Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Not That Kind of Christian

Home
Progressive Christian
Women in Religion
Barbie, the Golden Globes, and the Church

Barbie, the Golden Globes, and the Church

Last updated on: January 12, 2024 at 1:02 pm by Matt Schur

Barbie, the Golden Globes, and the Church 2024-01-12T13:02:03-05:00 Matt Schur

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Barbie in a clerical collar and in front of a church

Image Credit: generated with AI 1-11-24

Can we talk about this past weekend’s Golden Globe awards for a minute?

The Barbie Movie

At one point during his monologue, comedian and host Jo Koy compared the movies Barbie and Oppenheimer with each other, saying*:*

“Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies.”

And he didn’t stop there:

“The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet. Or what casting directors call character actor!”

With the right context before and after these statements, they could have been a scathing commentary on the treatment of women both in the film industry and in society. Satirize patriarchal studio executives or misogynistic moviegoers, make fun of the ridiculous double standards we have for men and women—there was so much material he could have mined that would have been both funny and insightful.

He chose instead to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Without any help, Koy’s monologue made the case for why Barbie was such an important—and necessary—movie.

What Makes “Barbie” So Important?

The entire point of Barbie is to point out ways in which toxic masculinity has warped the way men see women, and even how women often see themselves. One way in which this manifests both in the movie and out in the real world is by showing how we don’t allow women to define their own identity as individuals. Instead, their identity exists in relationship to someone else, usually a man. They serve as a societal foil, a sidekick, a helper, a real-life plot device. One thing they’re usually not is the main character.

Don’t think that’s really the case? Look at the stories we tell in our movies, and the way they’re told. While it is true that movies aren’t real life, they do tend to mirror the zeitgeist of the times, because those are the films that will make money. And why is that? Because people are drawn to stories or settings with which they identify.

The Bechdel Test

There’s a measurement for movies called the Bechdel Test. It’s meant to show how a given movie does or doesn’t treat women as round characters with depth and their own stories. In reality, the Bechdel Test’s bar is set so low that it ought to be laughable. These are the criteria a movie must meet in order to pass:

There must be at least two women who are featured characters
These women must speak to each other at least once
At least one of these conversations must be about something other than a man

The next time you watch a movie, pay attention. Does what you’re watching pass the Bechdel Test? You’ll probably be surprised at how many do not.

Oppenheimer, for example.

The thing is, it’s not the movies themselves that are the issue. The real issue is our response, or lack thereof. The fact that we ingest so many stories through film and don’t even realize that women so often are flat characters who talk mostly about men shows how ingrained this particular aspect of toxic masculinity is.

The Bechdel Test and Sunday School

We’re really guilty of this in the church, aren’t we? Off the top of your head, name ten women from the Bible.

Difficult? about five?

Most of us could immediately rattle off Eve and Mary the mother of Jesus. Some of us might remember Abraham’s wife Sarah. But I’d venture that the vast majority of us couldn’t come up with ten names, and many wouldn’t even get five.

I’d also venture that most of us could think of ten men’s names pretty darn quickly, though.

Why is that?

I mean, the stories are there. Some of them are beautiful, some heartbreaking. But they are indeed there, and they’re interesting, and yet…by and large, we don’t know them.

Male-Centeredness

Generally speaking, the church has always been patriarchal. It has always privileged the stories of men over the stories of women. But we’re so used to that in our real-life stories and in our entertainment, that we can go our entire lives without recognizing how male-centered our Christian education has been, and without learning about the many women who actually had their own stories to tell.

Women still have their own stories to tell.

Add to that the church’s historical subjugation of women and their expected roles. We’ve seen gender inequality in the secular workforce, but that’s nothing compared to the unequal way the church has treated women, particularly when it comes to positions of power.

Christian Power Dynamics

In many denominations, women cannot preach, serve communion, or be part of the congregational leadership. They’re relegated to teaching Sunday School, organizing the kitchen, decorating the sanctuary or other such “women’s work.”

In even more denominations, women are not allowed to be pastors or priests. Some of the more common arguments for this stance are:

God created woman from man so therefore was inferior
in Genesis 3 God ordains that the man should be head of the woman
in the New Testament, Paul writes that he does not allow a woman to speak in church

Note: there are some very good reasons why we shouldn’t be interpreting Scripture in a way that leads to these conclusions, but those reasons are beyond the scope of what I’m writing here. A good resource for exploring further is Karoline Lewis’s book “She.”

Pastoral Sexism

In denominations that do ordain women as clergy, those women regularly are called names like “sweetie” or “honey” both from parishioners and fellow clergy which undermine their authority and position—names a male pastor never would have to hear. Additionally, they regularly hear from a segment of the church that doesn’t believe their ordination is legitimate.

In order to be seen as more than “a plastic doll with big boobies” even (and perhaps especially) in the church, a woman has to work twice as hard as a man, achieve twice as much as a man, and look twice as good on paper.

And like all women in any workforce, she needs to do all of this while:

dressing pretty but not too pretty, or run the risk of being accused of tempting the men.
acting assertive but not too assertive, lest she be labeled as “bitchy.”
adhere to a standard of beauty that a man simply doesn’t have to worry about.
being spoken over in meetings, having her ideas accepted only after being parroted by a man.
having subject material in which she is an expert explained to her by men who don’t really know what they’re talking about.
defend her choice to be a mom.
defend her choice to not be a mom.

The list could go on and on.

What Does Jesus Teach Us?

What if, instead of enabling and contributing to a dehumanizing system, we followed the example of Jesus instead?

Jesus was born into a patriarchal society. But time and again he upended social gender norms by speaking with women, eating with women, healing women—he treated women simply as fellow human beings and rejected patriarchal rules and norms. In the case of the woman caught in adultery, for example, he stands up to an unjust law. The woman was being punished with her life, but what of the man? He would walk away scot free. In telling the men gathered “let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” Jesus is turning the crowd’s understanding of the law on its head. He’s not doing away with the law itself, but he’s created a framework where the gathered crowd has no choice but to treat the woman the same as the man.

When it comes to ridding our society of patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and misogyny, Christians should be leading the way. Instead, we tend to be the ones trying to hold everybody else back.

That needs to change.

Smash the patriarchy.

General Christian

Women in Religion

Family, Parenting and Religion

Current Events

Movies

Patriarchy

Progressive Christianity

About Matt Schur

After graduating with a B.A. in English from Truman State and an M.A. in Systematic Theology from Luther Seminary, Matt Schur spent years wandering in a vocational wilderness before finally discovering his calling— assisting and advocating for the marginalized and vulnerable. He currently lives out that call as a case manager and housing specialist for people experiencing homelessness. He also serves an ELCA campus ministry part-time as its music director and pianist, and has published two books of progressive Christian poetry: “Cross Sections” (2021) and “Imperfectly Perfect” (2023). His writing has been featured in “Valiant Scribe Literary Journal,” “Unlikely Stories,” and “Cathexis Northwest Press.” You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

January 9, 2024

Making Epiphany Great Again

Next Post

January 18, 2024 5 Radical Martin Luther King Quotes Fox News Would Hate

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category biblical interpretation Capital Punishment Christmas Current Events Death Penalty Epiphany Evangelical Football Fundamentalist He Gets Us John light Movies Patriarchy Politics and Religion Progressive Christianity Seasonal Holidays Solstice Super Bowl taylor swift Toxic masculinity Translation Uncategorized Unhelpful phrases

Select a Month February 2024 January 2024 December 2023

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz