What a wonderful article to break your short but felt silence on Substack. You put eloquently to words so many of the raw feelings I experienced when I saw this film and sensed there was more to it than critics were catching. I hope many people read this. I will certainly be passing it along. Cheers!
This is a fascinating analysis, Cormac. I am going to see the film tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have more questions then. For now, I just want to ask - leaving aside the questions of marriage and singleness - where your humanist interpretation is compatible with Crawford's existentialist reading, and where the humanist reading requires us to offer alternative explanations for the scenes and dialogues where she has located existentialist tropes.
Also, would you say that the existentialism Crawford identifies is part of the dialectic the film sets up only to dismantle rather than something that serves at the level of a structuring motif?
Eh, it’s a matter of discernment of good and evil. Where Annie sees only evil, I see elements of our original design that deserve to be rescued from its surrounding evil. In the places where I’m attending to the evil, so as to separate it from the good, there’s a lot of overlap between what I say and what Annie says. Where Annie sees nothing redeemable other than the “fun” aesthetic, there’s a lot of contradiction with my perspective.
With Annie’s take on existentialism, it’s the same thing. She brandishes the label as if it’s solely negative. But it’s a worldly philosophy, which means it’s a good-and-evil reaction to good-and-evil ideas. Since it reacts against something in part evil, it can in part, with discernment, be put to positive use. Therefore saying something’s bad because it’s existential doesn’t make any sense to me — not unless one can at the same time say it’s good because it’s existential.
The disagreement probably boils down to this: In the desire to be as gods, Annie sees only sinful temptation, but in dong so, leaves no room for the Christian doctrine of theosis. This is where the pro-marriage sort can fall into a default humanism, when it rejects deification. God Himself desires that we be gods, that we be creators of meaning in synergy with Him (even as mothers and fathers create human beings in synergy with Him). A corrupt rendition of Christian faith that forgets this becomes itself responsible for the existentialist reaction that inevitably follows. In such an instance, it is most urgent for Christians to self-correct, even (with discernment) using the negative reactions against themselves positively to do so, rather than point a finger at the world and call it evil.
I think your response to my question confuses two issues, partly because I failed to make clear what I was asking.
There is the issue of (a) whether Annie is correct in seeing existentialism as a structural motif throughout the film, and then the question of (b) whether existentialism is wholly bad or, as you put it, "one can at the same time say it’s good because it’s existential."
When I asked where your humanist interpretation requires us to offer alternative explanations for the scenes and dialogues where Annie has located existentialist tropes. I was asking about the first of these, and you have addressed the second. I apologize for not achieving better precision in how I framed my original question.
There is a larger point to be made here about film criticism, namely that purely descriptive questions like "what is this film about?" are necessarily prior to the evaluative questions. It's easy to jump to the latter without first hammering out the former.
In regard to “what is the film about?” and the differences in reading the text of the film on this level, I would point to the opening scene, the 2001 parody. I see in it a statement of anti-theme that Barbie will have to overcome, recognizing the value of motherhood typology. Annie only speaks of the scene polemically, taking the scene to be more a statement of theme.
Again, I think I'm not adequately explaining my question. My question is much more granular than simply asking, in a general sense, whether there are differences in how you and Annie read the film on the broad “what is the film about” level. Rather, my question is much more specific: I am asking whether your humanist interpretation is compatible with Crawford's existentialist reading at the descriptive level, or whether the humanist reading requires us to offer alternative explanations for the scenes and dialogues where she has located existentialist tropes. Yes, this is at the "what the film is about level," and is thus distinguishable (though not wholly separable) from questions about the evaluative claims we might make (i.e., whether existentialism is "bad"); but it is more granular. Now to be clear, I do think you may be misunderstanding Annie at the evaluative level (indeed, she does not see only evil, and offered an alternative ending that could make sense of the dialectic the film sets up, and in that sense her approach is very similar to yours despite the differences), but I realize it could be confusing to ask you about that without first hammering at these questions that are on the more qualitative/descriptive level. Does that make sense? The reason this has come up for me is because people in my hiking group are discussing this, and we are going on a field trip to watch Barbie later this afternoon. It's also of interest to me because earlier this year I released a book with Ancient Faith which deals with the theology of the body and this has left me intrigued with the way the givenness of the body is problematized within much of the operational existentialism of contemporary media.
Yeah, the distinctions you’re drawing don’t make a lot of sense to me in context. I’ve tried answering as best I could, but I haven’t felt good doing it. I describe a humanistic self-worship and point to Nietzsche; she describes an existentialist self-creation and quotes Sartre. As I said, we have a lot of overlap. You’re asking if there's a difference on a granular level? I confess I don’t see what you’re getting at. Forgive me.
Good to hear from you again here- this was profound on multiple levels. For what it’s worth, I like the poem- it’s interesting and somewhat humbling to hear what you were thinking and feeling at my age. Blessings
I share your relationship with the movie theater so I can't say I'll ever see Barbie, but I sure am grateful to the latest post-ironic merchandise movie for catalyzing this. Redeem the time.
What a wonderful article to break your short but felt silence on Substack. You put eloquently to words so many of the raw feelings I experienced when I saw this film and sensed there was more to it than critics were catching. I hope many people read this. I will certainly be passing it along. Cheers!
