As a self-proclaimed Barbie enthusiast, I have been looking forward to the Barbie movie for quite some time. I circled Barbie release day on my calendar (in pink, of course) when it was announced 11 months ago, and I’ve been counting down the days ever since. And for the record, I’m not just jumping on the bandwagon (or in this case, into the hot pink convertible) when I say that I love Barbie. Look no further than my phone wallpaper or the shelves in my bedroom if you need to see my credentials. That said, I also felt it was important to leave my Barbie biases outside the theatre and to watch with an open and honest mind. So, without further ado, this is an unbiased review of the Barbie movie, written by a biased Barbie lover.

This review contains spoilers.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is set in matriarchal Barbie Land, where Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), along with the rest of her fellow Barbies are self-sufficient and successful working women. They are doctors, scientists, athletes, and political leaders. Not only are these Barbies accomplished, but they also take full credit for their own accomplishments and celebrate them unapologetically. Meanwhile, the Kens of Barbie Land, including Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling), spend their days relaxing by the beach, cheerleading, and trying to impress their Barbies. When Stereotypical Barbie begins to experience “malfunctions,” she travels to the real world, accompanied by Ken, to find the source of these malfunctions and return to normal.

The Barbie movie covers a lot of ground in a very short amount of time. It doesn’t shy away from complex or controversial subject matter (namely patriarchy and misogyny), and most of the criticisms I’ve heard are related to the movie’s handling of these topics. But despite the prominence of these themes in Barbie, they are all ultimately bookended by Barbie’s decision at the beginning of the movie to leave Barbie Land and rid her body of imperfection, and her decision at the end of the movie to leave Barbie Land again, this time to become a human being, prone to the imperfections she once sought to alleviate. While she once was repulsed by her cellulite, cold showers, and thoughts of death, now she begs for and embraces a body that will change, experience discomfort, and eventually die. In this sense, Barbie Land’s run-in with patriarchy, which is so controversial among reviewers, is arguably secondary to Barbie’s own personal journey of self-love and self-actualization.

To me, that’s what the Barbie movie is all about. It’s not a story of man vs. woman: It’s a celebration of womanhood and of the beauty to be found in our complexities as human beings.

There’s an especially poignant and evocative scene in Barbie that perfectly encapsulates this message. Shortly after arriving in the real world, Barbie sits down next to an old woman on a park bench. After spending several moments sitting in silence and people-watching, Barbie tells the woman she is beautiful. She responds, “I know it,” and the two women, young and old, laugh together. 

I read an interview of Greta Gerwig, and she speaks briefly of this scene: “It’s a cul-de-sac of a moment, in a way— it doesn’t lead anywhere. And in early cuts, looking at the movie, it was suggested, ‘Well, you could cut it. And actually, the story would move on just the same.’ And I said, ‘If I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about.’ That’s how I saw it. To me, this is the heart of the movie.”

This scene represents the first moment in which Barbie recognizes that beauty isn’t all about high heels and smooth skin, but that there is profound beauty to be found in the complexities and realities human life. So much so that Barbie will eventually choose these things over her previous plastic perfection.

The tone of that scene on the park bench is particularly intimate and emotional, but I found that a lot of the playful and comedic scenes also serve to further illustrate this message. One of my favourite examples is the very last scene of the movie, in which Barbie, human for the first time, marches up to the receptionist of a doctor’s office and overenthusiastically announces: “I’m here to see my gynecologist!” I’ve heard so many people criticize Barbie for its rapid shifts in tone (One reviewer described their theatre experience as giving them “whiplash”). But I truly can’t think of a more effective way to show a genuine celebration of even the most uncomfortable aspects of womanhood than through Barbie’s carefree excitement to see her gynecologist.

But is pain and discomfort really a cause for celebration? Why should Barbie choose to return to a world that oppresses her and pushes her around?

Greta Gerwig points us towards the answer at the end of the movie, when Barbie speaks to her creator, Ruth Handler, about her decision to become human. Ruth warns Barbie that to become human means to sacrifice the comforts and guarantees of her previous life, and Barbie responds that she doesn’t want to be the “idea” anymore, and that instead she wants to be the one to create.

There’s a Japanese art called Kintsugi that involves repairing broken ceramics with lacquer and gold, creating winding golden patterns where once there were cracks and scars. It is built on the idea that embracing flaw and imperfection is the gateway to unique, transcendent creation. 

And to me, this idea is at the heart of the Barbie movie. Barbie celebrates the mediums of expression that each of us possesses as human beings to tell our unique and creative stories, inspired in us by our individual sets of experiences, however challenging or difficult they may be.

And that’s exactly what the movie is: Greta Gerwig’s unique and creative story.

At the end of the Barbie movie, America Ferrera has a monologue about the impossible double standards that women are held to (they have to be thin but not too thin, they have to have money but they can’t ask for money, they have to be a boss but they can’t be mean, etc.). And then she says, “And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing a woman, then I don’t even know.”

