The good, the bad and the Barbie

At the Barbie movie, Lauren Windle fraternises with her childhood enemy, and leaves pondering change and imperfection.

Lauren Windle

Lauren Windle is an author, journalist, presenter and public speaker.

Barbie stands between Ken and a rival with her hands raised.

Peacekeeper Barbie.

Warner Bros.

Barbie and I always had an unspoken understanding that our relationship would be mutually destructive. She made me feel inadequate; I was too short without a synched-in waist and pneumatic boobs. And I chewed her off her toes. One all.

I have spent the better part of two decades not thinking about my adversary, until once again she reared her (not at all) ugly head. I always celebrate on July 21. It is, after all, my birthday. But this year, the date was eagerly anticipated by millions and not because they share my love of Colin the Caterpillar cake. Last Friday was ‘Barbie Day' and it was all anyone could talk about. 2 – 1 to Barbie.

If you missed the news that there’s a Barbie movie now in the cinemas, clamber out from underneath that rock and let me tell you about it. The film, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, caused quite a stir with, what I can only assume is, the biggest marketing budget since Nike release Air Jordans. Both Warner Bros and Barbie’s parent company Mattel have thrown money at making sure we all know about their candy-coated flick. The campaign has been so effective that production sparked a global shortage of fluorescent pink paint.

The box office is now raking in cash as people flock to see the fuchsia film. When I attended a morning viewing this weekend, I was one of the few people who hadn’t come dressed head to toe in pink. Not a chance Barbie.

On taking my end-of-row seat (to facilitate a quick getaway) I settled in for one hour and 54 minutes of fraternising with the enemy. I’ll level with you, Barbie had made some effort to change. The vibrant colours (mainly in a rosy hue) were still in place, along with the glossy hair and impossibly smooth legs. But there was a new self-awareness and self-deprecation that hadn’t featured in our childhood tea parties.

Finally, my arch nemesis is on the right side of history, right? I’m not sure that’s the case.

I had expected a vapid tale with fun flourishes. The story certainly delivered on both of those but with a lot more I hadn’t anticipated. From where I was sitting (popcorn in hand, legs stretched out into the aisle), it was a satirical story of feminism, patriarchy and the joy and anguish of fully embracing life on life’s terms. If you saw that coming, you probably have the gift of the prophetic, because it was certainly not on my radar.

If you don’t think too much about the plot, the film is easy to enjoy. Helen Mirren offers a witty commentary which is like someone handing you a cup of tea with two sugars when you usually just take milk. It was a welcome surprise that you wouldn’t have asked for but were delighted to discover. It was a visual feast for the eyes with everything – especially the inhabitants of Barbieland – looking perfectly polished. There are also a number of very funny jokes – albeit with adult undertones.

All good so far, but now let’s suppose that you, like me, will think about the plot. When the word is defined correctly, I am delighted to identify as a feminist. That does not mean that I support every feminism-associated declaration of the last 100 years, but it does mean that I passionately champion women and the correcting of previous (and some current) oppressions. This would make me a prime candidate for loving the Barbie movie. Finally, my arch nemesis is on the right side of history, right? I’m not sure that’s the case. Sometimes, in an attempt to show willing, we can allow the pendulum to swing a little too far in the wrong direction.

Mattel’s campaign to rebrand Barbie from a ditsy blonde to an empowered achiever has been well documented. People didn’t want the lack of ambition that came with “shopping mall Barbie” or “beach Barbie” and they certainly didn’t want to have to live up to her unrealistic beauty standards. Apparently if a Barbie doll was to scale, she’d be 5ft 9 with size three feet, and only enough space in her waist for half a liver.

Rather than continuing along these lines, portraying the company as inspiring for girls and women, they take the mick out of it. They highlight that Barbie has been a part of the problem. But in making their point, they outrageously infantilise men. Of course, this is satire, and comedy allows space for exaggeration, but it still didn’t quite sit right for me. Not one man offered a positive portrayal of masculinity (although Michael Cera’s Allan is a joy to watch). On the whole, men were either oblivious, obsessed with their own success, or childish and sometimes sit in board meetings wishing they could just tickle each other.

The very brief summary – without revealing too much of the plot – is that Barbie is very happy in Barbieland, a perfect paradise where women do the lion share of the work and take all the leadership roles. But something starts to change, and the real world begins to seep in. After “causing a rupture” between the real world and Barbieland, “the patriarchy” is introduced into this female-led eutopia and the Barbies must banish it in order to restore the sorority-dominated lifestyle they previously enjoyed. Not a problem – when Ken found out patriarchy wasn’t about horses he lost interest anyway.

In ten years, I think many of the critics who have lauded this film as a classic will cringe at their enthusiasm.

In a world where even Caitlin Moran is writing a book posing the question “What About Men?” I fear this film will age badly. The vast majority of people, including women, don’t want to propel women by doing men down. In ten years, I think many of the critics who have lauded this film as a classic will cringe at their enthusiasm.

Finally, let’s frame this with the ways the Bible has influenced the film. Oh yes, the biblical message hasn’t just underpinned Harry Potter and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it’s apparent in the Barbie movie too. If we replace Barbieland with Eden we can see a stark comparison between the film and the creation story. In this utopia, Barbie is given authority over the land. She is given a helper in Ken. But their paradise is threatened by human fragility and quest for more knowledge. After it comes crashing down the inhabitants just want to get back to their previous state.

