In this section, I aim at a twofold goal: to provide commentary on the opening scene of the Barbie Movie, thereby leading to a discussion of demeaning children and abortion, and to present a Biblical case for the role of men and women.
The trailer or first scene of the movie begins with a landscape shot, shifting to depicting little girls playing with dolls and prams. The girls sit on a barren, rocky landscape. “Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls.” says the narrator dramatically. Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, a symphonic poem named after Nietzsche’s nihilistic philosophical work Thus Spoke Zarathustra, begins to play and continues in the background. The narrator continues: “But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls until…”. The music crescendos. A giant Barbie dressed in a black-and-white swimsuit appears. She lowers her sunglasses, smiles at the girls, and winks. The next shot immediately depicts a girl shattering a doll with a different doll. Another doll is thrown into the air.1
A few weeks ago, I had the unfortunate time watching the Barbie Movie in cinemas. It was an experience roughly analogous to having a wet cat dragged slowly over the nape of your neck, given that the cat was also brandishing its claws. However, in writing this review (mainly consisting of theological and philosophical reflection), I do not seek to lament or explore the psychological intricacies of this feline sensation. I fully recognise that in writing a review for a movie as especially pink, vibrant, and tongue-in-cheek as this one, I risk the labels of “Puritanical”, “bigot”, “fun-hater”, or other fallacious bullets contained in the liberal barrage. I will gladly accept the first: the Puritans were excellent theologians. I will deny the second and third while simultaneously wondering if those who utilise these terms have taken an elementary class in informal logical fallacies.
In the first section, I will briefly summarise of the plot of the movie (from my memory, so incomplete and perhaps inaccurate) and hopefully not risk the breach of any copyright laws. In the second section, I will seek to provide a theological framework from which we ought to approach our viewing of media.
The third and fourth sections will be in the next article. In the third section, I will critique the feminism permeating the Barbie movie, showing how it is perhaps more nuanced than expected, and provide some Biblical teaching against feminism. In the fourth section, I will evaluate the existentialism in the movie and provide the only alternative, namely the Biblical alternative. The conclusion, as the name suggests, will conclude. Let us proceed.
Much of the hostility toward private wealth comes from the same impulse: hatred of its ability to insulate the citizen from the will of the state. Money empowers resistance; it gives one the ability to buy some gold coins, for example, and thereby hold a measure of independence from the monetary monopoly of the state; to send children to a private school and avoid the brainwashing of the public education monopoly; to open a foreign bank account and provide oneself with protection against legal confiscation schemes. Propaganda alleging the immorality of inherited wealth is also a reflection of the assault on the family. Before he dropped into noumenal oblivion, Charles Reich wrote that private property “guards the troubled boundary between individual man and the state,” but that there is a new wealth that has replaced it, one dispensed in myriad forms by the state. Increasingly, therefore, “Americans live on government largesse – allocated by government on its own terms, and held by recipients subject to conditions which express ‘the public interest.’ ” People who are thus described are more likely to be compliant servants of the authorities than are those who earn their living by giving value to private citizens who prize what they have to offer.
Our Labour government seems to love wasting money. So nothing should surprise me at this point. But what I heard today when driving home had me shouting “That’s crap!” at my car radio. Here’s the offending statement.
One of the best ways to boost our immunity against COVID-19 and protect ourselves from getting really sick is a booster.
In addition, I, and no doubt all New Zealanders received a colour flyer from Mummy government in my mailbox nagging me to get my flu vaccine and covid booster.
Does anyone actually still believe this foolishness? Who is actually getting the boosters? I know plenty of people who had multiple boosters and have had terrible immunity since. Stories of getting COVID-19 3 times amongst these people are not something unusual. Meanwhile, my unvaccinated friends seem to be soldiering on pretty well thank you very much.
My trust in the health authorities is at an all-time low. Their senseless masking protocols (and I don’t just mean the physical masks) and their one-eyed approach to what must be one of the worst vaccines in history are pathetic and suggest they are beholden to interests other than public health. On covid, I don’t think they know what they are talking about, and I’m starting to think that on the basics my common sense is going to be more helpful than listening to government health bureaucrats.