In the few weeks since the Barbie movie came out, I have heard so many different critiques, a lot of which contradict each other in an almost comical way. It got me thinking about Ferrera’s monologue and the fact that everything that Ferrera’s character says about womanhood is not only true about a doll representing a woman; It’s also true about a movie representing a doll representing a woman. People expected it to accomplish something without being too preachy, to embody “girl power” without offending men, to speak to our nostalgia without being fanservice. It had to be exciting, but not so exciting that we actually went out and bought Barbies, because that would make it a glorified toy ad with a capitalist agenda. It had to be funny, but it still had to say something, but it couldn’t have too many tone shifts.

I’m not trying to say that Barbie shouldn’t be critiqued. The fun part about art is that everyone responds to it differently. But Barbie doesn’t need to single-handedly solve a social problem or answer for every Barbie-related controversy that has ever come up or make every audience member happy. Barbie is the fun and creative output of a woman with a unique story to tell and a voice with which to tell it, and that should be “kenough.”

The first cry of a newborn baby, as ear-piercing and shrill as it can be, is also one of the most euphonious sounds in the world. Like a tiny fanfare, a baby's first cry out of the womb is a resounding celebration of a new, beautiful, and complicated existence. It also serves as a call for protection, love, and mercy from an unfamiliar world. And from a scientific perspective, the first cry out of the womb is (literally) the most important cry of a person's life. See: during the nine months between conception and birth, babies receives their oxygen supply through the umbilical cord. When they're delivered and have to start breathing on their own without the help of their placental crutch, that first vociferous cry is what clears the excess fluid from the mouth and lungs, and kick-starts the baby's respiratory system to stimulate it, and to get it used to life in the outside world.

So from emotional to physical necessity, there's a lot of function to be packed into one little howl. 

As that baby grows though, and their cries become a little less enchanting and a little more incessant (and sleep-depriving), those tears are typically understood with less complexity. Most phonetic research suggests that baby cries fit neatly into five categories: "Neh" = hunger, "Eh" = upper wind, "Eairh" = lower wind, "Heh" = discomfort, and "Owh" = sleepiness. And don't get me wrong, categorization like this is pretty crucial when raising a baby who can't communicate other than with nearly-indecipherable syllables such as these. But as that baby becomes a toddler, and that toddler becomes a little kid, an unconventional pattern seems to emerge; the older and more complex someone becomes in terms of thought, emotion, verbal ability, and self-awareness, the narrower the function of their tears.

I mean, for a newborn, the first cry is an expression of the otherwise inexpressible wonders attributed to that journey into a new stage of existence. For an older baby, those emotions can be boiled down to hungry, uncomfortable, sleepy, and gassy. A young child is usually taught to only cry when they're sad, and as an adult, a good cry might as well be an annual event.

Well, when I was a kid and I was in my "only cry when you're sad" stage, I remember experiencing what my nine-year-old self considered to be the most miserable of all earthly miseries—my brother having moved out of our shared bedroom. I didn't understand why it was so hard for me to let go of our bunk beds and double dresser, or why I was suddenly crying every evening, but I remember one day, my dad sat me down and together we wrote out a list of all the types of sadness we could think of, in order to help me process what I was feeling and why I was feeling it. On a lined piece of notebook paper with the words "Sadness List" scribbled in crayon across the top, we wrote something along the lines of: 

1. Disappointment — sad because I wanted something to happen but it didn't happen
2. Regret — sad because I didn't want something to happen but it happened
3. Grief — sad because I lost something important to me
4. Loneliness — sad because I'm alone
5. Shame — sad because I'm embarrassed

I don't remember what else was on the list, but after mulling it over that night, I remember deciding that I was feeling disappointment because I wanted to continue sharing my room with my brother but I couldn't. 

I carried that list around with me in my school backpack for a few years, and whenever I felt sad, from regret when I did poorly on tests to grief at the loss of important friendships, I had it as a tool to help me navigate my sadness, and more importantly, to feel my sadness in an appropriate and comprehensive way. And what I learned after using my Sadness List a few times is that often my situations didn't fit neatly or exclusively into just one category. When my brother moved out of our shared room, for instance, sure I was feeling disappointed, but I was probably also feeling a bit of loneliness at nights since he wasn't around anymore, and I was most likely feeling a bit of shame too, because I was embarrassed that I relied so much on my siblings.

I guess my point is that we're complicated beings with complicated feelings, living in a complicated world. Injustice, hatred, and brokenness are just as real, and just as much a part of our plight as humans as is pleasure and joy. Life, at times, is a beautiful mess, and feeling it— like really feeling it— isn't a sign of weakness at all, but in a way, it's a sign of profound strength.

I mean, one quick Google search is all it takes to get an extensive account of all the health benefits of crying— you're releasing your body of toxins and hormones, you're strengthening your immune system, you're avoiding weight gain, you're lowering your blood pressure, you're clearing up your skin.

But to me, a good, strong cry transcends the physical, and touches on something a little deeper. 

