Last week, I finally got to see Greta Gerwig’s new film, Barbie. Even though it was a 9:30 at night screening on a Thursday, there was still a small crowd in the theater (including a cluster of kids all under 10).
Barbie seems a quintessential example of a “scissor statement,” a term popularized by Scott Alexander for things that deeply divide people but also seem absolutely true to those on each side of the division. So it is a paragon of feminist filmmaking—or an incisive deconstruction of those themes. It embodies “wokeness”—or fundamentally undermines it.
Making sense of these opposed reactions requires thinking about the role of Barbie Land (the home of the Barbies) in the film. Barbie Land seems at first to fit neatly into contemporary cultural wars, but the greater arc of the film is about leaving Barbie Land behind. At its base, Barbie tells the story of a doll becoming human—more than feminism or gender relations, it’s about what defines humanity and our fears about being human.
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