Not only are these advertisements a waste of money, but they highlight how slow centralised systems are at responding to new data. I guess at least we’ve moved on from the lies that if you get vaccinated you won’t get or transmit covid, or that you won’t get sick or die. Credit where credit’s due, our dim-witted system has finally admitted in this advert that there are other ways of protecting yourself against covid such as keeping active and eating good nutritious meals, something seemingly forgotten when South Aucklanders were bribed with KFC to get vaccinated despite evidence clearly demonstrating that apart from age, obesity was a key reason covid 19 proved fatal.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
EPHESIANS 2:1-3
The Irony of Christ’s Trial1
The soldiers plunged the crown of thorns into Jesus’ head, undoubtedly rendering a skin-piercing agony. They placed Him in a scarlet robe, handed Him a scepter, and with malicious sarcasm, they hailed Him. They struck Him and asked Him to prophesy who had done so (Matt. 27:27–31; see also Mk. 15:16-20; Lk. 22:63-65, 23:9-11; Jn. 19:1-16). Later, on the hallowed ground of Calvary, Pilate hammered the sign above Jesus’ head that read “’Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’”. When asked to change what he had written to something less offensive, perhaps something less prone to misinterpretation, Pilate did not oblige (Jn. 19:19–22).
All of this harmonious cacophony served as a terrible yet joyfully juxtaposed irony. Those involved in Jesus’ trial knew not what they did, as our Lord prayed with dying breath (Lk. 23:34). But what they did was, in one sense, accurate. They crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8) but also crowned Him. They placed Him, the true King of kings and Lord of lords, in a scarlet robe (Rev. 17:14). The one prophesied to be the ultimate and true Davidic King who would shatter rebels with a rod of iron was handed a scepter (Ps. 2). The one asked to prophesy who had struck Him would be in a little while struck by His Father for the sins of His people (Is. 53:4). The one who hung on the cross as bystanders walked by and gazed at the sign above His head will, at the end of time, be rightly hailed as the King of the Jews by knee-bending humanity (Phil. 2:9-11).
Therefore, even in the depraved mocking and evil actions of wretched mankind, there shone this peculiar divine irony of what was to be: salvation for mankind, wrought by no other than the King of kings. Based on this wrought salvation, if the soldiers had faith in Christ, as the centurion presumably did (Matt. 27:54), then this irony became actuated in their lives in glorious salvation, in the transfer from the arena of darkness into Christ’s kingdom (Col. 1:13-14). If the soldiers did not, then their actions only furthered their condemnation. The incarnate Word, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:14), stood before them, and in their blindness, they rejected His gracious figure.
BREAKING: Rebel News’s Selene Galas (@selenecxliv) asked Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith when we can expect a promised apology for those prosecuted during the lockdowns. Smith replied “I can apologize right now.”
I walk around now biting my tongue. There are dozens of people of my acquaintance who elicit an almost reflex action in me. “I told you so!” would be the easiest thing to say. It would be cathartic. But it’s not polite. It’s hard to forgive someone for being right. Especially when they rub it in. So I keep my mouth shut and write instead.
But for goodness sake. If you were one of the naive dupes, with newly minted qualifications in immunology at the university of the world wide web waxing eloquent on the reduced viral load of those vaccinated, or piously spouting off that it was loving your neighbour to get the vaccine; if you were one of those using false guilt to manipulate people into getting vaccinated, if you were one of the ones who used your vaccine passports because you wanted to ‘do the right thing’ and keep away from the disease-ridden unvaccinated, if you were a church ‘shepherd’ who exiled your sheep from church instead of protecting them from the wolves or if you are a health professional who in your hubris used the letters after your name as a stick to batter those you consider ignorant rubes into vaccine submission, jolly well do the decent thing and apologise.
You were wrong, but not only were you wrong, you attempted to foist your error and facile childlike faith in a godlike state on the rest of the world. You wanted there to be no other gods but the state and no prophet but the mainstream media. You were not content to live and let live. You took part in the totalitarian covid order. And because you did, and because so many others did, you caused ordinary people like me who were sceptical of the vaccine to lose their livelihoods. You caused us to be cut off from society for months. You caused some to lose their life savings and the society you enabled led to suicides. And in your religious fervour in promoting an experimental vaccine approved for emergency use that you somehow knew was safe and effective, you have cost people their health and some, their lives. You have not loved your neighbour. In the name of loving your neighbour, you showed hatred and contempt towards an unprotected minority.
Perhaps you say, “But this was all an unfortunate necessity. We had to protect the vulnerable. By getting the vaccine we were stopping transmission and protecting others.” Absolute bosh. If you can still believe this after all this time, there is little hope for you. Look around you! Was it just a pandemic of the unvaccinated? Did the vaccine stop transmission of the virus like you sanctimoniously told us as we got fired and barred from society? Because that was why you shut us out of society and mandated us out of our jobs wasn’t it? Did that system protect people? Did the passport system stop the spread? Did the vaccinated escape COVID? Or what about Jacinda’s whopper; “People who are vaccinated will still get Covid-19 it just means that they won’t get sick and they won’t die.” Was this true?