Try to think back to a time when you were crying, say, in front of your friends at school. You probably felt pretty embarrassed or ashamed. You may have been holding back your tears for dear life, or hiding them behind a forced smile. We don't like to cry in front of others because it makes us feel vulnerable and defenseless. Crying in front of others exposes a different side of us. It puts all our ugliest, most potent emotions on a pedestal and shines a spotlight on them. 

So when we do cry in front of others, whether it's crying in the arms of a loved one or over the phone with a close friend, or whether it's lamenting to God through prayer, it almost always feels like an act of faith. It says "I trust you," and it says "this relationship matters to me." It forms and strengthens meaningful bonds with the people around us, and sometimes it's what gets us the help we need.

One of my favourite movies, Inside Out (2015), explores this idea in a really heartfelt and imaginative way. The film follows 11-year old Riley and the five personified emotions that live in the headquarters of her subconscious: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. When Riley's family moves to San Francisco, leaving her friends, school and hockey team behind, Joy tries her best to keep Riley the goofy, happy little girl she always used to be. Riley grows more and more distant from her parents and her best friends though, and it's only when Sadness takes the wheel up in HQ and Riley acknowledges how she really feels that she can learn, grow, and mature both in her relationships and in her own self-awareness.

In our search for meaning in this chaotic and confusing world, it can be tempting to fall on easy answers. Answers like "I'll never get hurt if I don't do anything to deserve it" or "I'm not really hurting because I don't have a good reason to be" or "my hurt isn't valid because someone else is hurting more." But the truth is, there are some things, like sadness and hurt, that we simply don't and can't understand, at least not entirely. Sadness is more complicated than "hungry, sleepy, or gassy," and it's more complicated than "disappointed, lonely, or ashamed." To me, crying is a way of recognizing and accepting that complexity, and giving up the need to figure it out.

And that's why everyone needs a good cry from time to time.

Stanford Palmer clung to his title as Department Head of Chemical Engineering almost as tightly as he clung to the handle of his briefcase as he trudged towards the laboratory. It was past midnight, and after a draining workday, the professor readied himself for an equally tiresome night. 

Between a failing marriage and an accumulating debt, Stanford’s life was deteriorating like a baby tooth in a cola bottle at a middle school science fair. His career was the one aspect of his life he could control, so when the SunWay Transit Company offered to sponsor the university’s research project— replacing asphalt roadway surfaces with structurally-sound solar panels— Stanford seized the opportunity to chair the undertaking. 

Thus Stanford found himself at the university in a caffeine-induced delirium, in the early hours of a Saturday morning, working on a funding renewal proposal that was due the following Monday.

“Professor Palmer?” A voice disrupted Stanford’s directionless thoughts. Michael Walter, one of the custodians, had made his way tentatively through the lab’s half-open door. He held a thermos of coffee in one hand and a pushbroom in the other.

“Sorry to bother ya,” Michael apologized. “Didn’t expect to see anyone on a weekend night shift.”

“No worries. My door’s always open.”

“Seems as such. I reckon you’re clocking more hours here than at your own house.”

“I guess I prefer it that way.” The professor laughed through a stifled yawn. 

“Do ya now?” Michael started sweeping the floor. “Why’s that?”

Stanford looked into the lens of his microscope and turned the dials aimlessly, searching more for the right words than for a clear image. “I’ve just been having a rough go lately.”

“Sorry to hear that.” 

The room quieted into a consolatory silence before Stanford spoke up again. “It’s like this,” he said, reaching for a microscope slide from a wooden box on his desk. He fastened the slide to the microscope, adjusted a few dials, and turned the eyepiece towards the custodian. Michael peered into the tiny lens. Inside were hundreds of long, asymmetrical beehive-like contours.

“Onion skin cells.” The custodian classified the image with conviction. “I ain’t no professor but I’ve sat through my share of high school science classes.”

“To the naked eye, onions are these perfect vegetables that—”

“— make everything taste better?”

“Exactly,” the professor nodded. “But magnify them, and they’re composed of millions of lonely epidermal cells, isolated from each other by rigid cellulose walls that—.”

“I ain’t a chemistry professor, remember?”

“Sorry,” Stanford chuckled. “I guess what I’m saying is this: I have a professional career, a beautiful wife, a comfortable home. To the naked eye, my life looks perfect.” 

“But you’ve got walls, eh?”

“I’ve got walls.”

The lab fell into another heavy silence, penetrated only by the artificial buzz of fluorescent lights.

“So what’s got you workin’ on a Saturday morning?” Michael eventually asked.

“We’re designing renewable energy roadways out of solar panels.”

“That’s one way to make a name for yourself.”

“Yeah,” Stanford sighed. “But I think it’s one of my walls.”

“Oh?”

“It’s cut me off from my wife, my hobbies, everything. My entire life feels fenced in by this hopeless project.”

“Hopeless?”

“The panels’ silicon surfaces don’t provide enough traction for them to double as functioning roads.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Driving on solar panels would be like driving on black ice,” Stanford explained, adding, “without winter tires.”

“Not ideal.”

“Not at all.”

