Full disclosure: I haven't seen the Barbie movie. If my 8 year old daughter hadn't been out of town with my wife Nicole since it came out, no doubt we would have taken her to see it (although with respect to Oppenheimer, I'm on my own).
When it comes to the culture that we live in, whatever nation or era that might be, Christians have four primary options when it comes to how they will interact with it: Promotion, Animosity, Withdrawal, and Engagement. Let me illustrate what these might look like with respect to the summer blockbuster that is The Barbie Movie.
1. Promotion
"The Barbie movie illustrates what God intended gender roles to be." Admittedly, I haven't seen anything like this in the many online commentaries and comments swirling around. Aside from a TV show like The Chosen, you don't often see commentary written from a Christian perspective that explicitly endorses cultural artistic expressions, but on the somewhat rare occasion that a particular song, play, show, movie, etc. does indeed reflect the Judeo-Christian worldview, it would be appropriate to point that out. {FYI, just because the content in question is produced by a "Christian" studio/writer/director, etc. doesn't mean it will properly reflect a Biblical mindset, such creations ought to still be held up to God's Word for evaluation on their own merits.}
2. Animosity
"Demonic plot of Barbie movie revealed!" "Liberals are trying to indoctrinate your kids through the Barbie Movie!" "Feminist Crap!" I have actually seen each of those headlines in recent weeks, in all cases the message is clear, "Don't watch this movie because it is liberal/feminist/demonic." An entire cottage industry has evolved, and is making a lot of money, creating just this sort of antagonistic response to most everything produced by the entertainment industry today.
A brief note on the problem with the "all animosity all the time" approach: (1) It has the tendency to convince both fellow Christians and non-believers that we have nothing to offer each other, that in fact we are enemies and should treat each other as such. (2) It quickly becomes a "boy who cried wolf" phenomenon. When everything produced by Disney, for example, is labeled as demonic by online pundits and cable news talking heads, whatever values such warnings may have ever had becomes diluted (and non-believers look even more skeptically at Christianity wondering what on earth we're thinking). (3) The end result of this type of response is that it becomes an exercise in preaching to the choir, those who shout "amen" are with you, but everyone else decides to keep their distance.
3. Withdrawal
"Haven't seen it, don't really care." Now, the Barbie movie is the example, and that won't be on everyone's must-see list no matter how much money it makes (after two weeks the answer is a whole lot of money), and certainly not every Christian thinker needs to weigh in on every cultural moment of import. The withdrawal impulse is reflected in the "moat mentality," as I like to call it. By that I mean the tendency of many Christians to view their neighbors and country as a lost cause and respond by digging a proverbial moat around themselves and ceasing to engage altogether.
This is, in the end, a self-defeating option, retreating to the modern equivalent of monasteries is not a viable option. No need to have an informed opinion on everything, but walking away entirely is not going to help anyone.
4. Engagement
"Our culture is struggling with questions about power, gender, purpose, and death. Barbie raises these questions brilliantly, but believers can point to the One who ultimately answers them: the Triune God who created all humans with purpose and for partnership." You probably noticed that the engagement option wasn't very headline worthy, that's part of the point. Rather than click-bait, true engagement seeks to look at something produced by human beings, flawed as we all are, and evaluate it through the lens of the Judeo-Christian worldview. In doing so, we hope to highlight that which is in keeping with the Word of God, point out that which is contradictory to it, and offer insight that illustrates how the Gospel would fill in the gaps or correct the shortcomings of the what is being evaluated.
The above quote was taken from the review of the Barbie movie by Professor Amy Peeler, professor of New Testament studies at Wheaton College. Having already written a book entitled, Women and the Gender of God, she was well positioned to offer insight into the issues about gender roles raised in the movie.
Neither Barbie Nor Ken - A Barbie Movie Review - by Professor Amy Peeler
Note: I have seen numerous people respond with animosity toward the director of the Barbie movie, and/or the movie itself, by attacking Professor Peeler as if writing a review of a movie (or book, song, show, etc.) automatically means that you somehow endorse everything in it. That is nonsense and immoral, but far too commonplace in the social media realm. For example, I mentioned the death of Jon Snow from Game of Thrones in my sermon on Sunday as an example of how characters with a moral code suffer when those around them live by a survival of the fittest mentality. It would be unfair to then smear me (so please don't) by pointing out non-Christian ideas that exist in Game of Thrones (of which there are plenty to choose from) simply because I used that as an example. To engage with the culture thoughtfully does not make you responsible for the entirety of that cultural expression.
That's the danger of participating in engagement. When one puts commentary out there, slings and arrows are often the primary response you see, often times from both the right and left of what you've written/spoken, no matter how far to the right or left your position actually may be {online there is always someone more to the margins willing to shoot at you}. Nevertheless, engagement is what true Christian apologetics consists of, it sometimes will be a positive review and interaction with the material created by others, sometimes it will be a negative review, the important connector will be honest and thoughtful responses.
Be honest, you'd rather see more kind dialogue than the endless stream of click-bait anger, wouldn't you?
Call me an optimist, I have to hope you're as sick of the endless invective as I am.
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