Recently I took myself to the cinema, expecting to see the latest Mission Impossible film – but it was sold out, so I ended up watching the Barbie movie. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but from all the media hype it seemed like a cultural phenomenon which a preacher ought to be aware of.
A key turning point in the movie involves a woman from the human world giving a long monologue about the impossible expectations which our male-dominated society places on women. These include the way a woman’s body should be (but which she shouldn’t admit she’s aiming for) and then the way her behaviour affects the feelings of other people (female jealously and male attraction) and the way she is expected to manage that.
If you had to bundle up all the things an autistic person (or at least my kind of Aspie) is blissfully unaware of, you’d get a speech something like that.
I have female friends who are petite, and those who are well-rounded, and why should any of them be other than what they are? But clearly the neurotypical majority are walking round making snap judgments and projecting innumerable expectations, and most women know it.
When you can’t hope to anticipate accurately how the way you dress or conduct yourself affects the feelings and judgments of others, there’s no point trying – how liberating! But at the same time it limits my ability to interact with the neurotypical world.
There have been relationships where female friends have shown momentary affection – a hand on my shoulder, or the small of my back, or their knee pressed into mine. I can never predict when these things might happen, nor what they mean for our future relationship. I used to think these things might be signals we’ve reached a level of trust where giving and receiving physical affection might become normal. But it seems, from the long school of lived experience, that these are simply “peak experiences”, precious memories for which I can be grateful, but which won’t become typical of our ongoing friendship.
There’s another scene in the movie where Barbie sits on a park bench next to an elderly lady. Barbie tells the elderly lady that she’s beautiful. And the elderly lady accepts it with the words, “I know it!” The scene adds nothing to the plot, but in the director’s eyes encapsulates the “whole point” of the movie.
I’ve been trained in the gentle approach to personal prayer ministry known as Unbound. The final ‘key’ of Unbound ministry is blessing the recipient with words which help heal their wounds. At its heart this is a ministry about listening to people and ministering to their individual needs. But the generic guidance given as part of the training is that when blessing women, they generally need to hear that they are beautiful (and men need to hear that “they’ve got what it takes”).
In very different ways, Unbound ministry and the director’s heart scene in the movie are doing the same thing – projecting to women that they have a beauty which is not about the superficial, physical attractiveness that the world often judges them by. And yes, as a Christian I can affirm that all women are beautiful because they are made in God’s image. But part of me wonders how valuable that is as a statement. If someone is generically beautiful but I cannot sense, and therefore cannot authentically communicate, their personal and unique beauty, how hollow is that as an affirmation? Or is it as useful as Barbie telling a wrinkly old lady that she’s beautiful because all womankind will resonate with that?
aspiepriest 