“Well, I can’t help much. Like I said, I’m not a—”

“Not a chemistry professor, I know.” Stanford laughed.

“But at least let me give you this.” Michael handed him his thermos. Before Stanford could object, Michael added, “don’t worry, I haven’t drunk anything yet. Besides, you need it more than I do.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind.”

“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to it. I’ve got a long walk home so I best be heading out.” Michael started towards the door, but before he reached it, he turned back. “Professor?”

“Hmm?”

“If I remember correctly, cell walls are semipermeable.”

With that, Michael slipped out the door. His footsteps faded into the empty hall.

Stanford opened Michael’s thermos and imbibed its sweet-smelling steam. Its warmth awoke something inside him. For the first time in his life, Stanford could breathe freely; so freely that he left the laboratory and its lingering spirits of formaldehyde and ether for good.

“Michael?” he called, walking swiftly through the halls to catch up. “I’m heading home. Why don’t I give you a ride?”

Soft snow fell gingerly from the heavens, set aglow by the shafts of sunlight that pierced through the wispy clouds. The streets were bustling with the spirit of Christmas, and the sound of children’s laughter could be heard faintly over the radio’s lively rendition of “Joy to the World.”

It was a nightmare.

See, I was pulling into the parking lot at the mall for a last-minute shopping spree, and— let the records show— I’m not much of a Christmas shopper. Whenever I step foot in the shopping mall, which doesn’t happen often, my wife’s voice materializes in the throne room of my subconscious, assuming command over me, its one and only subject. “Get something practicallll…” Her voice echoes through my mind with such ease that my skull seems emptier than I’d like to hope. “No one actually uses scented candlesssss…” 

Every year I get so caught up in my own thoughts (and my wife’s thoughts) that I end up spending about five hours and five hundred dollars more than intended.

So like I said, I’m not one for Christmas shopping, and that’s under ordinary circumstances. But to shop for someone I barely know anymore, two days before Christmas, at a mall whose directory looks like an exact replica of the New York City subway map? I was more likely to vacation in the Bermuda Triangle. 

My car radio was rattling off the final few verses of “Joy to the World” as I searched for somewhere to park. It was a cover by a band I’d never heard of before, but based on the instrumentation (a keytar and a synthesizer on some kind of “Fargo” patch), they were probably called “Maverick and the Gnarly Gremlins” or something along those lines. Anyway, the song was ending in a fade-out typical of the decade of synthesizers on “Fargo” patches, and I still couldn’t find a parking spot. I knew better than to park along the street, because the second I pulled out of the lot, I’d have drowned in traffic so dense that it may as well have been a vacation to the Bermuda Triangle.

I continued my seemingly futile search, all the while frantically racking my brain for gift ideas for cousin Chuckie. He had called me up out of the blue a couple nights ago, asking if he could spend the holidays at my place. I was about to deny his request and maybe even throw in a “remember the time you popped the heads off all my G.I. Joe action figures in grade two and told me it was because their minds were blown at how much of an idiot I was?” for good measure, but before I could open my mouth, my wife’s voice infiltrated my thoughts once again. “Remember the true meaning of Christmasssss…” it whispered into my ear like a shoulder angel (or a shoulder devil, I can’t decide which). And so here I was, looking for a parking spot among a sea of last-minute shoppers whose desperation was just as fueled by the consequences of their procrastination as mine was. 

Over my car speakers, a preppy news reporter voice that sounded a little too influenced by the holiday season started announcing the next song. Her nasally voice was distorted with radio static, but I could make out that it was a group called “The Disco Divas” and they were playing yet another cover of “Joy to the World,” as if the eighties glam rockers-in-spandex version wasn’t enough. I tried to change stations, but I turned the wrong knob and the cover doubled in volume.

While I fiddled with the dials on my car, I saw a parking spot in my peripheral vision. An empty plot of concrete, unobstructed by wheels of any sort. It felt like Christmas morning.

I started to pull up to the heaven-sent parking space, the refrain of “Joy to the World” blasting just as loud in my mind as it was on my radio. In fact, my inner voice, my wife’s voice, and the lead singers of “The Disco Divas” were all singing together in perfect four-part harmony, like a choir of heavenly hosts. Our vocal performance was cut short mid-chorus though, because to my dismay, when I got closer I saw one of those plastic red-and-yellow Little Tikes “Cozy Coupe” push cars, parked in my spot. If I had a quarter for every time I thought I’d found a parking spot but then discovered it was just being used by a really short car, I’d have enough money to bribe cousin Chuckie into spending Christmas alone. But a toddler’s toy car? I’d never seen anything quite like it. 

If it hadn’t been for my wife’s constant reminders of “the spirit of Christmas” and “doing the right thing,” I’d have parked right on top of the plastic car and gone about my day. Instead, I continued bitterly down the rows of traffic.

The radio announcer’s grating voice started introducing a third cover of my new least-favourite carol— a death metal adaptation this time— when I saw my second chance. Another available spot. I didn’t have time to celebrate though, because coming from the other direction was a jet-black monster truck with flaming skulls emblazoned on the fenders. It was commanded by a shaggy-bearded man whose face was more tattoo than it was skin. 

