Spoiler alert: The next interview discusses a number of plot parts of the movie “Barbie.”
Earlier than Los Altos psychologist Eric FitzMedrud donned a pink tie and joined his spouse for a date evening to see the summer season blockbuster film “Barbie,” he was all too conversant in the nervousness that the character of Ken feels about his place on this planet and in Barbie’s life.
FitzMedrud makes a speciality of counseling people and {couples} on relationships and sexual points and is ready to publish a guide, “The Higher Man: A Information to Consent, Stronger Relationships, and Hotter Intercourse” (Wonderwell, 2023), in September. The guide gives males recommendation on tips on how to get previous the conflicting messages they obtain about tips on how to be “sufficient.” On one hand, he writes, males are informed that they’ll’t be masculine sufficient until they reject feminism and embrace the “abject misogyny” of sure cultural figures. Or, they fear about tips on how to enter into relationships and intercourse, with a post-#MeToo consciousness about consent.
All alongside, FitzMedrud says they’ve grown up in a patriarchal society that pushes entitlement, management and efficiency however hurts them emotionally by not permitting them to indicate vulnerability. “You need to be a very good man, however what does that even imply, when the definition of ‘good man’ retains altering,” FitzMedrud asks in his guide.
FitzMedrud agrees that Ken, winningly performed by Ryan Gosling in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” struggles together with his what it means to be “a very good man.” Positive, Ken isn’t human, however a fictional doll who doesn’t have genitals or testosterone. Nonetheless, there’s a motive that Ken’s plight with “blonde fragility” has resonated with audiences and sparked nationwide dialog. FitzMedrud gives some the reason why.
Q: What do you consider pundits who’ve taken offense at “Barbie” and name it “anti-men?”
A: Any pundit who thinks it’s anti-men has confused pro-women for anti-men. I by no means felt threatened watching it. The closest to that was when Ken mentioned, “Males run the world.” I do know that a whole lot of males on the underside aspect of our financial system will really feel their expertise shouldn’t be mirrored within the absolute assertion. Then I remembered it is a film about Barbie and girls, not a film about males’s liberation. The twinge lasted about 1 second.
Q: Why do you assume the movie has turn into such a phenomenon?
A: One factor making this film so highly effective is the skillful mix of feminist views and accessible humor. I think about that it’s tapping into a way amongst girls and genderqueer folks that regardless of generational positive aspects, the victory of feminism shouldn’t be full, as evidenced by the necessity for a #MeToo motion, the rise of misogyny and the autumn of abortion rights. The film additionally appeals to males who know we have to transfer ahead with feminism.
Q: In your guide, you speak about how the patriarchy doesn’t simply harm girls, however males as nicely. Do you need to say extra about that?
A: Some males have a tough time opening as much as feminism as a result of the primary messages we hear about it are that we’re privileged or we’re the issue. We’re privileged. However we’re additionally broken and harm by patriarchy. The patriarchal misinform males is that if we sacrifice our feelings, human connection, and well being to work and (to succeed), we are going to deserve respect, love, and admiration. … Ladies have articulated many new methods to be a girl. Males have but to embrace a multifaceted mannequin of manhood.
Q: Within the film, Ken accompanies Barbie to “the true world” and discovers a spot the place males are in cost. However after Ken brings the patriarchy again to Barbie Land, do you assume he’s actually completely happy?
A: As a person, an important factor about this a part of the film is that Ken was nonetheless sad. He nonetheless needed Stereotypical Barbie to need him. When she didn’t, he tried to harm her emotions and even rubbed it in contemptuously, “Now, how does that really feel?” However it’s all a sham. When he sees how harm she feels, we see a flicker in his chauvinistic façade. It harm him to harm her this manner.
Q: In placing Ken and his journey within the context of your guide, I used to be considering that the Ken we meet firstly of the film is wounded. He’s been programmed to imagine that he has no objective aside from to serve Barbie.
