Greta Gerwig didn’t get an Oscar bid for ‘Barbie’ but she does get Genesis

There’s a candy-coated biblical parallel to be found in the best-picture nominee.

Ryan Gosling as Ken, left, and Margot Robbie as Barbie in the film “Barbie.” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

March 7, 2024

By  Dwight Lee Wolter

(RNS) — As we roll into Oscar weekend, let’s take another look at the best-picture nominee that dominated the box office and the cultural imagination for months (even if its director and star got snubbed by the Academy). “Barbie” was many things — being an overtly religious film is not one of them — but there’s a candy-coated biblical parallel to be found in its layers.

The story of Barbie and Ken bears a striking resemblance to the story of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis, a resemblance that is not coincidence. The film’s creator, 40-year-old Greta Gerwig, attended an all-girl Catholic school. She knows Scripture, doctrine and creed. Prior to filming “Barbie,” she wrote a poem along the lines of the Apostles’ Creed and read it to the actors to set the tone of the movie, according to Margot Robbie, who plays Barbie in the movie. Gerwig wanted them to appreciate that they were involved in far more than a superficial, farcical comedy.

In the beginning of the movie, Barbie and Ken live in a world where there is no pain, shame, aging, death or self-consciousness. Daytime is spent at the beach and nighttime is spent dancing at parties.

But one day, Barbie has an intrusive, disturbing thought about death that she can’t get out of her head. She begins to wonder if there is something more to life than seeking pleasure and acting as if the party will last forever. Barbie succumbs to the temptation to seek knowledge about what is happening to her. We learn that Barbie’s end of innocence begins with a young woman in the “real world” named Gloria — a name with many musical, Christian connections — who is the mother of a tween named Sasha. Their relationship is painfully distant and unfulfilling.

Gloria works as a receptionist for Mattel, where she sits at her desk, obsessively creating Barbies such as Menopause Barbie and Weird Barbie that women and girls could relate to more than Astronaut Barbie or Chef Barbie. She is disregarded and not taken seriously by the Mattel hierarchy. But it was Gloria’s vision that is somehow implanted in Stereotypical Barbie’s mind in Barbieland.

Barbie learns there is another world, very different from the paradise in which she had been living. Adam and Eve ended up east of Eden. Barbie and Ken ended up in Los Angeles.

Director Greta Gerwig poses for the media before a news conference of the movie “Barbie” in Seoul, South Korea, July 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Gone from paradise and fallen from innocence, Barbie seeks clues into her origin and identity. She is on a heroic journey that ends up at the Mattel toy company, where she meets the corporate team who want only to get her back in the doll box and continue business as usual. Barbie flees from them and discovers an upper room on the ninth floor. There, sitting alone at a kitchen table, is an old woman who introduced herself as Ruth. She invites Barbie to sit and offers her a cup of tea.

When Ruth passes the cup of tea to Barbie, it is an almost perfect re-creation of the hands of God and Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. We learn that the woman in the upper room is the maker of Barbie (played by the actual creator of the Barbie doll). Barbie calls Ruth “the creator.”

Ruth tells Barbie, “I named you after my daughter, Barbara.” Ruth, the creator, made Barbie in her own image.

Barbie tells Ruth she wants to be human. Ruth gently replies that being human is more than just becoming flesh and no longer plastic. If you want to live, Ruth forewarns, you are going to have to die. That is the price of living. You will feel pain and you will die. In response, Barbie says, “Yes!” With that one word, Barbie chooses incarnation and eventual death as a human, over eternal life as a plastic, pretend person.

Spiritually empowered by her creator in the upper room, Barbie still needs to escape the Mattel male executives who want to put her back in the box she came from. She receives the help of Gloria and Sasha, who form an emotional bond in their effort to assist Barbie. At one point, Sasha asks her mother why she was creating Barbies at her desk in the first place. Gloria says, “Well, I was feeling a little lonely … ”

The mother remembered playing with Barbies with her daughter and she was lonely and nostalgic for those days. She was lonely for an earlier, authentic relationship with her child. But while they once bonded over an empty-headed, plastic doll that lasts forever in a fantasy paradise, she now longed for a flesh-and-blood bond that laughs, cries, bleeds, ages and dies. It is love, not plastic, that never dies. Barbie, Gloria and Sasha all choose reality over illusion.