He glowered at me through his windshield, and we sized each other up like wild animals. He bared his teeth and revved his engine. I clenched my steering wheel with both of my white-knuckled fists and broke out in a nervous sweat. 

Then suddenly, he barrelled towards me on a collision course with the speed and the volume of an artillery cannon. I stepped on my gas and lurched forward too, desperate for the sweet refuge of those benevolent yellow lines of paint, but next to the cannon of a monster truck, my minivan was a nerf gun. It was an unspoken game of “chicken,” soundtracked by an appropriately dramatic screamo vocalist, bellowing about the “wonders of His love.”

My opponent wasn’t backing down. While he drove, he pointed at me with his index finger and then drew it over his throat, all while glaring at me with eyes that were narrower than the parking space. Other than swerving, my only hope was fitting my entire minivan underneath his skid plate, and while it may have been possible, I doubted my wife would have appreciated the tactic. So I whispered a brief “farewell” to both my parking spot and my pride, and swerved only seconds before my shopping trip became a demolition derby.

At this point, I was desperate, hungry, and willing to try anything. Death metal “Joy to the World” eventually became Dixieland “Joy to the World,” which soon transitioned into an old-timey hillbilly country “Joy to the World.” I was planning to drive my minivan straight through the mall’s automatic sliding doors, if that’s what it took, when I passed a gloriously empty handicap parking spot. My wife’s voice inside my head was objecting loudly, but the temptation was louder. Like a swan gliding through silky waters, I gracefully pulled into the spot and got out of my car before my wife could convince me to change my mind.

As I was speed walking towards the entrance to the mall, ready to finish my trip and retreat back into the safety of my home, I passed a bleary-eyed woman pushing what must have been her son in a wheelchair. I subconsciously averted my eyes, but I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.

“Mommy?” The child asked meekly.

“Yes, Billy?”

“Why do you always have to push my wheelchair across the entire parking lot?”

“Because, pumpkin, there are monsters in this world who are far too concerned with their own convenience than with little disadvantaged angels such as yourself.” 

I dug my hands deep into my pockets and started walking a little faster.

“But what about the law, mommy? Don’t the monsters care about the law?”

“No, Billy,” the woman answered gravely. Her eyes clouded as if burdened with a painful history. “No, they don’t.”

I sped past the two, staring at my feet and bustling through the mall doors without looking back. Inside, an a cappella “Joy to the World” rang past the kiosks and food courts, and I looked up to see a group of a hundred or so preteens in red and green choir uniforms, right by the entrance, singing with the blissful festivity of kids who don’t yet have to park their own cars.

I stepped past the choir, venturing deeper into the labyrinth of a mall, and bumping elbows with frantic shoppers of all ages. I felt stressed and claustrophobic, but more so than that, I felt resentment toward cousin Chuckie. I mean, he had tormented me throughout my entire childhood, outshined me when we were teenagers, and completely ignored me into my adulthood, only to call me out of nowhere, asking to ruin the most important day of the year. I mean, the dude doesn’t even show up to my wedding, and he thinks he can just—

Suddenly, my train of thought was interrupted by something that had caught the corner of my eye. The perfect gift. It was a Christmas miracle. It stood gloriously in its rotating display case, radiating wonder. It was perfectly symmetrical, yet new from every angle. It shone with unopened novelty, yet it felt like I’d known it all my life. It was fit for royalty, yet its warmth made it approachable to anyone. It was the perfect emblem of our relationship as cousins.

Something changed inside me upon seeing it, sitting in the display window in all its glory. Maybe my shoulder angel wife was finally getting to me, or maybe it was the spirit of Christmas. Whatever the reason, I felt all my bitterness dissipate. At that moment, I knew I was put on this planet for a purpose, and that purpose was to purchase this gift for cousin Chuckie. 

I entered the store and lifted it delicately off its display, too enraptured to check the price tag. Cradling it in my arms like a newborn, I walked towards the check out line, and the cashier rang it through.

“That’ll be five hundred dollars,” she said in her sing-songy customer service voice, flashing me a shiny smile.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, snapping out of my daze and staring blankly at the cashier. 

“Five hundred dollars, sir.” 

I gazed into the brilliance of the gift on the counter. I knew it was expensive, but at a certain point you have to ask yourself: what’s five hundred dollars next to the face of a cousin who knows he’s loved? Cousin Chuckie and I have been at each other’s throats since forever, and if five hundred dollars was what it would take to finally mend our relationship and step onto the path towards forgiveness, then it was worth it if you asked me. In fact, it was a cheap price to pay.

“Um, are you going to take it or not, sir? We’ve got a long line and I don’t—”

“Keep the change.” I dumped the contents of my wallet on the counter— five hundred dollars worth of bills, a crumpled grocery receipt, and some pocket lint. Then, reaching over the counter, I gently lifted the gift out of the cashier’s hands and marched toward the mall’s exit in a state of triumph.