The film demonstrates the desperation to 'return to Eden', in the face of an imperfect and broken world. But it also highlights the beauty that can be found in allowing yourself to experience life on life’s terms; to cry, feel pain and embrace the ache associated with change. For that, I respect its efforts. Although I think Disney’s Inside Out manages to achieve the same without belittling men.

Explainer

Belief

Creed

6 November 2024

5 min read

Whether it's AI or us, it's OK to be ignorant

Our search for answers begins by recognising that we don’t have them.

Simon Walters

Simon Walters is Curate at Holy Trinity Huddersfield.

A street sticker displays multiple lines reading 'and then?'

Stephen Harlan on Unsplash.

When was the last time you admitted you didn’t know something? I don’t say it as much as I ought to. I’ve certainly felt the consequences of admitting ignorance – of being ridiculed for being entirely unaware of a pop culture reference, of being found out that I wasn’t paying as close attention to what my partner was saying as she expected. In a hyper-connected age when the wealth of human knowledge is at our fingertips, ignorance can hardly be viewed as a virtue.

A recent study on the development of artificial intelligence holds out more hope for the value of admitting our ignorance than we might have previously imagined. Despite wide-spread hype and fearmongering about the perils of AI, our current models are in many ways developed in similar ways to how an animal is trained. An AI system such as ChatGPT might have access to unimaginable amounts of information, but it requires training by humans on what information is valuable or not, whether it has appropriately understood the request it has received, and whether its answer is correct. The idea is that human feedback helps the AI to hone its model through positive feedback for correct answers, and negative feedback for incorrect answers, so that it keeps whatever method led to positive feedback and changes whatever method led to negative feedback. It really isn’t that far away from how animals are trained.

However, a problem has emerged. AI systems have become adept at giving coherent and convincing sounding answers that are entirely incorrect. How has this happened?

This is a tool; it is good at some tasks, and less good at others. And, like all tools, it does not have an intrinsic morality.

In digging into the training method for AI, the researchers found that the humans training the AI flagged answers of “I don’t know” as unsatisfactory. On one level this makes sense. The whole purpose of these systems is to provide answers, after all. But rather than causing the AI to return and rethink its data, it instead developed increasingly convincing answers that were not true whatsoever, to the point where the human supervisors didn’t flag sufficiently convincing answers as wrong because they themselves didn’t realise that they were wrong. The result is that “the more difficult the question and the more advanced model you use, the more likely you are to get well-packaged, plausible nonsense as your answer.”

Uncovering some of what is going on in AI systems dispels both the fervent hype that artificial intelligence might be our saviour, and the deep fear that it might be our societal downfall. This is a tool; it is good at some tasks, and less good at others. And, like all tools, it does not have an intrinsic morality. Whether it is used for good or ill depends on the approach of the humans that use it.

But this study also uncovers our strained relationship with ignorance. Problems arise in the answers given by systems like ChatGPT because a convincing answer is valued more than admitting ignorance, even if the convincing answer is not at all correct. Because the AI has been trained to avoid admitting it doesn’t know something, all of its answers are less reliable, even the ones that are actually correct.

This is not a problem limited to artificial intelligence. I had a friend who seemed incapable of admitting that he didn’t know something, and whenever he was corrected by someone else, he would make it sound like his first answer was actually the correct one, rather than whatever he had said. I don’t know how aware he was that he did this, but the result was that I didn’t particularly trust whatever he said to be correct. Paradoxically, had he admitted his ignorance more readily, I would have believed him to be less ignorant.

It is strange that admitting ignorance is so avoided. After all, it is in many ways our default state. No one faults a baby or a child for not knowing things. If anything, we expect ignorance to be a fuel for curiosity. Our search for answers begins in the recognition that we don’t have them. And in an age where approximately 500 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, the sum of what we don’t know must by necessity be vastly greater than all that we do know. What any one of us can know is only a small fraction of all there is to know.

Crucially, admitting we do not know everything is not the same as saying that we do not know anything.

One of the gifts of Christian theology is an ability to recognize what it is that makes us human. One of these things is the fact that any created thing is, by definition, limited. God alone is the only one who can be described by the ‘omnis’. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. There is no limit to his power, and presence, and knowledge. The distinction between creator and creation means that created things have limits to their power, presence, and knowledge. We cannot do whatever we want. We cannot be everywhere at the same time. And we cannot know everything there is to be known.

Projecting infinite knowledge is essentially claiming to be God. Admitting our ignorance is therefore merely recognizing our nature as created beings, acknowledging to one another that we are not God and therefore cannot know everything. But, crucially, admitting we do not know everything is not the same as saying that we do not know anything. Our God-given nature is one of discovery and learning. I sometimes like to imagine God’s delight in our discovery of some previously unknown facet of his creation, as he gets to share with us in all that he has made. Perhaps what really matters is what we do with our ignorance. Will we simply remain satisfied not to know, or will it turn us outwards to delight in the new things that lie behind every corner?

For the developers of ChatGPT and the like, there is also a reminder here that we ought not to expect AI to take on the attributes of God. AI used well in the hands of humans may yet do extraordinary things for us, but it will not truly be able to do anything, be everywhere, or know everything. Perhaps if it was trained to say ‘I don’t know’ a little more, we might all learn a little more about the nature of the world God has made.