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Movies, Music & Memes: How Barbie Typifies the Metamodern Turn

  • Writer: Josh
    Josh
  • Jan 1
  • 6 min read

Whether you loved it, liked it, loathed it, or looked the other way completely, the Barbie movie was a huge box office success. Some have even hailed it as saving cinema. But why was it such a cultural phenomenon? One of the reasons is that it typifies the metamodern shift across three areas: movies, music and memes.


1. Movies


In the run-up to the release of Barbie, Margot Robbie repeatedly voiced her surprise that the film was ever made. Whilst her comments were undoubtedly aimed to drum-up publicity, they were not completely unfounded. The script, cast, and director of the film all changed over the years as Mattel grappled with the best way to take their prized doll to the big screen. The surprise lays in the fact the Barbie movie is at once a critique of Mattel, whilst remaining a glorified advert for their product. Take for instance the scene where Barbie meets Sacha:



Mattel decided that the best way to combat the critiques against them was head on. Rather than skirt around issues, they are laid firmly at their door. This makes the film hyper self-reflexive - the Mattel Boss (played by Will Ferrell) is even the bad guy in the film! And yet, it was a calculated risk that paid off, with the toy-maker reporting a $125 million boost in sales following the film’s release [1]. The narrative successfully oscillates between post-modern critique and sincere promotion (or should that be post-modern promotion and sincere critique?). In doing so, Mattel re-brands Barbie for today’s audience, all the while appearing more ‘authentic’ and trustworthy – hallmarks that Gen Z appreciate.

 

In this way, the film follows in the footsteps of The Lego Movie (which also features Will Ferrell in a similar role), with its screenplay “pulling in so many contradictory directions at the same time that the final product seems ‘strange’ somehow – if delightfully so” [2]. The result is a sense of playfulness which is unusual and disarming. The film’s very conception captures the metamodern mantra of sincere irony.

 

Or take for instance the tone of the film. It is at once silly and serious. It swings wildly between ironic comedy and sincere social commentary. It features both a beach-off musical medley and a two minute ‘mom-ologue’ about inequality.


If you were to only watch the scenes on this page, you would be forgiven for thinking they were from separate films. All this builds a sense of “incoherence”, which somehow still holds together – not logically – but aesthetically by creating a “vibe” [3]. The focus of the film is how it makes you feel, more than what it makes you think. If you try too hard to pin down the logical argument of the film, you will miss the power of its emotional appeal.


Perhaps more than anywhere else, this sense of sincere irony is captured by the phrase “I am Kenough”. It is at once a silly joke, yet it also speaks into an existential narrative believed by many young people today that they are insignificant or failing to live up to expectations in some way. Ken’s realisation that he doesn’t need to live for the approval of others, chimes with a social-media saturated audience who are plagued by comparison.


2. Music


The climax of the film is the emotional moment when Barbie meets with her inventor, Ruth Handler, and asks to become human. Barbie reveals her longing:


“I want to be a part of the people that make meaning. Not the thing that’s made… Do you give me permission to become human?”

In response, Ruth says:


“I can’t in good conscience let you take this leap without knowing what it means… Take my hands… Now close your eyes… Now feel”.

 Then a montage plays as the Billie Eilish song ‘What Was I made For?’ plays. It’s a poignant moment. One that earned the artist an Oscar for Best Original Song.



However, the words of the song stand at odds with the conversation that has just taken place. Barbie says she wants to be human because she doesn’t want to be something that is made. And Ruth suggests that to be human is something no more than a felt-experience. Yet, the words of the song ring out ‘What was I made for?’ as images of ordinary human life flash on the screen.

 

The scene, and the song, cut to the heart of the film: Does human life have meaning even though we die? Whilst post-modernity may have answered cynically with a resounding ‘no’. the film points in a different, more sincere and hope-filled direction. This again chimes with a metamodern sensibility:


“…today the self is back in vogue, along with its related values of autonomy and identity… Postmodernism used to be cynical and ironic. Today, emotion and sincerity are prized.”  [4]

But what answer is given to the problem? The song evokes a sense of transcendence in order to protect the sense of self. Even if only momentarily. I will call this ‘transient transcendence’ and it is another hallmark of metamodernism. The metamodern mindset is set towards pursuing transcendence all the while believing that it may be futile. What matters is that the quest itself provides a sense of purpose. We could say that in our metamodern age, asking the question ‘what was I made for?’ contains more meaning than finding an actual answer.


3. Memes


One of the reasons for the film’s success was its marketing campaign. Barbie adverts were seen everywhere – so much so, that the film was rumoured to have caused shortages in pink paint [5]. Yet one of the successes that marketers couldn’t have foreseen was the influence of the fan-made memes, ‘Barbenheimer’.



Barbie released on the same weekend as Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer'. Usually, big blockbusters would release on separate dates to maximise revenue. Yet, rumours suggested that Warner Brothers (producers of Barbie) purposefully pitted Barbie against Oppenheimer to spite Nolan, who had recently ditched them and moved to work with Universal. The result is that two big films, and two very different films at that, came out at the same time. Yet, rather than diminish one another’s viewing figures, the competition and contrast only seemed to fuel fan engagement. In the online world, the ‘Barbenheimer’ meme was born. The meme went so viral in fact, that Warner Bros began sharing the meme themselves, inciting some backlash from their Japanese arm [6].

 

Memes are inherently metamodern. They are usually remixes of other media, such as film scenes, with added text overlayed. In such examples, the meaning from the original image is re-mixed and redirected in a different direction. Often these re-mixes take place multiple times, as the meme takes on a life of its own online, with elements of the meme changing and evolving. The result is what has been called “meme drift” -  the meme can be become unrecognisable to what is was to begin with, yet to those in the know, it carries with it it’s original meaning.


“Memes are therefore metamodern not just because they’re collaborative and interactive, but also because they create an instinctive feeling of understanding even when they can’t logically be broken down into their parts.” [7]

This is why any notion of metamodern content seeming ‘incoherent’ needs to be tempered slightly. More often than not, viral content – and in particular, memes – are responses to one another and to other trends. Each meme is a maze of meaning. The trick is whether or not you are in on the joke and up to date enough with the trends to find your way around. The result is a dizzying dance to remain relevant.

 

Yet, despite the difference between the two films, they also share a striking similarity. They both deal with the problem of death. Just in very different ways.


“One Barbenheimer irony is that Barbie and Ken suffer just as much existential angst in their film as J Robert Oppenheimer does in his.” [8]

Likewise, although memes are often trivial and silly, they are also often used to convey sincere emotions and deal with serious subjects through their ironic playfulness.



Why does this matter?


The moment that prevented the death of cinema, were two films that dealt with the theme of death. Yet, they did so in very contrasting ways. Oppenheimer went on to sweep up the awards, but I would hazard a guess that the Barbie movie will remain more culturally significant in years to come.


Whatever the case, Barbie demonstrates that serious discussions about death remain at the forefront our cultural consciousness. The difference is that the rules of communication have changed. More often than not it is the task of the apologist to prod the inconsistencies at the heart of people’s worldviews and awaken their need for transcendence… but more and more, that chasm has already been opened. In a metamodern world, it remains the task of the apologist to show how the gospel provides solid, steady, and satisfying answers to our heart’s deepest longings. I plan to write more about this next.

 

A second little reason why all this matters, is that the director of Barbie, Greta Gerwig, is also due to direct a reboot of the Narnia films for Netflix [9]. It will be interesting to see what happens with that!




 

 

 

[4] Gene Edward Veith Jr. Post-Christian: A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture. (2020) p.17

 

 

 

 

 

 



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