I half-walked, half-skipped out of the sliding doors, and was met with a gust of crisp winter air. When I looked up to find my minivan though, my euphoria vanished instantly. I had made it outside just in time to see it being hitched onto an enormous tow truck, and towed away.

Billy and his mom were sitting next to each other, sipping on hot chocolates and laughing like stock photo models. 

“Merry Christmas!” Billy greeted me.

“Shove a sock in it,” I greeted back.

Just then, my cell phone rang. It was cousin Chuckie. I picked it up and held it to my ear.

“Hey cousin Chuckie. What’s up?”

“There’s been a change of plans,” he declared, his voice muffled through the receiver. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Look bro, I know your holiday’s gonna be totally lame without me,” he said. “But I met this girl at a sports bar last night, and things are moving pretty fast. She wants me to meet the parents. You know how it is.”

“You mean you’re not coming?”

“Nah, bro. I can’t.”

“But I already bought your present. You have to come.”

“That’s okay you can ship it to me. It better be something good—.”

I hung up the phone and shoved it into my pocket. My resentment and bitterness came rushing back, all at once, and I looked down at the gift in my hand, a vintage 1967 G.I. Joe action figure. 

I dug my fingers into its neck and popped the head clean off.

The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir, is a 1998 science fiction comedy-drama starring Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, an average twenty-nine-year-old insurance salesman who, unbeknownst to him, has been living his entire life on the set of a live television program called The Truman Show. Every detail of Truman's life, down to his career, friendships, and marriage, have been fabricated by the creator of the show, a man named Christof. The set of The Truman Show, an artificial community called Sea Haven, is equipped with over  5000 hidden cameras that monitor Truman's every move, and each citizen down to his 'best friend,' 'wife,' and even 'mother' are merely actors and actresses who have been hired to sustain the illusion that he leads and ordinary life. When props start to malfunction however, Truman begins to suspect the nature of his reality and eventually plans a successful escape.

On the surface, The Truman Show can be taken as an inspiring and relatively light-hearted story about overcoming society's constructs and seizing opportunities. I mean, especially considering Jim Carrey's reputation for goofy, tongue-in-cheek roles, these types of themes can be expected. The Truman Show also raises a number of deeply philosophical questions though, and when observed through the right lens, it speaks profoundly to the epistemological concepts of skepticism and knowledge.

Skepticism traces back thousands of years, but Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, published in 1641, was one of the first texts to clearly accentuate and delineate the idea that almost all things have reasonable cause for doubt. If you've been following my Perspectives series from the beginning, you might remember some of the concepts presented in Descartes' first two meditations. Almost two months ago I deconstructed and interpreted some of his conclusions, and if you missed that post (or if you want a refresher), you can follow this link to check it out. 

So as you may recall, Descartes identifies his own mind as the only indisputable absolute truth of existence, and goes on to suggest that an evil genius, equally omnipotent as he is deceitful, may have made it his sole objective to deceive humankind by manipulating their perceptions and experiences. Descartes writes: "I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity." In acknowledging the possibility of the existence of such a being, Descartes introduces a reason to question and disbelieve every aspect of his life.

In terms of The Truman Show, Christof, who is the inventor and designer of the television program, is akin to the evil genius presented by Descartes' meditations. Outwardly this may not seem to be the case, because the film presents Christof as a godly character, both through his name which is a derivative of Christ, as well as through the camera angles which emphasize the way he sits above his creation and talks down to Truman from the sky. On watching The Truman Show with a more cynical perspective however, it becomes clear that Christof is analogous to Descartes’ deceiver rather than to God, because his whole life’s work involves manipulating Truman’s world in order to mislead and delude him for entertainment’s sake. The way Christof’s character is disguised as divine and saintlike on the surface may even be a reflection of the deceptive nature of Descartes’ evil genius. 

Even though every aspect of Truman’s life is entirely contrived, he is nevertheless comfortable in it, at least during the beginning of the film before he begins to suspect any falsehood. This blissful unawareness is commensurate with Greek skeptic Pyrrho of Elis’ philosophy, called Pyrrhonism. Pyrrhonism is centered on acatalepsy, which in simplest terms is the inability to comprehend anything as it actually is, and while at first it may seem disencouraging, Pyrrho thought that the hypothesis that one could not understand anything in its entirety was ataraxia, which is a state of serenity characterized by a permanent freedom from distress. In other words, Pyrrho believed that his ignorance was bliss. The Truman Show’s take on ataraxia is summarized about two thirds into the film when Christof says: “we accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented. It’s as simple as that. If [Truman] was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there’s no way we could prevent him … Ultimately Truman prefers his cell.” Namely, Truman had every reason to be satisfied with his life because, fictitious as it was, he was safe, healthy and relatively well-off.

Despite his being set up for a fundamentally gratifying life however, Truman eventually becomes unhappy in his artificial world, and resolves to escape Sea Haven. His dissatisfaction stems from suspicion, confusion, and a lack of understanding which is evident because he is content at the beginning of the movie, and only when malfunctioning props, interfering actors, and glitches in the system give him cause for doubt does he become discontented with his existence. In this way, the nature of Truman’s search for truth is comparable to that of the prisoners in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. 

