The Bittersweet Uncertainty of Barbie (the Movie)
"The less I seek my source for some definitive, closer I am to fine."
Intersectional feminism and patriarchy have been hot topics of discourse in the wake of reactions to the various omissions and inclusions of the Barbie movie in the 96th Academy Award nominations. I’m not going to recap it all here because a lot of good stuff has already been written — check out this article by Alexandra Koster at Refinery 29 — and because, while feminism is undeniably an important theme of Barbie, I want to talk about what I perceive as an equally important theme that has been lost to the feminism discourse: choosing uncertainty over familiarity.
In the Barbie movie, the title character begins having unusual, unwanted thoughts (coming from a human she doesn’t know, but is connected to). The thoughts are abnormal, repulsive, and terrifying to everyone she knows. She seeks help from an outlier in her community because no one else has broad enough experiences or perspectives to give her any insight.
Barbie hopes she can make the thoughts go away so she can return to her status quo. With newly flat feet (they’re normally on tip-toe to perfectly fit stilettos), she mutters she’d never wear high heels if her feet had always been flat. Yet she instinctively chooses a high heel over a Birkenstock when given the option, reiterating that she wants the shoe that used to fit, even though it now causes her pain. Throughout the movie, she frequently expresses a desire for nothing to ever change. When another character tells her life IS change, she responds: “That’s terrifying. I don’t want that.”
Until she realizes she already has changed. The unwanted thoughts led her on a journey that made her different from what she once was, and she can’t go back. She’s seen a different, bigger world, and she no longer finds solace and belonging in the Barbie-centric narratives and rituals handed down to her.
“I want to be a part of the people that make meaning, not the thing that is made,” she says.
She rejects the safety and simplistic certainty of the people, customs, and world she’s always known, and welcomes doubt, curiosity, learning, and new connections and possibilities.
This is what resonated so deeply with me the first time I saw the movie. And it’s what chokes me up every time I hear What Was I Made For? and Closer to Fine from the movie soundtrack.
The feeling that there is something more than what’s been decreed by others about the world and what they’ve decided about and for you.
The embrace of uncertainty … even when it’s scary and uncomfortable and means the disruption everything you’ve ever known in pursuit of something more real and more true.
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In the Barbie movie, Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls is sung by several different characters, each on their own paths of self- and universe-discovery, conveying different emotional landscapes and reactions to the lyrics. I’ve known the song for most of my life. It came out when I was in middle school and was a staple background song in the soundtrack of my young adulthood.
But I didn’t get it.
How could I?
I was born into and raised in a sub-culture of certainty and superiority. I believed I was fortunate to be gifted the “right” answers to the biggest questions of the universe. I was taught how to share the “right” answers with those unfortunate enough to not know them, and the importance and urgency of doing so was impressed upon me every Sunday and Wednesday.
The pressure to not question these “right” answers — and especially not the authorities providing them — was immense. I was warned about the dangers of “moral relativism” and the evilness of a world that didn’t answer the biggest questions in the same way my sub-culture did.
The lyrics to Closer to Fine bothered me back then. I thought the message of the song was flat wrong. There's more than one answer to these questions / Pointing me in a crooked line. And the less I seek my source for some definitive / Closer I am to fine.
The lyrics scared me. What if there was more than one answer to these questions? If so, that meant I was wrong about having the one “right” answer. It meant my community was wrong. It meant I would either have to live in cognitive dissonance, knowing I was wrong but pretending like I wasn’t or accept I was wrong and embark on a different path of learning that would lead me away from everything I’d ever known.
I couldn’t name it then, but I intuitively understood at my core that questioning the “right” answers could lead to rejecting them … and rejecting those answers meant losing my community and a key aspect of my identity.
As the song goes, I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it. To the best of my ability, I lived my life in accordance with the “right” answers — the safe ones, I thought, and the ones that imbued my life with meaning and purpose — until those answers were no longer safe, no longer seemed “right”, and no longer fit my experiences or my circumstances. Most importantly, those “right” answers were preventing me from embracing my natural sense of empathy and desire to treat all human beings with dignity, respect, and love.
But, without the answers I’d always known, I was lost and drowning. I didn’t know who I was anymore and I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.
Until, until, until …
I allowed myself look for more than one answer to the questions.
