Sadly, This is Not the Barbie Movie We Expected

 

Last night I dressed in pink and joined a happy crowd to view the new Barbie movie. A friend had rented a theater which we filled with friends and family all dressed in Barbie fashion and excited for the experience. The women wore pink and sparkles and high heels. One of the men had a Ken t-shirt that gave him the perfect Ken abs. We squealed as the lights went down and the movie began. Thanks to some great marketing, we were all expecting a couple of hours of light entertainment, an homage to our beloved Barbie dolls, something to leave us smiling.

 

But strangely, the movie began in a barren grey wasteland, where morose little girls played gloomily with baby dolls. The voiceover explained that pretending to be mommy “wasn’t much fun; just ask your mother.” Then a giant Barbie appears on the scene, smiling cheerfully, and the little girls gleefully and violently smash all the babies.

 

I sat in the dark, my own smile frozen on my face. I wanted to like this movie. I loved my Barbie as a child. But I also love babies.  Somehow this is not what I expected. 

 

What I expected was a fun romp, maybe like that film Enchanted where the princess is transported from fairytale land to the real world and, through a series of hilarious experiences, eventually influences the real world for good because of her innocence, but also learns to truly love because true love is real. 

 

But no. This is not what we get in Barbie the Movie. 

 

Let me first say I liked the set design and costumes. The look of Barbieland is pink and plastic and perfect. The details are great:  Barbie showering without water because of course there is no plumbing in the plastic Barbie house; Barbie pouring pretend milk from the carton and pretend drinking; Barbie walking on the plastic water in the pool and driving the pink plastic convertible with no engine. I loved the way the dream houses lack walls, so all the Barbies can wave to each other from their bedrooms and the way the Barbie ambulance unfolds. This visual Barbie world was great.

 

But here is what I don’t like, and why I am going to suggest maybe you don’t want to take your little girl to this movie. The audience for this movie is not little girls who love their Barbie dolls. It is not even moms who remember loving their Barbie dolls. I don’t even know who the audience is--what comes to mind is angry, vengeful, disappointed feminists. 

 

First, that PG13 rating is earned. There is lots of sexually explicit jokes and language. 

 

Also, the plot has more holes than my Barbie’s lace dress. The whole premise hinges on the way the child playing with Barbie influences how Barbie acts in Barbie World. But that can’t be true, because, though children are all different, all the Barbies act the same. Later, Barbie goes to the real world where she accomplishes exactly nothing before heading back to Barbie Land, toting along two real people, also for no good reason. Barbie and Ken are arrested twice, but somehow are set free without any consequences. Throughout the movie, things happen, but rarely is there any credible motivation. The plot feels like it was a result of a drunken brainstorming session where people kept saying, “Wouldn’t it be funny if. . . .“ Then  they laughed uproariously at their own jokes and put them all in script whether they made sense in the story or not.

 

But my biggest beef with the movie is the didactic theme, which is beaten into us at every turn, from those smashed babies at the beginning to the very strange ending. Life is not about learning to work together with respect, self-sacrifice, and caring. Life is a war with the opposite sex, one you better fight ruthlessly if you want to come out on top. 

 

From the beginning, Barbie is smiling and cheerful, but totally selfish. All she cares about is having her best day ever, every day. Ken looks longingly at Barbie, hoping for some connection. He tries to impress her by running into the plastic surf, only to look ridiculous and get hurt, needing to be treated by the Barbie doctors in the pink plastic Barbie ambulance.

 

In Barbie Land, the Barbies run the world, and the Kens are only another accessory to the Barbies. The Barbies have dream houses, but nobody knows where the Kens live. After the party, all the Kens disappear, who knows where. 

 

When Barbie and Ken do arrive in the real world, someone asks Ken the time, and suddenly he realizes that men can be valued and respected. It’s OK to like guy things. 

 

Here’s where I was hoping that at last Barbie and Ken could team up—work together to solve their problem, each contributing their own talents and skills. But no. 

 

In this movie men—from the Kens to the Mattell CEO and Board to the poor husband of the real mom-- are always foolish and silly. The women are sarcastic, angry, depressed victims or cheerful but selfish overlords. 

 

The women trick the men. The men subjugate the women. The two genders are forever to be separate and unhappy. The ending seems to encourage the segregation of the sexes and the value of just being ordinary.

 

I wanted to like this movie. I really did. I tried. 

 

After watching the movie our whole crowd trooped out to the foyer for a group photo—all pink and smiling. Even afterward. We wanted to like the movie.

 

But no. If you believe that both women and men have value and deserve respect, if you believe that a man and woman can be happy together, if you believe that striving for understanding each other is a valuable pursuit—this movie is not for you.

