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.

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.