A: Sure, Ken is wounded. He lacks the flexibility to take pleasure in the great thing about the current second on his seashore and has no self-confidence. It isn’t simply that he wants Barbie’s glances to really feel worthy. He’s additionally able to Seashore Off with the opposite Kens to cowl for emotions of inadequacy. He recklessly hurts himself making an attempt to realize admiration. Ken had an issue earlier than Barbie ever entered the image. Perhaps a manosphere influencer has been taking part in with Ken in the true world.
Q: Ken additionally will get rejected when he tells Barbie he needs to spend the evening. She tells him it’s women’ evening and that he can go away. What could be a wholesome method for Ken to cope with this case?
A: I don’t assume Barbie rejected Ken. Barbie held her boundaries about what the connection may and couldn’t be. Ken feels rejected as a result of he’s struggling to simply accept her boundaries, to alter his expectations, and to create a satisfying life separate from Barbie. My prescription for Ken is a five-step course of:
- Construct consciousness of the sensation of rejection in his physique and observe its root in his false beliefs in regards to the world and the way it works.
- Soothe his emotions of rejection and anger. Deepening his friendship with Alan or the opposite Kens may assist by normalizing his expertise and focusing him on what’s in his management (trace: it isn’t Barbie).
- He wants to alter his expectations and settle for actuality. Barbie isn’t rejecting him. She’s open to friendship. If he can settle for that, he’ll have a brand new good friend. If he can’t, he’ll need to seek for a connection elsewhere.
- Construct self-confidence. To do that, he may have interaction in significant acts of service to Barbie Land and/or its different residents.
- Search reciprocal relationships with a Barbie that’s involved in the identical sort of relationship with him. I hear Bizarre Barbie thinks he’s fairly scorching.
Q: Do you assume it additionally would have helped Ken and Barbie to have an trustworthy dialog in some unspecified time in the future – about how every sees their relationship?
A: I assumed Barbie was fairly trustworthy after Ken’s awkward try at a kiss. Ken didn’t settle for her clarification that her home was her Dream Home, not his, he wasn’t going to be invited to spend the evening, and she or he didn’t need extra from him. He didn’t simply have unrequited emotions that induced disappointment. He created extra struggling for himself by persevering with to deal with what he couldn’t have. Barbie was trustworthy with Ken. Ken wasn’t trustworthy with himself. Nothing Barbie may do would have improved that till Ken grew.
Q: Any last ideas or recommendation for Ken? Can Ken be OK?
A: By the top of the film, Ken has grown. When his tried energy seize fails, he lastly feels his ache, unhappiness and vulnerability. This permits Barbie to see and connect with him for the primary time. He admits that he has a derived sense of self-worth when he says, “I don’t know who I’m with out you.” Ken realizes his individuality, accepts the connection with Barbie that has been obtainable and turns his consideration to defining himself from there. He’s greater than OK. He’s Kenough.
Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” amassed a staggering $1 billion globally, in file time. However its most shocking achievement, arguably, comes from its soundtrack — “I’m Simply Ken” has turn into a Billboard 100 single and is a critical contender for meme of the summer season. https://t.co/XnZ2oouEFy
— The Washington Publish (@washingtonpost) August 18, 2023
Q: Even when “Barbie” is a film and Barbie and Ken’s struggles are offered as comedy, do you assume there are classes all viewers can take from what the movie says about relationships, or on how males may be OK?
A: There are 4 classes we will take about relationships from the movie. First, your emotions are about you. The opposite particular person might not really feel the identical method. This additionally implies that simply since you’re hurting doesn’t essentially imply the opposite particular person harm you. Second, to be a very good good friend, group member, and potential accomplice, you need to dwell your finest life. Third, the one factor that creates connection is vulnerability.
Fourth, my interpretation, the film ends by saying the Kens can share energy in Barbie Land when girls share energy with males in the true world. However the Kens have been harm to be informed they couldn’t share energy. If we would like {our relationships} to enhance, we have to dismantle the ability constructions that create systemic inequality. Relationships are broken by the winner-loser mannequin in both world.