Significantly, while Barbie chooses to become human and leave Barbieland, Ken does not. Even though his eyes have also been opened during his travels to the “real” world, he does not make the leap of faith. Ken is not disparaged or ridiculed as much as I thought he would be. He falls in love with all the trappings of illusion, but it is still love and not illusion that he seeks. He seems to prefer looking for love in all the wrong places. Boy, does that story preach!

The largest-grossing film ever made, “Barbie” comes at a time when churches struggle with finances, attendance and connecting to people who do not frequent the pulpit or the pew. It is possible that it is not the story, but the way we tell it, that contributes to some of the struggles churches are experiencing.  

“Barbie” can teach us a lot about telling biblical stories in a language and context that people can hear and relate to. It is entertaining and inspirational in ways we might learn from. After all, Jesus was a storyteller, but while stories about such things as a mustard seed may have resonated to an agrarian society, they do not seem to now. So, why not stories about the existential crisis of a plastic doll?

The Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday (March 10). The show is being held in Los Angeles, somewhere east of Eden. Let’s see if Adam, Eve, Barbie or Ken win an Oscar for their role in the greatest metaphor ever told.

(Dwight Lee Wolter is author of “The Gospel of Loneliness” and pastor of the Congregational Church of Patchogue on Long Island, New York. He blogs at dwightleewolter.com. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

When my daughter, Maya, died tragically at age 6, she was still young enough for Daddy to put her to bed and sometimes lie next to her as she safely drifted off to sleep. Here, at her grave, I lie down as close to her as I can. She below and I above the trees, wind, sun, grass, flowers and love. This may sound horrific to some. But not to me. Pain can exist without love, but love does not exist without pain. So be it. Forever Maya. Amen.
Dwight Lee Wolter

Dwight Lee Wolter, author, “The Gospel of Loneliness” (Pilgrim Press, UCC)

I am the single father of a son, Casey, then 10, who was in the car when his little sister, Maya, then 6, was killed in a car crash. 

I was, at the time, in Florida, serving a church as their pastor. For 16 years now, I have been serving as pastor of the Congregational Church of Patchogue on Long Island, New York.

I thought, in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, that I could work-through my problems. I thought I should model faith, courage, and strength in adversity for the church and our extended family and community. 

I did not think much about how I might be working to avoid my feelings of anger, defeat, loneliness, and despair. I did not think about how I might be fending off feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness, and utter lack of control. 

Neither I, nor my church, had the foresight or wisdom to take away my office keys, and to demand that I stop working and just grieve, rest, play, pray, and whatever else might be necessary to heal. 

Instead, I worked. And worked. And tried to meet the needs of others in a time of my own profoundly unmet needs.  

Seven years after the crash that took one child but spared the other, the Lilly Endowment Clergy Renewal program – not one person of which I had ever met – recognized my needs and their ability to help. They awarded me and my church a grant for a sabbatical that took my son and I to Germany and to South Africa. They paid all the church’s expenses to replace me during my two month absence. 

It was difficult for me to avoid turning the renewal grant into a “research” grant about the holocaust and Berlin Wall in Germany, and apartheid in South Africa. But research was not the goal. Renewal was the goal. Play was an important tool. Joy would be a glorious possible outcome!

My son and I did visit Dachau, the Berlin Wall, and the sites of horror in Munich. But we also visited the zoo, mountains, churches, museums and festivals of Germany. We saw the atonement and the renewal. 

In South Africa, we went to Soweto and other villages and towns that, under apartheid and to this day, languish under poverty and corruption. We visited sites of Nelson Mandela’s trials and imprisonment. And we went to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s beauy  church in Cape Town. We also went on two safaris near Johannesburg. 

