Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for a series in which we read and discuss classic philosophical texts in conjunction with brief scenes from Barbie. 'Barbie changed everything! Then she changed it all again! All of…

Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for a series in which…

Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for a series in which we read and discuss classic philosophical texts in conjunction with brief scenes from Barbie. 'We’re all being played with, babe! But usually there’s some kind of separation: there’s the Girl…

Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for eleven weeks as we read and…

Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for eleven weeks as we read and discuss classic philosophical texts in conjunction with brief scenes from Barbie. 'Is that a mirror in your pocket?' Does gender reflect biological sex, or stand on…

How are you here? You’re like an idea. A great idea. Sasha assumes, like most of us, that ideas are impoverished abstractions of material reality. Plato, however, held the opposite view—called idealism—in which ideas are more real than their mere material instantiations. In his dialogue Phaedo, set as a last discussion with Socrates before his execution, Plato…

She thinks I’m a fascist? I don’t control the railways or the flow of commerce. We just explained to them the immaculate, impeccable seamless garment of logic that is patriarchy. Barbie is taken aback when Sasha calls her a fascist for her role in perpetuating patriarchy. According to her director’s commentary, Gerwig actually had to…

I’m a man with no power. Does that make me a woman? This line from an anonymous Mattel employee might seem like a cheap joke, but MIT professor Sally Haslanger…

All the Kens will head to the polls and vote to change the Constitution to a government for the Kens, of the Kens, and by the Kens! As the Kens…

By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you robbed it of its power. Hell, yes, White Savior Barbie! Here Gerwig both channels current visions of the power of speech to achieve decolonial aims by forcing open the internal contradictions of oppressor narratives and indicates meta-awareness of casting…

But you’re the creator. Don’t you control me? At the end of the movie, Barbie decides to take Nietsche’s advice and live toward death, rather than embracing the characteristics her creator Ruth Handler saw as essential. Feminist existentialist Simone de Beauvoir traces out this approach to life in the first chapter of her book The Ethics of…