July 26, 2023 • 20 mins
Couch Talks is the bonus episode of You Need Therapy where Kat answers questions that listeners send to kathryn@youneedtherapy.com. This week, Kat takes a break from the questions and gives her two cents on all the drama and controversy surrounding the new Barbie Movie.
Follow Kat on Instagram: @Kat.Defatta
Follow the podcast Instagram: @YouNeedTherapyPodcast
Have a question, concern, guest idea, something else? Reach Kat at: Kathryn@youneedtherapypodcast.com
Heard about Three Cords Therapy but don’t know what it is? Click here!
Produced by: @HoustonTilley
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of Couch
Talks on You Need Therapy. My name is kat I
am the host. And if you're new or newer and
you don't know what couch Talks is, it is the
special bonus episode of You Need Therapy podcast where I
answer questions that you guys send to me and you
can send those to Katherine at You Need Therapy podcast
(00:31):
dot com. My name is spelled with the y Katherine
k r y N. I know it's not the normal
way people spell Katherine, And you know what, it actually
did affect me growing up because I could never get
the like keychains or those necklaces of like the little
piece of rice with your name written on it, or
any of those things that were personalized on like field
(00:52):
trips or gas stations, the aquarium, the zoo, any place
like that, because they always spelt my name kt an e.
And at one point I tried to change my name
to Katie but it didn't stick. So I just never
got any of those things. Anyway, if you've been selling
my name, kat Ie, I haven't been getting your emails.
(01:13):
So it's Catherine with a why. I feel like I
haven't shared that with you guys yet, so I guess
it just felt like the appropriate time, still working through
that experience as a child. Anyway, before we get into
today's conversation, I want to give the little disclaimer that
I do it on every episode that although I'm a therapist,
(01:34):
the podcast is you need therapy, this does not serve
a replacement or a substitute for any actual mental health services. Now,
I know, I just explained to couch Chalks and I said,
we're going to answer a question that somebody sent in. However,
today's a special day because it is the weekend or
the week after the weekend of Barbenheimer, which was the
(01:54):
release weekend of the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer movie. I
had no intention of seeing either of them, and I
saw both of them this weekend. I saw Oppenheimer on
Friday night with a bunch of friends, and I saw
Barbie the next day on a whim. We randomly bought
tickets and went with a friend, and both of the
movies were, in my opinion, awesome. Oppenheimer was very confusing
(02:17):
and was so fast. I think that I want to
see it again because I think a lot of it
would make a lot more sense now that I kind
of know what's going on Barbie, I want to see
it again, just because it was so good and I
laughed so hard, and to be honest, like I said,
I went on a whim. I didn't really care much
about seeing it, and a friend randomly was like, we
should go see the Barbie movie. So I had no
(02:38):
idea what I was walking into with the Barbie movie.
I actually did a little bit research before Oppenheimer, but
I had no idea what I was walking into. I
obviously knew know what Barbie is, but I didn't know
what kind of movie was supposed to be, what it
was supposed to be about. And maybe that's why I
didn't really have any interest in going to see it.