Rest and renewal need not mean “vegging-out” or running away. Sabbatical taught me about self-care, balance, and timing. It taught me how I can parent my son, but not the world. It taught me to not always DO something, but to sometimes just sit there.

My daughter, Maya, is still 6 years old in our last memories of her earthly life. My son, Casey, is now 28 and doing well. Their older sister, Celeste, is doing well with her husband and their three children in San Francisco. I am now 73, have been living alone for many years, and am still here in New York. Doing fine.  

I am still a pastor; still a writer; still trying (with questionable results) to repair the breach of the world. At least I manage to keep the sidewalk in front of my life swept and clean. 

I am in many ways younger now than I was then. And though I still need to be very intentional about it, I am intent on being rested, renewed, and restored. I am more than a composite of my experiences. Casey is more than what he has survived. Maya is more than the way she died. And Celeste does not need to be the parent of her father or little brother.

This Sunday, February 18th, is the anniversary of Maya’s death. I am going to Florida to visit, wash, and adorn her grave with tears and flowers. I will take the same water with which I wash her grave to wash my face. I will drink some of the water to quench my sometimes parched soul. And I will empty myself to make room for sweet memories and sweeter possibilities. 

I will take a sabbatical from my mind, a journey to the center of my soul, and  a pilgrimage to the God within and beyond me.

God loves company. Thank you, God, for welcoming Maya home. And thank you that I have a standing invitation to a seat at your table, where our plate is never empty, and our cup is always filled.  

 -Dwight Lee Wolter is the author of “The Gospel of Loneliness” (Pilgrim Press) and many other books. 

YESTERDAY, I TOOK OFF ALL MY CLOTHES, except for my underwear. It was Valentines Day. The door opened and two women entered. One said, “Well, Dwight, are you ready for your full body dermatological exam? We need to keep an eye out for cancer.” Later, I had dinner with our guests at the soup kitchen as I do each Wednesday. Chicken pot pie & a cupcake with a heart-shaped chocolate in the icing for dessert on a very cold night. It was a delicious, joyous, fully-clothed, love fest. It always is.

Peace & Love, Dwight.

The first time either of us ever had sex she became pregnant. It was the late 1960’s and policy forbade a pregnant girl from attending high school. There was no such policy for the boy (me, in this instance) who made the girl pregnant.

Her parents were devout Christians; mine were devout alcoholics. As teenagers, we had kept secrets from the world, each other, and even from ourselves; but a growing belly was one secret we could not keep. It felt like there was a bomb in my girlfriend’s belly that was about to explode. We were pregnant with fear, shame and regret. We decided to figure this out by ourselves, keeping all options open.

One option we quickly ruled out was marriage. We were high school students. We had no money or jobs; and no one would rent us an apartment. We called the county “welfare office” but couldn’t navigate the system or the shame.

We considered abortion. We lived in a midwestern city with a large university during the “Sexual Revolution.” We walked around campus asking young women for information about abortion. We saw posters about ending “coat hanger abortions” but we found no one willing to talk to us two baby-faced teenagers. We ruled-out abortion, admitting it was not our first choice, but we had agreed to consider all options ~ and we were deeply relieved that options existed.

The last option was to tell our parents. Her parents were sad and turned to prayer and scripture for guidance. My parents were angry and turned to liquor and lawyers to prepare for a likely paternity suit.  

We decided she would go to a “home for unwed mothers” and offer the child for adoption. Her mother and father were in the front seat, and we were in the back, as we drove to the home. I was alone in the back seat when we returned. My girlfriend’s mother had a seizure in the front passenger seat as her father drove. They never blamed me for the seizure. They didn’t have to. I blamed myself. We drove endlessly home in empty silence.

After giving birth, my girlfriend held our child once before the adoption. I was not allowed to be there. We were treated kindly all through the pregnancy, but another message was equally clear: abortion was illegal and sinful ~ but offering our own child for adoption the right thing to do after doing the wrong thing. Everything was secretive, anonymous and transactional.