 

And don’t take your children to this movie. The PG13 rating is real. The jokes are definitely adult. They may go over your child’s head, but the way men and women treat each other in this film will not. 

 

Sorry. 

 

 

Christian Living in a Secular World: A Response to Dreyer’s The Benedict Option

 

In high school, I was one of two students who belonged to my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). Somehow that made a difference in how I interacted with others at my school. At church, I went to dances and parties every weekend, I had the lead in the church play, and I taught little children in Sunday School. At school, I was withdrawn, anxious, and often solitary. I felt very different from those who didn’t share my beliefs. I felt a need to separate myself, to somehow protect myself from them. In doing this, I missed out on friendships with many good people.

 

I’ve been thinking of my high school dual personality because I recently read the 2017 controversial best seller by Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.  In the book, Dreher maintains that as belief in Christian values becomes less and less common, the world will become an increasingly more difficult place for believing Christians. Dreher suggests a response based in part on the Benedictine monastic movement of the Middle Ages; he says Christians must retreat (figuratively and at times literally) from the world to strengthen and maintain Christian practices. 

 

As you can see from my high school experience, I can understand this desire to separate from a world that doesn’t understand my faith. In the 19^th century, members of our church were violently driven from place to place until, finally, Brigham Young led them a thousand miles to the desolate Great Salt Lake valley. This was a place no one else wanted. This was a place where they could live in peace, practice their religion, and grow in faith. They called it Zion. This was indeed a “Benedictine Option.”

 

We could not stay isolated forever though, nor did we want to. We spread back out into the world where we faced the challenges all believers face: How do you maintain your faith while living among those who often speak strongly against faith? 

 

Christians are sometimes tempted to water down their beliefs to fit in with the surrounding
culture. Instead, Dreyer suggests a return to what he calls “radical Christianity,” a faith that is not just a veneer but a way of life, something that controls your actions and thoughts every day. A faith that leads to sacrifice, to keeping all the Christian commandments, even the ones that are not seen as desirable in today’s world. This faithful life would be supported by daily practices of worship, study, and prayer both personally and as a family, and by nurturing a community of like-minded believers.

 

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we find this daily worship and Christian practice an essential part of our faith. We pray frequently throughout the day, both individually and in our families. We study scripture daily, and we nurture our communities of faith. We follow the Christian teachings of love and sacrifice. We also follow the “Word of Wisdom,” a health code that includes abstaining from coffee, alcohol, and tobacco. We follow a strict law of chastity, meaning no sex outside of marriage. We give ten percent of our income to the church. We dedicate many hours a week to service. As Dreher points out, the sacrifices we make for our faith are blessings. They help us to live our priorities. They help us to sacrifice for Christ as He did for us. 

 

These sacrifices, though, are often misunderstood by others. In a world where doing what makes you feel good is seen as most important, making sacrifices to live the commandments of faith seems foolish, prudish, or even phobic. In the face of such attacks, many members of our church, and other Christian faiths, are simply walking away. 

But those of us who stay need to also be wary, and this is the danger of the “Benedict Option.” We must be careful not to let the “radical Christianity” we strive for become simply “radical rule-keeping.” And as we cherish our Christian community, we must be careful not to fall into the sin of the pharisees—believing that we are better than others because we follow “the law” and they don’t. 

 

David Brooks, the New York Times columnist points out this danger in his 2017 review of the book, saying Dreyer“answers secular purism with religious purism. By retreating to neat homogeneous monocultures, most separatists will end up doing what all self-segregationists do, fostering narrowness, prejudice and moral arrogance.” (David Brooks, “The Benedict Option,” New York Times, March 14, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/opinion/the-benedict-option.html)

 

How do we avoid this “moral arrogance”? Only by developing a true faith, a deep relationship with God and Jesus Christ. The relationship can only develop through personal prayer, study, and reflection. It can be strengthened in families and communities that support our faith, but we cannot truly live our faith unless we have a personal, deep connection with Christ ourselves.

 

That is what really defines a Christian. It is not an option. It is a way of life, a way of interacting with the world. Christ went out among all kinds of people—the sinners, the publicans, the Romans, and the Samaritans. He did not hide away from the influences of the world. He took his Light to all, teaching and modeling the way. 

 

My husband as a teenager also attended a high school with very few members of our faith. However, he chose a different path than I did, a more Christlike path. Rather than retreat in fear, he reached out in caring and acceptance. As a senior he was elected student body president (and as “Boy of the Year”), because everyone saw him as a friend. 

