Welcome back, dear listeners, to Season 4 of “A Season of Me Stories”! Can you believe it? We’ve been together in the podcast world for a whole year now, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to dive into another season of conversations about the different seasons of life. To kick off this season, our first episode is titled “Barbie, Preachers, & John Wayne – Things We Talked about this Summer”.
Now, you might be thinking that I’m a little late to the game by discussing the Barbie movie. But trust me, this movie was a big deal this summer and sparked countless conversations. What started as a simple idea for a podcast episode soon grew into something more significant. As I watched the movie with my family, I found myself captivated by the themes it explored, particularly the relationships between men and women, as well as the society we’ve built.
In one pivotal moment, the movie’s creator has a conversation with Barbie, giving her the choice to either remain in the plastic world or become fully human. This scene hit me hard as a mother of four daughters, making me reflect on the hopes and dreams I have for them in a world that continues to evolve. It reminded me of the autonomy we possess, and the responsibility to shape the future we pass on to future generations.
Throughout the Barbie movie, numerous aspects of femininity, masculinity, and our societal realities are delved into. An article by Amy Peeler, titled “Neither Barbie Nor Ken,” brilliantly emphasizes that neither Barbie nor Ken should overshadow others or diminish the importance of partnership. The goal should be finding ways to live as equals, acknowledging the existing inequalities and striving for a balanced society.
As I contemplated the movie’s message, I couldn’t help but recall Kristen Kobes Du Mez’s book, “Jesus and John Wayne,” which discusses the corruption of Western culture on our faith and the elevation of toxic masculinity. This reminded me of the importance of maintaining true Christian values of love, compassion, and inclusivity, rather than succumbing to harmful patriarchal ideologies.
Join me as we explore these thought-provoking topics and dive into how our history and culture have shaped our identities and relationships. While I may not have all the answers, I’m grateful for the opportunity to have these conversations and explore the intersection of faith, feminism, and societal progress.
So, grab a cup of coffee, get comfortable, and let’s embark on this exciting journey together in Season 4 of “A Season of Me Stories”!
Episode Transcript:
Heidi Kleine:
Greetings, my friends, and welcome back. It is time for season 4 of a season of me stories to begin. And you might be able to tell I’m a little bit excited about that. At the end of this season. We will have been together in the podcast world for a year, and I’m really excited to launch into season 4 of this format of having conversations with you about all the seasons of life and the things that go on in them. So this is season 4 episode 1, which I’m calling Barbie Preachers and John Wayne, things we talked about this summer. So you might actually be thinking, the Barbie movie. She’s a little late to the game on this one.
Heidi Kleine:
That was sort of a big deal this summer and, just at the root of so many conversations. And I found myself frequently thinking, I have got to do a podcast about this. And as life kind of progressed through the summer, it just kept, getting bigger and broader. The topic seems like something that needs to be addressed. I saw the movie myself with my husband and one of my daughters and her partner, within the 1st week of it coming out and and really truly, I thought I was going, to see a Barbie movie. A pink plastic, movie that would make me think of raising my girls, and maybe be kind of, you know, campy and, over the top, and quite frankly, it was. And so I will tell you that if you haven’t seen the Barbie movie and you don’t want spoilers, then you might not wanna listen to the rest of this podcast. But, it’s been out there for a really long time now.
Heidi Kleine:
So a lot of those spoilers are around, and it will shortly, be available digitally and pretty soon will be able to watch it at home and stuff. So I challenge you to, go ahead and watch the movie. I was amazed at how I felt watching this movie, watching this movie with my daughters, and really thinking about all of the themes that it brought up. So much so that I recently, grabbed my Sam and Dad, and told them I wanted them to see the movie with me so we could talk about some of these themes around, women and men and their relationships with each other and with the world and sort of the society that we’ve built and everything that we want to talk about in this arena it it does kind of seem like like we’re having a moment. To really broaden and deepen some of these conversations, and so I just want to highlight a couple of the aspects of the Barbie movie, that really spoke to me. And and the one that really, truly, kind of, encapsulates all of it as is a moment, fairly late in the movie, when the creator of Barbie is, having a conversation about with Barbie. At this point, she’s actually giving her a choice and telling her that she gets to decide if she wants to sort of live in the plastic world or become a fully human. And in that moment, the character of Ruth.
Heidi Kleine:
Ruth Handler, the person woman who created Perbee, says, we mothers stand still so that our daughters can look back and see how far they’ve come. And that statement, as the mom of 4 daughters just made me gasp and think about just all of of the hopes and dreams that I’ve had for my daughters and for the world that they would inherit the hopes and dreams I have for my grandchildren, and for the stories that my own mother told me about how she needed to be out in the world, that she needed to work in the way that she did, because she wanted to be sure that I had choices. And I think every generation has the opportunity to really think about, you know, the world that they inhabit, the world that they raised their children in, but also the world that they are passing forward and passing on to their children. And and the level of autonomy that we give to our when we have raised them and kinda send them out into the world. Ruth is reminding Barbie that she really gets to decide. She gets to decide who she’s gonna be in this world. And I actually came across a quote from wealth Ralph Waldo Emerson that I’ve, been keeping in mind this month. And it says the only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
Heidi Kleine:
So we all have that option to make a decision about who we’re gonna be in the world and how we’re gonna show up. And so in this a whole Barbie movie. Right? We’re talking about all kinds of aspects of femininity, of masculinity, of capitalism, just all kinds of, realities of our society, and where we’ve been, and where we’re going. And, there was an article written by Amy Peeler, I highly recommend it, called Neither Barbie Nor Ken. And this was on, she spoke on the Holy Post podcast, and it’s on their their web page as a blog post if you wanna check it out yourself. But the she talks about how in the movie, although it can seem that, there’s sort of this anti Ken or pro Barbie reality. The message of the movie is that neither Barbie nor Ken can be lifted up and held over everybody else in a way that that makes takes away from the partnership. And what do I mean by that? I you know, it it was a chance to c to have Ken, right? Ken goes Ken and Barbie end up in the real world, and Barbie goes into the real world believing that, all the Barbies are in control, right? All the women have all the positions of power, and they are able to make all the decisions and do whatever they want in the world.