July 2022 NZ
Regarding deaths, it’s hard to get good current information, but for the period May 22 – July 16 in New South Wales, despite 83% of the population being at least double-vaccinated, they accounted for 99.4, 96.3 and 85.4 per cent, respectively, of NSW Covid hospital admission, ICU and deaths.
Oh. Yeah. You were wrong. The vaccine is crap.
Did you ever stop to think about how we were telling you all this would happen before it did? Did you ever wonder? Are we clairevoyants? Was it just a lucky guess? Or is there just a certain amount of wisdom in being sceptical about what the most transparent government ever tells you? Perhaps investigating data coming out of countries who were ahead of us on the vaccine rollout enabled us to predict months ahead what was going to happen here? Were we less gullible and less swayed by fear and mass hysteria? Yes.
Am I being too strong? Well for those of you who are still just watching, reading or listening to the Labour party’s media arm otherwise known as the New Zealand mainstream media, here is some recent worldwide news that might hopefully cause you to offer apologies to those you wronged during the pandemic.
July
The German authorities admitted to serious adverse events attributable to 1 in 5000 doses
August
Thai study found that 29% of 13-18 year-olds in study registered cardiovascular effects after the vaccine
September
Denmark stopped offering the mRNA vaccines for under 18s and then later to healthy individuals under 50
October
Norway says no healthy people under 65 should have additional vaccines
Florida State Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo now recommends men under 40 avoid mRNA vaccinations due to an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death
All around the Western world, where mRNA vaccinations were promoted heavily, there is now a worrying trend of excess deaths
This was the basis of the justification for vaccine passports and vaccine mandates. Yet the vaccine was never tested for this before being released. Nevertheless, ‘experts’, our prime minister and other influential people including so-called health experts lied to us saying the vaccines prevented transmission. Now we know they clearly don’t. Mandates and passports were not about health. They were about punishing those who dared to question the nonsense.
Many have seen through the bollocks for a long time. We thought the truth would come out a lot sooner. But look, covid is over. The lies are being exposed and the truth will out. With every month that passes, the vaccines look worse and worse and our scepticism more and more justified. We were right, but don’t hold that against us. Screw up some courage and show some moral decency by apologising to those in your circle of family and acquaintances who you hurt through your actions or inaction.
The MSM in this country are cheerleaders for the ‘safe and effective’ Pfizer vaccine. Despite the clear and overwhelming evidence of their failure all around us, there doesn’t seem to be a sceptic among them. Anyone with a decent memory knows that they do not do what we were told they would do.
Witness this tragic line from this article on an extremist anti-vaccine group overseas.
Apparently, the benefits are indisputable. Well, I think a growing number of us would dispute that. And the mainstream media wonder why we no longer trust them.
“The Manly 7” … What a title! How truly fitting, for that is what they are; manly. Courageous men taking a stand on faith and conviction. Holding fast to principles and showing a measure of courage and strength that has sent shock waves around the world! God bless them!
It has been amazing to see the events of this week unfold. On Monday, the Manly Sea Eagles were informed that on the Thursday of the same week, their team would be playing in new jerseys decorated with the rainbow pride flag. I am proud to say that my brother, Josh Aloiai, along with 6 teammates (Jason Saab, Christian Tuipulotu, Josh Schuster, Haumole Olakau’atu, Tolu Koula, and Toafofoa Sipley) refused to dishonour themselves in this way. And last night (Thursday) they were not even allowed to attend the game.
No Despair
What has truly stood out to me has been the contrast between the Manly 7 and the woke outrage mobs. On the one hand, you can see 7 men taking a stand for what they believe in. As a result they have received insults, death threats, slander in the media, people have turned up to their houses hurling abuse, and their families have been targeted. Nevertheless, unwavering! No despair to be found among them! Resolved, committed, and joyful.
On the other hand, among the reactors, there is wailing in the streets. In Leviticus, God pronounces the kind of judgment that he would inflict on a rebellious people. One of the punishments he imposes on them is a spirit of cowardice; he says, “I will send faintness into their hearts… The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.” (Leviticus 26:36). One journalist wrote about how all of this breaks his heart, justifies the deepest darkest thoughts of LGBTTQ+ people, leads to depression, self-harm, and suicide. He talks about how he is “transported into the home of a young NRL fan who is part of the LGBTTQIA+ community and is being told by this boycott their very existence is wrong.”[1] The faux outrage and pearl-clutching is cringe-worthy.
