost as a sacrilegious poke at the creation of Eve), the resolution proposed here by Barbie is that instead of trying to see himself through his relation to her, Ken can only fully self-actualize once he begins to view himself as someone autonomous from her. Not “Barbie AND Ken”, but rather “it’s Barbie… AND it’s Ken.”
To a degree, Barbie is right. We are all more than our jobs, our clothes, and, yes, our earthly relationships. And although the sentiment of being “Kenough” on one’s own makes for a snazzy-looking tee-shirt, it lacks one fundamental truth which underlies human nature, especially when it comes to the sexes: we are literally designed for relationship. The problem all the Kens (and Barbies) grasp with is not that they were not given a proper chance to fully self-actualize in their dystopian society, but rather that they are never given a chance to fully realize their telos, which is to be in harmonious relationship with one another.
The film notices this absence and feels it on an emotional level but falls just short of a true and lasting solution. Barbie’s own existential crisis surrounding death and the nature of her being are the factors that drive her to try to understand the real purpose of her existence, and this conflict surrounding her teleology is poignantly encapsulated in Billie Eilish’s song for the film, “What was I Made For?”.
I used to float, now I just fall down
Iused to know but I'm not sure now
What I was made for
Think I forgot how to be happy
What was I made for?. . .
Something I'm not, but something I can be
Something I wait for
Something I'm made for
Something I'm made for
👩❤️👨 Made for Communion: The Theological Blueprint of Male and Female
The song hits like a gut punch in its heartbreak and sadness. Behind the lyrics is a real and justified longing for wholeness, truth, and happiness. But more importantly, it discloses the central problem the film attempts to grapple with. Barbie realizes that not everything about her world up until recently is actually real, including herself. In an odd twist, the search for her “realness” finalizes when she goes to visit a gynecologist at the end of the film, implying that she has fully developed a real female body… The irony is that it is a body made for union which brings forth new life. And that doesn’t just apply to her. That is what both a man’s and a woman’s body are made for–union! And true happiness only comes with the fulfillment of our nature, to paraphrase Aristotle.
In her book The Genesis of Gender: a Christian Theory, Georgefox University professor Abigail Favale speaks to how the differences between the male and female body lend themselves to a deeper truth about ourselves:
“Sexual difference is a particular kind of difference because it is a difference of the other. . . We are talking about a body that is designed to fit another kind of body, in an entirely unique way. Maleness points to femaleness, and vice versa. Our sexed body signals our inherent capacity and need for interpersonal communion,” (41).
⛪ Barbie, Ken, and the Body of Christ
The nature of our bodies, our nature as men and as women, cannot be understood independently of one another, as Favale points out. Men and women act as mirrors to each other, showing the other how they were made for relationship and communion through their differences. And it is this telos that points us to ultimate communion with our Creator. This is why each person, whether they are called to the married life or celibacy, has a spousal vocation. On a larger scale, we are called to live together in the Church, composing the whole Body of Christ. Just as Ken was created and designed to be in a relationship with Barbie, so too are we designed to be in a relationship with God, to “exist within the warmth of [His] gaze,” so to speak. We are called to marriage.
In a hyper-individualized society that equates total autonomy with freedom and strength, the idea of interdependence and relationship being inherently tied to our nature is a difficult one to grasp. But the fact that contemporary audiences today can relate to the unique situations of both Barbie and Ken signifies a wider wound present in culture. When we lose sight of what we were truly made for, how can we be happy? After all, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” It is no wonder there is a widespread meaning crisis plaguing the modern world. Barbie points out this wider issue, but when it attempts to prescribe a solution in the form of autonomous self-actualization, the narrative loses its healing potential.
While Barbie’s femaleness speaks to her nature as a relational being, the rest of the Barbies who inhabit Barbieland do not necessarily need the Kens. They could all disappear and everything would remain the same. And the Kens themselves are not altogether painted in a very charitable light. Ryan Gosling’s character is especially played up to be childish and ignorant. His relationship with Barbie is not one of equality but something more akin to an annoying man with a school-boy crush.
It’s worth noting that Barbie and Ken’s story isn’t anything new, though. Adam and Eve were not the only ones affected by the Fall. But while the modern world today is certainly no Eden, there have been glimpses of God’s original plan for us visible throughout history. And there doesn’t have to be a Barbieland or a Kenland for us to see it.
Throughout my life, before I came to even realize why, some of the stories that have stuck with me the most were the ones in which a man and a woman ended up having to work together in order to heal their world in some way. The Ghibli film Princess Mononoke comes to mind specifically. In a fantastical world divided between humans and nature, it is only through the combined efforts of Ashitaka, a tribal prince, and San, a human girl raised by a wolf, that save their world from destruction. Ghibli films as a whole tend to follow this trend of a young heroine and her male counterpart working together in unison to resolve an issue, and in doing so, they each become stronger and more mature. Not only that, it is their union that ends up healing and restoring not only themselves but their wider environment.
These saving unions or “marriages” between a male and female character signify to audiences the wider healing nature of the sacrament of marriage (a narrative that is oftentimes neglected in the modern landscape). This is the purpose of the sacrament–a relationship that not only points us to but prepares us for the ultimate marriage: the wedding feast in Heaven. Not only that, but a true godly marriage is never something that is confined just to itself. Just as how a narrative “marriage” between a male and female protagonist helps heal their fictional wounded world, the fruits of matrimony in the real world stem out to the couple’s community, transforming it in the process (commonly through the raising of Christian children. The idea of Barbie and Ken having children would truly be astounding). It’s an incredibly powerful endeavor that actively combats the fallen nature of our relationship with the opposite sex that began in Eden. And that’s exactly why these kinds of stories stick with us throughout time.
✝️ The Creator, the End Goal, and the Name Above All Names
Now just imagine this for a moment: Barbie and Ken, realizing that their world is not as it should be, see the value in each other for their unique differences and through their relationship, begin working to ensure that both the Barbies and Kens in Barbieland live in unity instead of biased divisions. In a world where it’s commonplace to see men and women at war with each other, what kind of effect would a story like that have on us?
Hollywood could never.
. . .
As the humans prepare to return to the real world from Barbieland, Ruth Handler (dubbed not-so-subtly as “The Creator”) tells Barbie that she created the doll to never have an ending for herself, implying that Barbie has no ultimate end goal. No superseding purpose. In this way, she can be or want anything. It’s a very existentialist take meant to distort the story of Genesis where God specifically makes man and woman to be in relationship with Him and to have dominion over all the earth. However, this meaninglessness does not have to be the case with us. In fact, it’s not! This is why, on the inside, I wished to see at least one man in the final montage. It is only through the opposite sex that we can better understand ourselves. We know that because of our bodies, because of our deeply embedded need for communion with each other, because of our deep desire for love, we do have an end goal, and He has a name.