Heidi Kleine:
And Ken just wants Barbie’s attention, and it’s sad that he’s not getting it. Right? It’s clearly not an ideal world in Barbie’s world either. And when Ken and Barbie go into the real world and Ken sees that in the real world, men have all the power and are treating women as objects and are kind of flipping the script. Right? Some he goes back into Barbie world and sort of brings that knowledge to the other Kens, and then the pendulum swings completely in the other direction. And to me, the message of the movie is that neither option works, right, that we need to really, truly us to look for ways to live as partners, and to be honest about the ways in which subjugation happens in the ways in which our society elevates one over the other. And and it was interesting to me, because, you know, one of the other things that kinda came to mind when when, Ken is sort of sploring masculinity. He just sort of dives into all the Western tropes. And, you know, horses and cowboys.
Heidi Kleine:
And it reminded me of, Kristin Cobez D’Mez’s book, Jesus and John Wayne, where she talks about how sort of the the Western culture corrupted our faith life and caused this this elevation of, sort of, a rugged masculinity, of patriarchy and authoritarian rule and a sort of ambivalence towards the voice of marginalized people, whether those were women or people of color. We sort of lost the message that Jesus gave us of loving one another, loving each other, and really looking out for the little guy, which I believe is the message of the gospel, to, that we are to love Jesus and love each other and care for each other, no matter what. And so I just found myself thinking about those messages. You know, we were also, you know, watching 18/83 and kind of seeing how, you know, the American West was, developed in the ways in which sort of the cowboy culture moved across our country and us drove indigenous people out of their homes. And, again, horrible treatment towards all marginalized groups, women, people of color, indigenous people. Right? Like, how did we get to the point where that became part of, sort of, the fabric of of who we are. And I don’t really have a lot of answers, except that it is exciting to me that there are spaces that we can have these conversations. As many you know, I have spoken before about how I call myself a Christian feminist.
Heidi Kleine:
I really believe that women are all over the stories of the early church. They’re all over our our scriptures, even though we have not pointed at them in our teachings, we have not elevated them. They’re there. And, I enjoy digging into the the scriptures that we have, as well as some of the ones that we’ve chosen to reject as we start to explore, like, what really was God’s intention for men and women and for how they we’re going to to live in the world. And so I I just found that the the Barbie movie brought up a lot of themes and a lot of conversations that give us platforms to have more conversations about how the world is, and how the world has been, and how we’d like to see it be different in the future. How we’d like to see it be different for our children, how we’d like to see it be different for our our church, for those of us who practice Christianity, how we would like to see things different, which actually sort of leads me to the the final point in the conversation, because the last thing that that came up kind of towards the end of the summer was, a pastor who wrote an open letter to his congregation as, he was experiencing burnout and leaving ministry. And, and he shared some valid concerns about the ways in which he felt unsupportive by his by his congregation, by, the position that he was placed in. And of course, there was sponsors to that that that kinda came back at him, and, you know, were defensive of the congregations.
Heidi Kleine:
There were kind of a back and forth. But the thing that I noted in this is that it all, kind of, ties to this, sort of, people pleasing attitude that we have talked about all along that leads to burnout. This, perspective that we have to keep everybody happy, that it’s our job to. Not take care of ourselves. It’s our job to concede to the needs of others. And so so for the for people in sort of these caring professions, they tend to lean into that people pleasing behavior. And so I’ve got kind of circling back to the the Barbie movie. This whole, idea that that mothers are going to be self sacrificing and give up everything for their children and pastors are going to give up their families to take care of their congregations.
Heidi Kleine:
And, like, there’s a personality in all of that and there’s this tendency towards not taking care of our selves. And honestly, I’m not gonna say that it is completely the responsibility of any party in all of this. I think that women in our world and people who are in caring professions need to learn more about how to have boundaries, how to practice self care, how to take care of themselves, and I think that society needs to learn about what they’re actually and congregations need to learn how to to actually take care of their pastors or to make space for their pastors to take care of themselves. And so these are just all the things that I’ve been thinking about this summer, and I think a lot of the the themes that we saw in all of this are things that are gonna be coming up as we continue into our conversation this fall. So many of the things that we are confronting as we look to have a season where we prioritize our dream are the things that we’ve talked about here. The things that get in the way. The people pleasing attitudes, the ideas that we need to be there for other people more than we’re there for ourselves. And so, in this fall season, as we go into, the next 12 episodes, and we start to talk about how to pursue a season of me.
Heidi Kleine:
Again, if we as we tell stories of times that that’s happened, we’re gonna be talking a lot about, like, what are the some rules that we’re confronting. What are the norms and the ideas, whether they come from society, whether they come from the church, whether they come from, just simply our own expectations of the way things should be. I’m just really sighted to, be having these conversations and to have, sort of, these platforms to use to reflect back to us, the things that we would like to see be different. Because I believe, we have the potential to make the changes and to all be better off in the end, because it’s neither Barbie nor Ken. It’s us together building a world of love, a world of grace, a world that offers what our children and our grandchildren need to grow and thrive, and what we need to grow and thrive right where we are and right where we’re planted. So, again, super excited to be back here for episode or season 4, And, just looking forward to connecting with you over the fall this year.