My girlfriend returned home with dripping breasts, a flabby tummy and no baby. There was nothing about what happened that I could understand. She knew what had happened to her body but was as stunned and empty as I was, and we had no idea how to process what had happened to us. We loved each other very much and tried to be a couple again but drifted apart, forever.  

Years later, both of us married and had more children. One night, while putting my daughter to bed, I said, “You’re my favorite little girl!” She said, “That’s because I’m your only little girl.” I said nothing. The secret remained sealed.

Twenty-one years to the day after our daughter’s birth, I located my long-lost girlfriend and got her permission for me to hire a search investigator. A couple of months later I learned from the investigator that my daughter’s name was Linda. I wrote a letter to Linda that began, “My name is Dwight Lee Wolter and I vow to never try to contact you again without your approval, but I believe I am your biological father.”

Our daughter wrote back immediately, saying she was living in San Diego. Coincidentally, I was to deliver a speech there on a book I had written about forgiveness. We met and the next day she sat next to me at a banquet table. I was introduced and as I walked to the stage, a woman at the table said to my daughter, “You must be very proud of your father.” My daughter said, “I am.” The woman then asked, “Has your father been doing this for long?” My daughter answered, “I don’t know, I just met him.”

As I departed for home the next day, she hugged me and softly and tearfully said in my ear, “Thank you for not choosing an abortion.” She never knew, she told me, that I even knew I had a daughter. I could have been a rapist or a drunken sailor on a one-night stand. Her birth mother may have been desperate to get an abortion. She never knew. She also never knew I had carried her in my heart every day for twenty-one years.

We now know much about each other from the past couple of decades that have passed. Her adoptive mother is deceased. Her birth mother has also passed, but not before they were reunited. Her adoptive father was a guest in my home, along with our mutual daughter, Linda, and her husband and children. Her adoptive father, whom she adores, has also passed, but not before he and I ~ alone together ~ worked it out that he would call himself her dad and I would call myself her father. I thanked him and his wife for doing a wonderful job, raising Linda.

Linda and I have very different beliefs about abortion. The choice my girlfriend and I once made is obvious. But it was a choice. And like any choice ever made by anyone, it was made in part out of conviction and also of circumstance. It would have been disastrous, for many reasons, if we had chosen to try to raise Linda and we knew it. We did not grow horns on our heads for choosing abortion; but we did not received haloes for choosing adoption either. Everybody was eager to tell my girlfriend what to do with her body and to tell us what to do with our lives. Shame, stigma, pain, and regret resulted for having “given her away” just as it would if we had chosen abortion. But we did not give her away. We released her from deep inadequacy into loving arms better able to do, we hoped and prayed, what we knew we could not.

I am now an ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ, and leader of an historic church on Long Island. I have an opinion about virtually everything. And yet, I remain deeply convinced that it is not my right to violate the sanctity of a woman’s body, and to force her to carry her pregnancy to birth or to force her to abort, for that matter. I may have an opinion as a citizen and a father, and I hope to have an opportunity to express it. But a woman’s choice concerning her own body and pregnancy is not my choice to make.

Dwight Lee Wolter is pastor of the Congregational Church of Patchogue on Long Island, New York, father of four, and the author of several books.

We learned how the highly contagious virus called COVID is spread. But how is Spirit spread? By accidental encounter, or do you have to intentionally get exposed? We hunt down the source of sickness and obsess on cure; but often seem indifferent to the mysterious transmission of the Spirit that enables love, hope, health and healing. This service is titled: “The Advocate Burst into Flames.” Here is a link to this service:

Love is a Verb,

Dwight Lee Wolter

The first time either of us ever had sex she became pregnant. It was the late 1960’s and policy forbade a pregnant girl from attending high school. There was no such policy for the boy (me, in this instance) who made the girl pregnant.

Her parents were devout Christians; mine were devout alcoholics. As teenagers, we had kept secrets from the world, each other, and even from ourselves; but a growing belly was one secret we could not keep. It felt like there was a bomb in my girlfriend’s belly that was about to explode. We were pregnant with fear, shame and regret. We decided to figure this out by ourselves, keeping all options open.

