It's a Barbie World

_{There are things we crave so much we consume it in known and unknown ways. What is your obsession? Don’t know? Let me tell you, these are our Cultural Obsessions #1.}

The movie in itself was idiosyncratic, albeit quietly surprising it took on sexism and the patriarchy with decent comedic effect. Yet, not that shocking if you study the stars. Barbie dropped the same day Venus went retrograde in Leo. Venus owns Barbie – she is love and beauty and money and feminism. Leo is fame, he commands your attention. And the retrograde brings us to a standstill to question our relationship value system. Someone on the marketing team knows the cosmos I’m sure, easing into a colossal $200 million US premiere, on track for $500 million globally. Like wow.

Whether you like or hate Barbie, this is more than just a doll in a pretty pink world. This is representation of what “we” collectively value – a heroine’s journey where she wakes up from her maiden form, descends to a world where she is captive, and finds her strength and power to climb back out of the hole into the light, becoming a bridge of communication and vessel for healing between the two worlds.

This is Persephone’s journey.

In Greek mythology Persephone’s journey teaches us that women must struggle to balance softness with strength. Women should not be so naive that they get taken advantage of like young girls, but she should not be too assertive in her self-protection either. She needs to be clever but not too revealing in her smartness because otherwise that could threaten her safety. Her power is suppressed, and Hades will try to keep her locked up for fear of losing her… but without Persephone, Hades cannot truly function. That’s to say, patriarchy cannot survive with an awakened feminine.

And we the public, love it. We are socially and culturally obsessed with stories of people who overcome some kind of struggle because it elicits a feeling. The entertainment/media industry is worth trillions of dollars globally, and we trade in the currency of attention because…

We like to be entertained!

Entertainment gives us a kind of remote access to our emotions, helping us to connect through stories that reflect our humanness back at us because mostly we’re walking around distracted and over busy never really pausing to do the inner work. Most people don’t really know how to dig deep into their feelings. So, it’s easier to outsource our feelings to narratives than to reckon with the reality of it, and this isn’t wrong but it’s interesting.

Perhaps you don’t care for Barbie the toy (totally fair) but disliking the narrative the Barbie character is playing out suggests your ideals within the social construct may feel threatened… because Barbie is just a character. Her only true power lies in the story her narrative holder (Mattel) wishes to tell.

Narratives are what make us interesting.

It’s a fact, we do the same work, drive the same cars, watch the same movies but it’s our individual stories that make us one of a kind. Stories are how we simultaneously stand apart and stand together. Barbie is not branded content, it’s a character in astounding intellectual property, nurtured for over 60 years, which Mattel is leveraging to evoke your feelings in a whole new way.

Narratives elicit feeling. Entertainment sells feeling. We crave feeling.

We are obsessed with entertainment as a medium to escape into the sensations we’d rather be distracted from yet simultaneously seek to be validated by.

I find it fascinating.

So the question to ponder is how do you really feel? Are you placing your attention on the side show to distract you from your feelings about the main show? How do you entertain yourself, and when is it entertainment versus reality?

It’s Leo season, do you feel seen?

‘til next Sunday!

Zoya

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I explore the question “how do we overcome the barriers to existing fully as ourselves?” An inquiry into self, culture, the arts and social change. If you enjoyed this consider subscribing to receive more.