At a time when LGBTQ+ ideology is celebrated and promoted in every realm of life, the smallest perceived slight causes grown men to have emotional meltdowns. A few men refuse to bend over backwards to accommodate their every whim and tell them how lovely their sodomy is, and their lips tremble as they fear for their lives. They call this “homophobic bigotry”.[2] Some of them show their hand and make clear that mere acceptance is not enough. Nothing less than active allegiance is what they demand.[3] Meanwhile, The Manly 7 are receiving actual death threats and calls for social exclusion. Their knees are not quaking. A hundred thousand men could not set them to flight right now!
The alphabet crowd have shown themselves to be people who have spines of playdough, while the real men have been an inspiring example of strength.
Just A Rainbow?
Of course, I can’t speak for any of the men, but there are plenty of good reasons why no Christian would want to adorn himself with the gay rainbow. For starters, the rainbow is a Christian symbol that reminds us of the covenant God made with Noah. The gay rainbow is a co-opting of this symbol that instead glories in “pride”; a sin that has been considered the core of rebellion for centuries.
More than that, we all know that in our culture, the gay rainbow, in all its variants, is a celebration of LGBTQ+ ideology. The same ideology that fundamentally denies God’s rights as creator, rejects God’s good design for marriage and sex, ignores the obvious reality of the male/female order, and now chemically castrates and mutilates people.
Of course, Christians would not want to align themselves with such things. To Hell with that.
Denying reality and taking pride in shameful things is utterly foolish. In God’s providence, this was put on full display last night. While I always support whatever team my brother plays for, I couldn’t help but see the humour in how things played out. The Manly 7 refused to make themselves less respectable. They refused to sow the seeds of compromise in their own hearts. They refused to emasculate themselves. They refused to allow evil to gain another small victory through them.
At the same time, the men glorifying LGBTQ+ pride put on a shameful performance. The men in the rainbow shirts were pounded by the cocks (Roosters). Anyone watching that game knew full well that if The Manly 7 were there it would have been one sided destruction. In sum, the pride celebration was the cause of a shameful loss.
Hypocrites
Perhaps the most popular push back this week has been the charge of hypocrisy. The woke crowd really thought they had found a zinger when someone realised that the Manly jersey contains a logo for a gambling company and their stadium is named after an alcoholic beverage. Even though the Bible does not condemn alcohol or gambling as inherently sinful, it was enough for them to run with anyway. Here was me thinking that most people knew about the story where Jesus turned water into wine. Now, we all recognise that gambling and alcohol can be abused, and both are the instruments of harm in many lives, nevertheless, a casual bet here and there, or a beer with friends is perfectly fine. But even among Christians who think any use of alcohol, or any gambling is unwise, there is a recognition that LGBTQ perversions are on a whole other level. They are what the Bible describes as an abomination to God. There is no moral equivalence between the two.
To The Manly 7
Thank you for your bold and courageous stand. I know I am not the only one who has been deeply encouraged by you all. Right now, the world wants you to feel ashamed of yourselves. They want you to hang your heads and feel embarrassed for your beliefs. They want you to be afraid and shocked by what is happening. I am confident that they will fail in their efforts. These are words that I’m sure you have reminded yourselves of over the past week, but Peter says, “do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:12-13).
Brothers, be joyful in this time. Be joyful because you have been counted worthy to suffer along with Christ. Be joyful that you have a strength that does not come from you; a strength that comes from God himself. You are men! Your enemies are faint of heart next to you. They are sold out to the narrative that they are perpetual victims. No matter how much you give, they are committed to always being discontent and on the brink of breakdown. I thank God that you men are not that frail. In Christ we are more than conquerors. As Christians and lovers of truth, we possess a kind of strength that cannot be taken from us. It can only be forfeited. Since this is the case, do not forfeit your strength. Let your conscience stand or fall before the Lord. This is the kind of faith that tyrants have feared for two thousand years.
Jesus said, “what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” I judge by your actions that you do know this, but whatever you do from here, there is likely a cost that will need to be paid. It’s not whether there will be a cost, but which cost will it be? On one side there is the physical cost of sponsorship deals, opportunities, popularity, and success. But on the other side, there is the cost that is charged to the soul of the man who compromises himself. Continue to be the kind of men that you want your sons to be. Continue to be the kind of men you your wives and partners admire. Continue to live before God and not men.
Thank you for igniting zeal in so many of us and God bless you all!