The Allegory of the Cave is a philosophical dialogue that was first presented in Plato’s Republic. Socrates, the narrator of the allegory tells of a group of prisoners who have spent all their lives chained to the back of a cave, facing a blank wall. Occasionally, objects pass in front of a fire behind them, and those objects’ shadows are cast on the wall they are facing. In this manner, the prisoners are taught that reality consists of nothing more than shadows and echoes. When a prisoner is released from the cave though, he perceives the true form of reality rather than the fabricated reality to which he had grown accustomed. Until he is released however, he has no reason to doubt that the shadows he perceives are anything other than the truth. Similarly, when the Truman Show’s system malfunctions, Truman’s eyes are opened to the possibility of something more, and only then is he able to escape his cave, so to speak, and experience reality for what it truly is. 

And while Plato’s Allegory of the Cave perfectly illustrates Truman’s situation, it also applies to our own experiences, because one of the main concepts that Plato was trying to communicate with his allegory is that there are two worlds: the world of becoming (the material world) and the world of being (the immaterial world). Plato believed that it was wise to reject the unclear, misshapen forms of the world of becoming, and to embrace the pure forms of the world of being. If you replace the set of The Truman Show with Plato’s world of becoming, and replace the reality outside of Sea Haven with the world of being, then it becomes evident that in escaping the show, Truman was opening himself to a  conversion from being deceived by material things to embracing the truth. 

So although we may not be imprisoned in a complex television program in which all our experiences are contrived by an enterprising producer, there are ways in today’s society that we can be deceived. From politicians that lie in their campaigns to earn votes to companies that lie in their advertisements to earn money, if we want to open ourselves to truth, we must follow Truman in abandoning those things that make us vulnerable to manipulation. However deception may manifest itself, Truman Burbank represents a paradigm by which we must adhere if we want to detach ourselves from deception and metaphorically release ourselves from the cave wall we are chained to.

And that's why The Truman Show holds lasting relevance.

One fateful Saturday afternoon last December, I was driving through a thick Canadian winter snowfall to the dress rehearsal of a holiday concert that I had rehearsed diligently in another city, but regrettably never in the town that was host to this particular rehearsal. That's how it came to be that I was driving down an unfamiliar highway, heading into an unfamiliar part of the country, with GPS directions that I was altogether unfamiliar with. Whether it was simply a coincidence or it was a result of divine providence, I happened to be carpooling with one of the other performers that day, so I wasn't completely alone when I took the wrong turn off the highway and steered my ill-fated little Kia Forte onto an old country road. My friend and I didn't notice at first, but as we travelled further and further down the lane, the road got narrower and narrower and the snow got deeper and deeper, until turning around was completely out of the question. See, although it was unbeknownst to the two of us at the time, Google maps hadn't turned me onto a public-use roadway at all, but rather onto the ill-maintained entrance to a provincial park. Somehow I had missed the "WARNING: NO WINTER-MAINTENANCE" signs that had been posted along the path, and my friend and I wound up stranded in what felt like two or more feet of snow in the middle of nowhere.

And you may think that's bad enough, but buckle up (car pun intended), because this story is just getting started.

After spending a good hour or so pushing, digging, reversing, and pushing some more, my friend and I finally came to terms with the reality that we didn't have the strength, knowledge, or tools to get out of the wintry ditch by ourselves. Resorting to our cellphones, we discovered that the battery on mine had been completely drained from the cold, and my friend's wasn't getting any service from the middle of the forest. And so having no other option, we left our car, half-submerged in snow as it was, and walked aimlessly up the frozen pathway in search of either cell reception or human contact, whichever came first. 

Perhaps it comes as no surprise, considering we were on a summer hiking trail a few days from Christmas, but cell reception came long before human contact. After walking for about ten minutes in the bitter cold, we picked up barely a bar of service and got through to my dad. Then it was up to him to decipher our situation based on our low-quality call for help, map out our location based on our directional oblivion, and come to our rescue. Almost two hours, three shovels, and half a tank of gas later, and my Kia was free from its snowy confinement.

Now although I didn't realize it in the moment, while I was frantically shoveling snow out of the wheels of my immobilized car, my accidental adventure was actually the perfect analogy for how 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche considered the Age of Enlightenment to have influenced the concept of God in Western civilization.

You may have heard of Nietzsche's God Is Dead before. The statement first appeared in 1882 and has since become one of the most popular and well-known philosophical excerpts from throughout history. It's been misquoted, or at least misinterpreted, time and time again, and its implications are widely debated. Because while the title lends itself to setting up the plot for some kind of religious family/drama coming-of-age film, Nietzsche had very different intentions that are frequently overlooked.

