Sermon for February 4th, 2024
Contents
Genesis 1:26-27 (OT p.1)
26 Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 27 So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Romans 9:20-21, 25-26 (NT p.159)
20 But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?
25 As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” 26 “And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they shall be called children of the living God.”
Faith & Film XII: Barbie
[Film Clip #1: Trailer]
Three Minute Film Summary
Barbie opens with an homage to Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey. Instead of primitive man playing with sticks and rocks, learning how to use them as tools (in the presence of a mysterious black monolith), and then using them to destroy each other... In Barbie, you have the same ancient scene, but now little girls playing with baby dolls. The narrator suggests that as long as the dolls were only babies, girls could only play at being mothers. But when Mattel's Barbie Doll arrives on the scene in the form of a giant monolith...the little girls are entranced, and they begin to destroy their baby dolls, thereby breaking the chains of motherhood (at least as their sole option). Since Barbie dolls could be anything, the logic goes, so now could little girls.
Fast forward to present day Barbie Land--where all the barbies live in wonderful harmony, in beautiful plastic houses, doing whatever they enjoy doing--flying planes, being president, receiving Nobel prizes, or...in the case of our protagonist "stereotypical Barbie," throwing amazing dance parties and having slumber parties every night.
There are men, too in Barbie Land--all of them variations on the Ken doll--but while Barbie has a good day everyday, we are told that Ken only has a good day when Barbie notices him. Ken lives to dote on Barbie, but Barbie doesn't seem any more interested in Ken than she is in her house, her car, or various other accessories.
Things are perfect in Barbie Land, until Stereotypical Barbie begins to experience irrepressible thoughts of death, and cellulite, and flat feet, and things just plain going wrong. She visits "Weird Barbie" who functions a lot like the Biblical Prophets, living apart from society, but dispensing wisdom in strange and discomforting ways. Weird Barbie convinces Stereotypical Barbie that in order to return her life to is usual plastic perfection, she must travel to the "Real World" find the girl who is playing with her, and help her to cope with whatever fear, sadness, or anxiety she has that is bleeding over into Barbie Land.
Ken tags along for the journey, and in the process the meet some interesting people, they make profound discoveries about the "real world" and about themselves. When they return to Barbie Land, there is an epic showdown between the Barbies and the Kens--I won't tell you how it ends, but I will tell you that at the end, Barbie makes the decision to leave Barbie Land behind for the real world, with all its flaws and imperfections--to become a "real woman." Ken stays behind, but he too must decide what it means to be a "real man," his own person, apart from Barbie.