Like Barbie, I’d already had some thoughts that were initially unwanted, but nevertheless led me on unexpected journeys. Some came from a handful of people in my physical world, but since most of my physical circles revolved around the “right” answers, the bulk of the thoughts came from voices on social media. There I encountered lived experiences and ideas I’d never known before; I heard firsthand from people finding joy, purpose, and community in things I’d been warned away from; and I glimpsed entirely different answers to the big questions of life.
I discovered I was not alone in the thoughts I was having, nor in my fear about where questioning the “right” answers might take me. I found people who encouraged me, made space for me, and provided resources along the way.
My fears were legitimate. Pulling on a handful of strings led to an unraveling of most of my life as a lot of hard things were revealed. A big one is captured in this refrain from What Was I Made For:
Think I forgot how to be happy
Something I'm not, but something I can be
Something I wait for
Something I'm made for
When I first started therapy in the midst of the unraveling, I couldn’t define “happy.” It had been stripped from me in soul-crushing messages about obligation, self-sacrifice, and separation from people outside my sub-culture being the only way to live a “good” life. But the unbidden thoughts told me happiness was a normal thing to want. Something I was allowed to want. And that I wasn’t selfish to question what in my situation was blocking joy.
Because of that experience, I became passionate about embracing the power of mindfully pouring into digital spaces. In our digital world, we’re constantly on the receiving end of thoughts that aren’t our own. While we may be tempted to dismiss them and stubbornly stick to our status quo, it’s impossible to not be changed, at least a little, merely by hearing them. A willingness to leave behind our certainty and navigate the world with curiosity and humility is necessary to finding ways forward together. We need more meaning-makers honoring unique experiences and perspectives and telling different stories about what it means to be human.
I have been changed (and continue to change) a lot. I now believe very different things about myself, others, and all the hopeful, life-affirming possibilities we can create and explore when we realize there’s more than one answer to these questions.
I’m glad the Barbie movie continues to generate dialogue around intersectional feminism and institutional biases in favor of men. For me, however, the bittersweet embrace of uncertainty is what resonates most. To everyone on a path of unlearning, relearning, and finding/building new-to-you communities and possibilities, I hope you have people in your life who recognize the courage it takes leave behind the things you’ve known to become a maker of your own meaning and reach for a happiness others say is impossible.
MISCELLANEA
“Younger generations of people are reading books, buying books, and visiting libraries. Not only are Gen Z and Millennials engaging with books, but they are also engaging with other forms of media. They are gamers, readers, writers, and fans who are comfortable with malleability between media categories and forms.” - Dr. Rachel Noorda, co-author of Gen Z and Millennials: How They Use Public Libraries and Identify Through Media Use, quoted here. From the report: “Print books are Gen Zers’ #1 preferred book format. Young people visit bookstores. Despite all the digital options, browsing library shelves continues to be relevant to their discovery of new books. Additionally, despite assumptions that young people may read less, both Gen Z and millennials are consuming books.” Read the full report. My take: I don't think it's surprising that a generation widely aware of rampant book-banning efforts due to their immediate access to current events via social media are readers, library users, and book buyers. Also, generations that have always been digitally connected, don't see digital media as an alternative to traditional media, it's simply another category of media. Click here to read more of my thoughts on the continued value of books in a digital age.
"Maybe this would have worked to stifle a story a few decades ago, but it doesn’t work to stifle a story now in the age of internet and social media,” Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition Executive Director Jeff Roberts told the Denver Post in a story about how the theft of hundreds of copies of the Ouray County Plaindealer, a free newspaper, reporting on sexual assault at the Ouray police chief’s house, was exposed through digital amplification. "News of the theft quickly spread on social media, earning hundreds of shares on X from journalists across the country,” the Denver Post reported. This is a current events example of Clay Shirky’s assertion that news is now “part of a communication ecosystem, occupied by a mix of formal organizations, informal collectives, and individuals.” Lots of people are playing the role of amplifiers (like I am here). Co-publisher Mike Wiggins' tweet about the theft has been reposted/quoted nearly 700 times with 206K views, whereas a quick scroll through his Twitter feed shows that most of his tweets have around 500 views. That amplification has brought this story to the attention of professional journalists around the globe, who in turn are reporting on it and further amplifying it.
A weird-flavored Oreo and two weird-flavored ice creams for your enjoyment (or horror) …