Thank you, that means a lot to hear.
Phenomenal, Cormac. You have definitely expanded my perception of the movie.
I was expecting an Oppenheimer as thymos, Barbie as epythemia take at some point, so this was definitely a surprise. A very interesting one though.
Yeah, I had other fish to fry here, but there's definitely something to write about there.
This is a fascinating analysis, Cormac. I am going to see the film tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have more questions then. For now, I just want to ask - leaving aside the questions of marriage and singleness - where your humanist interpretation is compatible with Crawford's existentialist reading, and where the humanist reading requires us to offer alternative explanations for the scenes and dialogues where she has located existentialist tropes.
Also, would you say that the existentialism Crawford identifies is part of the dialectic the film sets up only to dismantle rather than something that serves at the level of a structuring motif?
Eh, it’s a matter of discernment of good and evil. Where Annie sees only evil, I see elements of our original design that deserve to be rescued from its surrounding evil. In the places where I’m attending to the evil, so as to separate it from the good, there’s a lot of overlap between what I say and what Annie says. Where Annie sees nothing redeemable other than the “fun” aesthetic, there’s a lot of contradiction with my perspective.
With Annie’s take on existentialism, it’s the same thing. She brandishes the label as if it’s solely negative. But it’s a worldly philosophy, which means it’s a good-and-evil reaction to good-and-evil ideas. Since it reacts against something in part evil, it can in part, with discernment, be put to positive use. Therefore saying something’s bad because it’s existential doesn’t make any sense to me — not unless one can at the same time say it’s good because it’s existential.
The disagreement probably boils down to this: In the desire to be as gods, Annie sees only sinful temptation, but in dong so, leaves no room for the Christian doctrine of theosis. This is where the pro-marriage sort can fall into a default humanism, when it rejects deification. God Himself desires that we be gods, that we be creators of meaning in synergy with Him (even as mothers and fathers create human beings in synergy with Him). A corrupt rendition of Christian faith that forgets this becomes itself responsible for the existentialist reaction that inevitably follows. In such an instance, it is most urgent for Christians to self-correct, even (with discernment) using the negative reactions against themselves positively to do so, rather than point a finger at the world and call it evil.
I think your response to my question confuses two issues, partly because I failed to make clear what I was asking.
There is the issue of (a) whether Annie is correct in seeing existentialism as a structural motif throughout the film, and then the question of (b) whether existentialism is wholly bad or, as you put it, "one can at the same time say it’s good because it’s existential."
When I asked where your humanist interpretation requires us to offer alternative explanations for the scenes and dialogues where Annie has located existentialist tropes. I was asking about the first of these, and you have addressed the second. I apologize for not achieving better precision in how I framed my original question.
There is a larger point to be made here about film criticism, namely that purely descriptive questions like "what is this film about?" are necessarily prior to the evaluative questions. It's easy to jump to the latter without first hammering out the former.
In regard to “what is the film about?” and the differences in reading the text of the film on this level, I would point to the opening scene, the 2001 parody. I see in it a statement of anti-theme that Barbie will have to overcome, recognizing the value of motherhood typology. Annie only speaks of the scene polemically, taking the scene to be more a statement of theme.
Again, I think I'm not adequately explaining my question. My question is much more granular than simply asking, in a general sense, whether there are differences in how you and Annie read the film on the broad “what is the film about” level. Rather, my question is much more specific: I am asking whether your humanist interpretation is compatible with Crawford's existentialist reading at the descriptive level, or whether the humanist reading requires us to offer alternative explanations for the scenes and dialogues where she has located existentialist tropes. Yes, this is at the "what the film is about level," and is thus distinguishable (though not wholly separable) from questions about the evaluative claims we might make (i.e., whether existentialism is "bad"); but it is more granular. Now to be clear, I do think you may be misunderstanding Annie at the evaluative level (indeed, she does not see only evil, and offered an alternative ending that could make sense of the dialectic the film sets up, and in that sense her approach is very similar to yours despite the differences), but I realize it could be confusing to ask you about that without first hammering at these questions that are on the more qualitative/descriptive level. Does that make sense? The reason this has come up for me is because people in my hiking group are discussing this, and we are going on a field trip to watch Barbie later this afternoon. It's also of interest to me because earlier this year I released a book with Ancient Faith which deals with the theology of the body and this has left me intrigued with the way the givenness of the body is problematized within much of the operational existentialism of contemporary media.
Yeah, the distinctions you’re drawing don’t make a lot of sense to me in context. I’ve tried answering as best I could, but I haven’t felt good doing it. I describe a humanistic self-worship and point to Nietzsche; she describes an existentialist self-creation and quotes Sartre. As I said, we have a lot of overlap. You’re asking if there's a difference on a granular level? I confess I don’t see what you’re getting at. Forgive me.
Good to hear from you again here- this was profound on multiple levels. For what it’s worth, I like the poem- it’s interesting and somewhat humbling to hear what you were thinking and feeling at my age. Blessings
Thank you, Silouan!
Thank you.
I share your relationship with the movie theater so I can't say I'll ever see Barbie, but I sure am grateful to the latest post-ironic merchandise movie for catalyzing this. Redeem the time.
Yeah, seeing this in a theater is not aesthetically essential. There's just the communal aspect, which definitely lacks benefit for a lot of people.