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

In order to fully grasp the implications of God Is Dead, it's important to first consider the historical time period during which Nietzsche wrote. See, Nietzsche's philosophical model was most prevalent around the turn of the twentieth century, during which culture had started moving towards a place where a collective belief in God held less relevance, and society didn't need religion to explain things like creation or human origin. As you may recall from last week's blog post, the concept of Darwinism became prominent in the 1870s, and along with other new scientific concepts and technological advances, God was no longer the foundation of society like it had been in previous centuries.

So when Nietzsche claims so assuredly that God is dead, and accuses so convincingly that we have killed him, it isn't to say that we have literally murdered a physical being, but rather that our changing principles have made a belief in God irrelevant. God Is Dead isn't the set-up to a murder mystery, but rather an account of a steady rise of secularity and abandonment of traditional beliefs.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives."

After dropping the bombshell that was his first sentence, Nietzsche goes on to establish why it matters. God is dead, so what? 

Well, God was "the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned." The influences of religion were the foundation of meaning, morality, purpose, and even aesthetic beauty for centuries. Once those principles become irrelevant, there's no longer a universal truth, and without God, we're left without a way of determining right from wrong. How can humans atone for this huge gap in meaning that the death of God has left?

 "Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

One of the assignments from the philosophy course I took this summer was to design a philosophical comic strip that outlined a key metaphysical concept of our choice. Now, I'm no Bill Watterson but between my limited comedy writing skills and my best friend's compensating artistic talent, this is what we were able to come up with. 

Hopefully it goes without saying, but the philosophical concept I chose to comicize was determinism, which along with the concept of free will and the perhaps less-well-known theory of compatibalism, has drastic implications both on the future, as well as on each individual's present, daily lives.

You've probably heard of free will before— it's the theory that human beings have the ability to make their own conscious choices that have influence over the future. Free will permits us to act at our own discretion without the constraints of necessity or fate. 

Determinism on the other hand, is the idea that all our choices are already predetermined, and that there is nothing anyone can do to change the past, present, or future. There are a couple different approaches to determinism, including causal determinism which theorizes that cause and effect relationships invariably lead from one to the other to determine the future, theological determinism which theorizes that a God determines the future, and biological determinism which concludes that the genetic programming of living creatures establishes everything they do, which consequently determines the future. Each of these methods differs from the others, but fundamentally, they all suggest an external influence, independent from human will, that has authority over human action and human thought. 

And if you're having trouble coming to terms with the implications of free will or determinism, perhaps you'll be more inclined to adopt compatibilism, which in simplest terms, is a compromise between the two theories. A compatibilist would suggest that humans get a small amount of options in an essentially determined universe. If the universe was a road trip, compatibilism might allow you to choose the radio station and snacks for the drive, even though you have no say in the destination.

The Determinist Argument

The Free Will Argument

A lot of free will adherents would call on German philosopher Immanuel Kant's arguments against determinism, which touch on a concept that the Christian tradition would label our "moral liberty." Essentially, humans have an undeniable innate obligation to chose between right over wrong, which is made apparent through the inherent guilt we feel when we neglect that duty, and as Kant put it, "if we are not free to choose, then it would make no sense to say we ought to choose the path of righteousness." Of course, some would suggest that we don't ought to choose the path of righteousness, but this counterargument is simply ignorant to the structures our society is based on. Incarceration systems, the Nobel Peace Prize, and everything in between is more or less established on a universal accountability for doing the right thing.

But moral liberty aside, one of the biggest problems I have with determinism is that it contains a logical fallacy. The fact that a determinist would even attempt to convince others of their position shows that they rely on the free will and volition of the people they are trying to convince. The theory of determinism implies that everything, including an individual's thoughts and beliefs, are determined by some kind of preexisting cause, which means it would be impossible to change another person's stance.

* * * * * 

As you're probably discovering, free will and determinism are far more complex and far less fathomable than they're often credited as. But whether you're compelled by the implications of the free will argument, convinced by the assertions of the determinist argument, or merely disoriented and confused by it all, assumptions of free will run through every aspect of our lives. From politics, welfare provisions and incarceration to world sports championships and Academy Awards, a general acceptance of free will is the foundation for a functioning society. I mean, can we really justify imprisoning criminals for crimes they had no choice but to commit? And are anyone's accomplishments truly deserving of praise if they were simply predetermined? Even the century-old American dream— the belief that anyone can make something of themselves regardless of their start in life— is entirely based on the ideals of conscious, intentional choice.

The importance of free will also transcends society's constructs, and appertains to individual moral conduct. A 2002 study was conducted by psychologist Kathleen Vohs and Jonathon Schooler, in which one group of participants was asked to read a passage arguing that free will was false, and another group was given a passage that was neutral on the topic of free will. Each group was then asked to perform a number of tasks (eg. take a math test in which cheating was made easy, or hand in an unsealed envelope full of loose change), and the participants who were conditioned to deny free will were proven more likely to behave immorally.

There is advantage to regarding free will as real, not because it is necessarily true (although I believe it is), but because, in the words of Barack Obama, "values are rooted in a basic optimism about life and a faith in free will."

And that's why we should believe in free will whether it exists or not.