Barbie: A Psychological Review
It's not often we get a smash-hit existential movie: Barbie takes on some big theme and stole the show.
Barbie, staring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was a smash hit and y’know if it’s annoying people like Ben Shapiro then it’s doing something right.
Let’s take a look at it through the prism of Existentialism, Feminism and the Patriarchy, Individuation and the Hero's Journey, and Archetypes.
Existentialism
Barbie is a surprisingly existentialist film. It explores themes of meaning, purpose, and authenticity in a way that is both humorous and thought-provoking.
In the film, Barbie is initially a perfect and plastic doll living in her perfect and plastic Barbie world. However, she begins to question her place in this world thanks to having some intrusive thoughts of death and eventually she has to leave Barbie Land to find out what’s wrong.
On her journey, she also confronts her own mortality and comes to terms with the fact that there is no easy answer to the question of meaning in life.
Barbie, thanks to undertaking various trials and tribulations, finally learns to accept herself for who she is and to embrace the challenges that life has to offer.
She also learns, and teaches Ken, that meaning is not something that is given to us, but rather something that we create for ourselves.
Feminism and the Patriarchy
It’s very much a feminist film but one that doesn’t bang you over the head with preachy messages. The Barbies of Barbie Land are convinced that in the real world, because of them, women enjoy equal rights. Barbie is shocked when she learns that young women hate Barbie dolls in the real world and that is far from equal for women there.
The film also heavily criticizes the patriarchy, the system of male domination that exists in our society. We see how Ken becomes enthralled with how the real world works and that men hold positions of power, rather than in Barbie Land where Kens only exist to be the apple of a Barbie’s eye.
The film empowers both Barbie and Ken in the end. Ken realizes the errors of his ways and how he was tempted by the patriarchy because he felt mistreated in Barbie Land while Barbie comes to accept herself as she is.
Carl Jung's Individuation/Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey
Barbie can also be seen as a story about Carl Jung's individuation process and Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.
Individuation is the process of becoming a whole and integrated individual while the Hero’s Journey is a narrative pattern that is found in many different cultures. It is a story about a hero who leaves their ordinary world to embark on an extraordinary journey and return with new knowledge.
As Barbie explores the real world, she begins to develop her conscious mind, or actually as she embarks on her journey she begins to have self-conscious thoughts.
In the real world she has to learn to think for herself and to make her own decisions, indeed, she has to to avoid becoming not imprisoned in a plastic box.
In the end, Barbie becomes a whole and integrated individual. She experiences low self worth and at her lowest point just stops, lies down and waits for everything to get better. It’s the human characters who know what it’s like to live a flawed life who inspire her to get back on her feet and help the other Barbies.
The Hero’s Journey elements are pretty obvious. Barbie experiences something that makes her feel different to the community, she meets a wise and flawed guru, Weird Barbie, she doesn’t want to make the journey yet she does. She comes to a low point and after conquering it she returns to her community with new knowledge.
Archetypes
The Barbie Movie is rich in archetypes. Archetypes are universal symbols and patterns that are found in all cultures. They are thought to be inherited in the collective unconscious, which is a part of the unconscious mind that is shared by all humans. The movie really plays with the idea since there are so many Barbies and Kens who, while all sharing more-or-less the same personality, have different roles in their perfect plastic world.
Some of the archetypes that are present in the film include:
The Hero: Barbie represents the hero archetype. She is a brave and courageous character who embarks on a journey to save Barbie Land.
The Mother: The Mother archetype is represented by two characters: Weird Barbie and Gloria.
Weird Barbie has been through the ringer already and can advise Barbie on what to do and encourages her to take her journey.
Gloria, on the other hand, is a real mother and has the full experience of trying to be a perfect mother in an imperfect world. Indeed, it is her experience of this balancing act that helps her bring the other Barbies back around after they’ve been hoodwinked by the Kens.
The Trickster: The Trickster archetype is represented by the character of Ken.
Ken gets a taste of the real world’s patriarchy and he wants some of it, well, all of it, back in Barbie Land. His life is meaningless in the plastic world where his existence is based upon any attention Barbie gives to him.
After his experience in the real world he sets about disrupting the status quo. We also see a Hero’s Journey with Ken however as he does learn his lesson. He’s ‘kenough’.
Hi, I’m Paddy. Thanks for reading my article. I’m a counselor, coach and meditation teacher.
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