Is Barbie a Dharma movie?
The teachings of the Buddha lie just beneath the shiny pink surface of this ‘Mattel Universe’ blockbuster.
I went to see the Barbie movie on Saturday feeling a little apprehensive- no way could a film this hyped ever meet such sky high expectations. And full disclosure, I probably won’t watch it again because I didn’t find it that funny. I love what it’s doing for the experience of cinema and all, and the memes- I just didn’t think it was that great a movie. Which is a good thing because it meant whilst I was sitting in the cinema sipping my pink lemonade, I could disconnect enough from the film to start interpreting it.
As a practicing, card carrying Buddhist, most things in life come back as Dharma to me in some way or other. But I didn’t expect this movie to slap me so hard with it.
Let’s begin at the beginning. The film opens with an exploration into Barbie’s perfect blissful life in Barbieland, where nothing goes wrong and everyone is having a non stop awesome time. Now, before I start saying Barbie is like a young Prince Siddhartha (which is what I am going to say) it did occur to me that maybe this is just classic storytelling a la The Hero with a Thousand Faces. But as I kept watching, I really believe the Dharma runs deep here, perhaps inadvertently.
The thing that snaps Barbie out of Barbieland and into the ‘Real World’ is her troubling thoughts about death. She has to go out into reality, where she is met by lots of obnoxious men, an elderly woman who puzzles her, and general dissatisfaction with how things are outside of Barbieland. Who else could no longer remain in their glorious luxurious palace after being confronted with birth, sickness, old age and death? Yep, the Buddha. And what did he find everywhere? Suffering! So, like Buddha, Barbie wanders around and feels compassion for women and (admittedly to a lesser extent) men, who are stuck in the constant churn of dissatisfaction that naturally arises from living in a patriarchal capitalist society.
So, not to get too far ahead of ourselves — Weird Barbie, in a move straight out of another famous Dharma movie, The Matrix, tells Barbie that she can either stay in this pleasant but hollow paradise, or choose the Birkenstock and venture out into the Real World. To me, this smacks of the 6 Realms of Samsara from the Wheel of Life. For the novice, the Wheel of Life is the Buddhist conception of the universe. It’s hugely complicated, but for our purposes here I’m going to look at the 6 Realms of Samsara (suffering). These are the Animal Realm, the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, the Demi-God Realm, the God Realm, the Hell Realm, and the place where we hang out, the Human Realm. Now, despite what you may think- the Human Realm is actually the best place to be, because it means you can experience the pain and suffering needed to transform yourself and work towards Enlightenment. Without suffering, there’s no progress- so the God Realm, where everyone is blissed out and chilling, is actually kind of a trap. So in moving from Barbieland/God Realm to the Real World/Human Realm, Barbie can develop into a person who experiences the rich tapestry of human emotions (and respond in a meaningful way to the plight of women suffering under patriarchy).
What about Ken? Ken is completely at a loss without the validation and attention that comes from external sources, in this case, Barbie. It’s like he has no idea who he is or how to be, and this is devastating to him and indeed drives the main drama of the film. Now, for anyone who took Religious Studies at GCSE, they might recall the 2nd of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths- that suffering is caused by craving, desire and attachment. Thus, Ken’s misery is caused by his suffocating attachment to Barbie, and his craving for external validation. He looks for it in all the wrong places- from his relationships, from his work (‘beach’), from his material possessions in the Mojo Dojo Casa House. Spoiler- none of this stuff actually makes him happy. It isn’t until Buddha Barbie tells him that he is already enough just as he is that his suffering starts to ease off and he stops acting out in Barbieland.
Anyway, that’s what I was left with when the credits rolled. Now, it is my belief that Buddhism as a philosophy is present in everything if you look hard enough. But I really didn’t think it would be in this movie.