 

This is a much more Christian response to the problem of difference. 

 

As we try to follow Christ, we must also be willing to follow His path, to go into all the world, to serve, to teach, and to love. As we do this, we must be influenced not by the world around us, but by Christ and his loving commands. We must keep those commandments not in pride but in love. This is what members of my church, and all Christians, try to do. Often, we won’t succeed, but through Christ’s grace, we can become stronger and better. Sometimes we may be mocked for our faith, but so was Christ. Even in the face of increasing opposition, we can learn to keep Christ’s commandments faithfully, including the greatest one: “As I have loved you, love one another."

Drought, Prayers, and Miracles

 

 

This week the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, proclaimed a “Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving,” because “by praying collaboratively and collectively and asking our higher powers for more snow and rain, Utah received record-breaking snowfall this winter season and ideal spring runoff circumstances.”

 

This may seem like a strange governmental act, in this secular age. 

To understand it, let’s look back. Two years ago, we were suffering from years of brutal drought, and Governor Cox made another proclamation, one for prayer and supplication. On June 3, 2021, he explained, “I’ve already asked all Utahns to conserve water by avoiding long showers, fixing leaky faucets, and planting water-wise landscapes. But I fear those efforts alone won’t be enough to protect us,” Governor Cox said. “We need more rain and we need it now. We need some divine intervention. That’s why I’m asking Utahns of all faiths to join me in a weekend of prayer.”

 

His proclamation specified: "By praying together and collectively asking God or whatever higher power you believe in for more rain, we may be able to escape the deadliest aspects of the continuing drought.

At the time, he was mocked. John Oliver on an HBO comedy show, “Last Week Tonight,” made fun of Cox and the entire state of Utah, laughingly stating what to him and most of the country was obvious, “You don’t pray your way out of a drought.”

But many of us believe prayer matters. 

CS Lewis, that most literate believer, wrote compelling of prayer—its necessity and its mystery.

He explained “prayer is not magic. Prayer is asking a higher being for help.” 

If it were magic, you would be able to say the same magic words and always get the same result. When Harry Potter waves his wand and says “Accio Broom,” the broom requested flies directly to him—every time. Prayer is not like that.

Indeed, in the year following Governor Cox’s request for prayer, our drought continued. We kept on praying, and, at the same time, we did all we could to conserve precious water in our desert landscape. We let our lawns turn brown. We took out the lawn altogether and spread rock in its place. We planted drought-tolerant species. We collected shower water in buckets and lugged it out to water the garden. Farmers tried novel methods for conserving water, including a strange sort of tower to grow alfalfa.

As the Great Salt Lake shrank and the mountain reservoirs began to look more like puddles, we did all we could to conserve water. And we also prayed.

Then, in the winter of 2022-23, it snowed. And snowed and snowed. Day after day. Snow on snow on snow. The Alta Ski Area, in the mountains above Salt Lake, received 903 inches of snow, 155 inches more than its previous record. Just to do the math for you, that is over 75 feet of snow. 

We kept praying, in gratitude after each snowstorm and in supplication for more. We shoveled our driveways. We bundled up to go anywhere. We laughed about the remarkable constancy of the snow.

There was great skiing, with the snow approaching the height of the ski lifts. There was powder snow you could ski through up to your waist. And we kept praying.

There were avalanches and blizzards and dangerous roads. In the mountain towns, snow was piled four feet deep on the roofs. Some roofs collapsed. And we kept praying for snow, and in gratitude for snow.

Sometimes we jokingly asked each other, “Which one of you is still praying for snow?”

But, really, we all were. Because we knew we needed it.

Then, spring arrived, and our prayers changed. When all that snow melted, where would the water go?

People talked about the spring of 1983, when the spring floods caused mud avalanches that literally buried a small mountain town, when the rivers couldn’t contain the melt and were routed down city streets.  

This spring we prayed for the weather to cooperate. If it warmed quickly, all that snow would come down the mountain at once, the rivers would top their banks and houses would be deluged. Now we prayed for a mild spring to control the speed of the melt. 

At the same time, we worked to be ready for floods. Neighbors labored together to fill thousands of sandbags and stacked them to direct possible flooding. City and county work crews cleared fallen branches and all debris from the rivers, so the water could run free. Citizens were encouraged to find the storm drains in their neighborhoods and clear them of all impediments. 

And we kept praying. 

As it turned out, the weather cooperated to limit the damage. This spring we had a day or two of warm weather and the snow melted. Then a week of cool weather, with little melting. Then some more warm, melting, days. Then cool weather to slow the melt. 