One option we quickly ruled out was marriage. We were high school students. We had no money or jobs; and no one would rent us an apartment. We called the county “welfare office” but couldn’t navigate the system or the shame.

We considered abortion. We lived in a midwestern city with a large university during the “Sexual Revolution.” We decided that it was I who should be the one to walk around campus, asking young women for information about abortion. We saw posters about ending “coat hanger abortions” but we found no one willing to talk about options to us two baby-faced teenagers. We ruled-out abortion, admitting it would never be our choice, but we had agreed to consider all options ~ and we were relieved that options existed.

The last option was to tell our parents. Her parents were sad and turned to prayer and scripture for guidance. My parents were angry and turned to liquor and lawyers to prepare for a likely paternity suit.  

We decided she would go to a “home for unwed mothers” and offer the child for adoption. Her mother and father were in the front seat, and we were in the back, as we drove to the home. I was alone in the back seat when we returned. My girlfriend’s mother had a seizure in the front passenger seat as her father drove. They never blamed me for the seizure. They didn’t have to. I blamed myself. We drove endlessly home in empty silence.

After giving birth, my girlfriend held our child once before the adoption. I was not allowed to be there. We were treated kindly all through the pregnancy, but another message was equally clear: abortion was illegal and sinful but offering our own child for adoption the right thing to do after doing the wrong thing. Everything was secretive, anonymous and transactional.

My girlfriend returned home with dripping breasts, a flabby tummy and no baby. There was nothing about what happened that I could understand. She knew what had happened to her body but was as stunned and empty as I was, and we had no idea how to process what had happened to us. We loved each other very much and tried to be a couple again but drifted apart, forever.  

Years later, both of us married and had more children. One night, while putting my daughter to bed, I said, “You’re my favorite little girl!” She said, “That’s because I’m your only little girl.” I said nothing. The secret and the shame remained sealed.

Twenty-one years after our daughter’s birth, I located my long-lost girlfriend and got her permission for me to hire a search investigator. A couple of months later I learned from the investigator that my daughter’s name was Linda. I wrote a letter to Linda that began, “My name is Dwight Lee Wolter and I vow to never try to contact you again without your approval, but I believe I am your biological father.”

Our daughter wrote back immediately. At one point, she was living in San Diego. Coincidentally and ironically, I was to deliver a speech there on a book I had written about forgiveness. We met and the next day she sat next to me at a banquet table. I was introduced and as I walked to the stage, a woman at the table said to my daughter, “You must be very proud of your father.” My daughter said, “I am.” The woman then asked, “Has your father been doing this for long?” My daughter answered, “I don’t know, I just met him.”

As I departed for home the next day, she hugged me and softly and tearfully said in my ear, “Thank you for not choosing an abortion.” She never knew, she told me, that I even knew I had a daughter. I was shocked. When I thought about it, I could have been a rapist or a drunken sailor on a one-night stand. I might not have known that I has a daughter. Her mother, however, would certainly know she was pregnant. Her birth mother, for all our daughter knew, may have been desperate to get an abortion. She was not, but our daughter never knew. She also never knew I had carried her in my heart every day for twenty-one years.

My daughter and I now know much about each other from the past three decades that have passed. Her adoptive mother is deceased. Her birth mother has also passed, but not before they were reunited. Her adoptive father was a guest in my home, along with our mutual daughter, Linda, and her husband and children. Her adoptive father, whom she still adores, has also passed, but not before he and I ~ alone together ~ worked it out that he would call himself her dad and I would call myself her father. I thanked him and his wife for doing a wonderful job, raising Linda. And I remain immensely grateful that he welcomed my sudden appearance in his life.

Linda and I have very different experiences, feelings and beliefs about several things, including abortion. The choice my girlfriend and I once made is obvious. But it was a choice. And like any choice ever made by anyone, it was made in part out of conviction and also of circumstance. It would have been disastrous, for many reasons, if we had chosen to try to raise Linda and we knew it. We did not grow horns on our heads for choosing abortion; but we did not received haloes for choosing adoption either. Everybody was eager to tell my girlfriend what to do with her body and to tell us what to do with our lives. Shame, stigma, pain, and regret resulted for having “given her away” just as it would if we had chosen abortion. But we did not give her away. We released her from deep inadequacy into loving arms better able to do, we hoped and prayed, what we knew we could not.

