What We Were Made For

MELANIE COGDILL|GUEST Editor's note: This article contains spoilers for the film Barbie. The film Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig, is a juggernaut having earned more than 1 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. In a pivotal scene near the end of the movie, over a montage of everyday women and their mothers, the character of Ruth Handler, the creator of the Barbie doll (played by Rhea Pearlman) delivers a speech and says, “We mothers stand still, so our daughters can look back to see how far they’ve come.” As she speaks, the haunting melody of the film’s main song is playing as Billie Eilish sings, “What was I made for? Think I forgot how to be happy. Somethin' I'm not, but somethin' I can be. Somethin' I wait for. Somethin' I'm made for.” As this scene played in the theater, the grandmother sitting next to me with her daughter and granddaughters openly sobbed. A Message to Women Much has been written in the media about this film. Is it a film about feminism? Is it a film satirizing the “patriarchy”? "Is it a film that references a secular worldview regarding what the world considers women’s "reproductive rights?" Yes to all of that and yet in this “you do you boo” ethos of the film brought about by Barbie’s existential crisis of the purpose for her life and her sudden anxiety about death, this film puts into words what almost all women are wondering (if you read the comment sections of film reviews and YouTube videos of Billie Eilish’s song)—what does it mean to be a woman? Why do we exist? What happens when we die? Who does the culture say women are? This film is less an agenda piece and more of an cultural artifact that asks deep questions of the audience. And this makes it the ideal springboard to have a conversation with both Christian and non-Christian women about the gospel...

What We Were Made For2023-08-31T15:53:53+00:00
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