The Barbie Backlash
New York Times · LC · trust 30/100
Credit... Photo illustration by Lisa Sheehan Skip to content Skip to site index Opinion Guest Essay
Credit... Photo illustration by Lisa Sheehan
Ms. Faludi is a journalist and the author of “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women.”
Among the many afflictions distorting our current politics, one has gone unrecognized: We’re in the midst of a zero-sum struggle over which gender gets to own the hero’s journey, that ancient story formulation in which the hero leaves home, faces monsters and temptations and returns to reclaim his kingdom and his woman from usurpers. In modern times, the question of whether the hero must be male has been contested and recontested.
The fight is about more than a story. We feud over certain foundational myths because whoever owns the myth owns the culture.
It’s hard to get more foundational than Homer. Sitting in my local wide-screen Cinemark, mid-slog through Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” a film that hardly veers from the high-testosterone, man-on-a-quest Homeric template, I was struck by an odd sensation. Hadn’t I already seen this movie, but in a different palette?
Indeed I had, in the same theater on another July day three years ago. That version featured a female protagonist who journeys by car, boat, spaceship, bicycle, snowmobile and Rollerblades to a foreign land fraught with perils. She eludes a horde of male suits who want to lock her in a box before returning to her pastel principality to find it besieged by boisterous bros. Both “Barbie” and “The Odyssey” feature a beach battle with flotillas of bowspritted landing ships and an equine theme, though the horse figure stranded on Ken’s beach is fashioned of pink plastic sand. But while the boys of “Barbie” are brawling, the girls regain the kingdom; matriarchy is restored.
To a topologist’s eye, Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Mr. Nolan’s “Odyssey” are the same objects with different shapes. The difference being that hers is suffused in Crayola hues, has wit and grossed more on opening weekend. (Ms. Gerwig and Mr. Nolan seem star-crossed rivals — Barbenheimer, anyone?) The movies themselves are hardly serious enough to serve as philosophical antagonists. Yet as major cultural artifacts only three years apart, they illuminate a serious shift in our society, going far beyond Hollywood. The showdown over the hero’s narrative is corroding our political and public life, and disfiguring our government.
Our government — all the way to the top. President Trump seems to see himself embarked on a Homeric quest. Tossed from his rightful throne in 2021, he fought his way back and is now wreaking vengeance on the infidels who betrayed him. It’s a quest with a modern twist: His rival as he sought to recover the crown was a woman. The patriarch beat her in part by avowing on the campaign trail that he would “protect” women, before continuing his decimation of their welfare once he won. Since Inauguration Day, his administration has been hellbent on reversing women’s fortunes at every level.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Read the original at New York Times →
Open in TruthVane →