Even so, the melt was spectacular. The rivers were torrential, running at their highest levels, barely below their banks. A mountain road washed out and became a waterfall. Some homes along the Weber River were flooded. 

But compared to what could have happened, the melt came down in just about perfect order. I saw the head of Utah’s water agency interviewed on TV news, almost in tears for joy at this perfect scenario.

So now, miraculously, our lakes and reservoirs are almost all 100% full. Even the Great Salt Lake, the largest inland salt sea in the Western Hemisphere, which was so low we feared we would lose it altogether, has gained five incredibly significant feet. 

Our prayers were answered. Of course, it could have been a coincidence. It might have happened this way no matter what.

And, of course, we were not blessed with this answer because we are better than others. But we did ask. And I think it matters. 

So, this week we are praying our thanks to God for the miraculous winter and spring that has brought us the water we need so badly.

We are also enjoying the sunshine and warm weather. A long cold snowy winter really makes you appreciate the warm sun.

I am grateful to pull weeds in the sun, to play in the water with my grandchildren, and to lay in the warmth  of a hammock. 

And I am grateful for miracles, for answered prayers--for God.

 

 

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Honoring our Nation by Serving Locally

 

Happy Fourth of July! 

 

I love this holiday. I love thinking about John and Abigail Adams, Betsy Ross, Jefferson, Franklin, and all the founding gang. I love going to the local parade and watching the high school kids march by. I love going to the Colonial Days Festival at the park and seeing the history buffs dressed up and demonstrating how to make candles. I love eating hot dogs and hamburgers in my backyard with my grandkids and reciting together the Declaration of Independence. I love writing my name and my wishes with sparklers.

 

I also love the way our democratic republic provides opportunities for everybody to get involved in the decisions that matter in our country. Last week I wrote about the ways we can get involved in the political process and make a difference one vote at a time.

 

This week, I want to share my experience getting involved in my local community. 

 

In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. . . . Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

 

If “whatever affects one affects all,” each of us has a reason for wanting good things for those around us. Each of us can have an influence on the well-being of those in our neighborhoods. 

 

I haven’t always been good about this. We are busy people, right? We have family, work, church responsibilities. Who has time to volunteer in the community?

 

But just think about it. Maybe you will find a right time and the right opportunity to make a difference locally.

 

For me, this year is my time and the Provo City Neighborhood/District Program is the place.

 

In my town, Provo, Utah, each area of the city is designated an official neighborhood; each neighborhood has two representatives. Groups of five or so neighborhoods are a district, and all the representatives for that district function as the executive board. District meetings are held every six weeks; all the residents of the district are encouraged to attend and share concerns. At one of these meetings, I was elected chair of the District 4 Executive Board. As such, I get to facilitate responses to the concerns raised.

 

In one meeting, the residents brought up concerns about a dangerous intersection. This led to a group of us going to the City Public Works office to talk to those in charge of traffic and roads. The roads people agreed—hey, they knew it was a bad intersection. But because we came to complain, the intersection moved higher in the priority schedule. Within weeks a new right turn lane was painted, and if that doesn’t help, they have other ideas to improve the intersection.

 

We also learned that in one neighborhood, three sidewalks had been left unfinished. As a district, we can earn a matching grant of $5000 if we put in 500 hours of volunteer labor to improve our neighborhoods. We completed and recorded those hours, submitted the application, received the money, and turned the money over to Public Works to go toward completing the sidewalks. A group of us went to talk to the engineer in charge of city sidewalks (who knew such a person existed?) and when he understood the need for the project, he said. “$5000 won’t cover completing all three sidewalks, but we will put in the extra from our budget to get it done.” Those finished sidewalks will make a difference in the neighborhood. The neighborhood will know it is valued by the city.

 

Other projects we are working on include:

·      Working toward replacing a well-used dirt “social trail” with a cement sidewalk, connecting the upper part of a neighborhood with the lower part

·      Facilitating a “Neighborhood Stroll” to celebrate the repaving of streets and the addition of ADA ramps on sidewalks

·      Planning a service project to mitigate fire danger on a hillside, working with the fire department, parks department, and local residents.

·      Planning a Grand Opening event for the completion of renovations to a playground at the local park.

 

Through the neighborhood program, I have seen important stuff get done. But more than that, I have come to appreciate the work that goes into running our city and the good people who do that work. And even more importantly, I have come to know and appreciate those neighbors who are willing to put in the effort to make our community a better place to live.

 

My suggestion to you, this Fourth of July weekend, is to look around and see how you can improve our country by improving your own community. As Aristotle said, the essence of life is “to serve others and to do good.” Where better to serve and do good than in your own neighborhood?