I am now an ordained pastor. I have an opinion about virtually everything. And yet, I remain deeply convinced that it is not my right to violate the sanctity of a woman’s body, and to force her to carry her pregnancy to birth or to force her to abort, for that matter. I may have an opinion as a citizen and a father, and I hope to have an opportunity to express it. But a woman’s choice concerning her own body and pregnancy is not my choice to make. No matter what you believe and what choices you have made or would make in our situation. But I want to remind you that the people, especially the women, in situations like the one I describe here ~ are not fodder for arguments in churches or the Supreme Court. They are very real people trying to navigate their way through very difficult situations. They deserve compassion, mercy, and freedom to choose.

Dwight Lee Wolter

A young, Chinese, woman tennis player, Peng Shuai, had the audacity to name the man, 40 years her elder and a powerful political leader in China, as the one who, she alleges, sexually assaulted her. Since her public accusation, she “disappeared” and, under global pressure, has since been seen “in public” only once ~ on a video showing her doing just fine; happy as a lark; healthy as the world class athlete that she is. Peng Shuai is a Grand Slam Doubles Champ and three-time Olympian. Many people and organizations, eager not to disrupt the money and fame generated by the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, accepted the video at face value and said we should all just move on. Others said not so fast!

China might be thinking that all it needs is to stall a little longer and global apathy about a solitary, woman, sexual assault victim will prevail. All the victim needs, they might be waging a bet, is just a little more rehab, a bit more education and indoctrination that will culminate in ~ who knows ~ her meeting with her alleged perp to ask his forgiveness for her false accusations. All of this will be just in time for the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), however, is pulling out of China until Peng Shuai reappears and is free to interview, pursue her claims, and other things. This action will cost the WTA hundreds of millions of dollars generated by doing business in China. No other athletic association, so far, has followed the WTA’s lead.

I wrote to a young, adult man who called this action by the WTA “Very honorable, but it won’t happen. Look what the Chinese are getting away with in creating internment camps to “reeducate” over one million, Muslim Uyghurs ~ China’s largest minority. Many call it a genocide. Unfortunately, a tennis player is way down the list.”

“I implore you” I wrote back, “to not give up hope! All it takes for the world to go to hell is five good people to do nothing. You have a great, creative spirit and a fine mind. The world loves to turn people like you into cynics who bleed power and motivation. The world does so by feeding you the myth of futility. The WTA showed the world that they are willing to sacrifice deeply rather than tolerate this injustice to an alleged victim of sexual abuse. China is very angry at this continued public outing.”

I happen to believe in God ~ a God that cleans house. A God that needs our help. I believe in God, a God who blesses small people doing small acts to effect seemingly impossible change. The Hebrew and Christian Biblical stories (some of which are shared in the Qur’an) of water coming out of a rock; of finding a way out of no way out; of walking on water; of raising people from the dead ~ are still being told simple because there is truth in them and because they offer people hope that “We shall overcome… someday.”

Until then, we speak truth to power. We brush our teeth, wash our face, and carry on. We pray, contemplate, meditate, advocate, protest, detest, confess ~ or any combination of these and others that keep us trudging along on the road to justice. May God, Higher Power, Allah, Yahweh, Mother Nature, Tao, Karma, Jesus, Jehovah, Universal Human Rights, our ancestors, mercy, destiny, and desire for rightfulness be our guides. And may the God of my understanding bless the Women’s Tennis Association.

Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter

12.2.21  

IN THE BEGINNING, God created heaven and earth and on earth God also created mosquitoes and laundry. Adam and Eve went naked to avoid laundry, but then encountered mosquitoes. This is God’s way of telling us to accept life on life’s terms; and that nothing is perfect; and not to change clothes too often. Amen. Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter

1Dwight Lee Wolter