But I'm so glad I did, and it was a
movie that was meant to be, from my experience, both
(03:00):
challenging and thought provoking and entertaining, which I feel people
have missed a little bit. And I personally, like I said,
thought the movie was hilarious, and often it was that,
oh my gosh, this is so funny. I'm laughing because
it's true humor, and then deep down you're going like,
oh my god, it's true, like when Barbie responds to
(03:24):
an award she was getting by saying, I worked hard,
so I deserve this, and everybody laughs because well, women
aren't supposed to say that, and the usual response to
award is oh, my gosh, I can't believe it, Like, oh,
I feel like there's so many other more deserving people
out there. I couldn't possibly but it was just no,
I worked hard and I deserve this, And I thought
(03:46):
that was very I mean, it was funny. It was
eye opening because I was like, oh my gosh, I
can't imagine ever saying that. And I left this movie
with a lot of thoughts. I had good thoughts. I
had some really empowered thoughts, thoughts that I knew we're
going to bring up some different more thoughts. And out
of all of those thoughts, none of them were centered
(04:07):
in my experience around fearing. I left feeling very excited
to have conversations about it and validated. That's how I left. Now,
I know my experience is different from many others. There's
a lot of things that impact how I perceive and
take in and digest content. One of those I think
(04:28):
that makes a big difference in the Barbie movie is
being a woman, and very quickly, I learned after watching
this movie that a lot of people did not have
the same experience as me. People were deeply offended by
the movie, deeply frightened by the movie, like very frightened,
like stay away, keep your kids away, this is going
(04:50):
to ruin your salvation, this is going to ruin our
country kind of stuff, like very extreme. Now again, I've
my experience was. I felt empowered, validated, grateful for this
movie and also challeng at the same time, which I
think is a very cool place to be. And I
think that goes back to me saying this movie was
supposed to be entertaining and thought provoking. That's a very
cool place to be. I don't feel like as a
(05:12):
person I have everything figured out, so I'm very open,
even though it can be uncomfortable at times, to get
feedback about myself, my beliefs, what I think, how I act,
and this movie kind of hit on some things that
maybe I need to do some more digging around on,
or work on, or pay attention to more. Now, for
the record, I'm totally fine with anybody disagreeing with how
(05:35):
I interpreted the movie because we're all different humans, so
we're going to have different experiences. Anyone's allowed to like it,
anyone's allowed to not like it. It just becomes very
disheartening when the responses to something that hits on a
nerve can be so I want to say, like mean
spirited and hateful and just unkind. We cannot like something
(05:59):
and also not have to rip it to shreds. I
can not like a meal I get at a restaurant
and not have to go to yelp and give them
a zero star review and tell everybody not to ever
go there because it's the worst place in the world.
I can just like not go back. The thing about
this movie that was cool is that it may makes
you think. For a lot of people, including myself, thinking
(06:21):
can be scary because what if this changes things? What
if the world changes? Well in the world of Barbie.
In the Barbie movie, they actually hit on that and
they said, that's one of the quotes that people are
really grabbing onto. Is actually I don't know if this
is the Diruct quote, but there was something along the
lines of like, that's life, Like it's constantly changing. If
you're living life, you're constantly changing, and life is in
(06:44):
the world is constantly changing. And the movie had a
lot of messages, but the main thing that I felt,
other than that empowered sense of validation, the main thing
I left feeling was a sense of relief. And I
think the big thing that people are paying attention to
and focusing on is the patriarchy and how they talked
(07:04):
about that and how men are portrayed in the movie.
And yeah, that is a huge part, and there could
be a lot of discussion on this, and there is
out there. And what felt more important to me than
to dissect all of that is the amount I actually
felt like I was understood and I was not alone,
(07:25):
and being that understood, there's a lot of people in
that theater that you could tell by some of the
size of relief or the certain kinds of laughter. It
wasn't just me that feels this pressure that was kind
of released in some of the scenes of this movie.
I think it was the acknowledgment of a lot of
the pressure that I, as a woman in this world, feels.
(07:46):
It was the acknowledgment of that pressure that for a
small moment kind of released some of the pressure. And
I was not expecting to leave this movie feeling that
because the Barbie Doll has been a part of of
our culture that has reinforced some really challenging expectations and
unhealthy beauty standards to live up to. So I did
(08:10):
not feel like that was what this movie was going
to bring me. I was pleasantly surprised. And I saw
Margo Robbie say in an interview that Barbie went to
the moon like the Barbie Doll went to the moon
before women were allowed to have credit cards, And so
this is saying and giving an example of how Barbie
was this example that women could be what they want
(08:32):
to be. They could be anything, which is amazing. At
the same time, this has gotten a little out of
hand because we take that so often to mean that
women have to be everything, because they can be anything.
We can't choose one thing, because we can be all
of these things. So then we have to be all
these things. And that's because we should be grateful that
(08:52):
we can be all these things, and we have to
take advantage the ability to do that, because we haven't
always had that ability. And America Fararra's character really hit
the nail on the head. If you've seen the movie,
you know exactly what I'm talking about with her monologue
that was near the end, and if you haven't seen it,
I highly recommend going googling that you can find it
on the internet right now. I also recommend seeing the movie.
(09:14):
But in it, part of what she said this is
just a little chopped up pieces of it. Part of
what she said, this is just a little chopped up
pieces of it. It's not the whole thing. But she said,
it's literally impossible to be a woman. We have to
be extraordinary, but somehow we always are doing it wrong.
(09:36):
Not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything
is your fault. And then she went on later to say,
I'm so tired of watching myself and every single other
woman tie herself in knots so people will like us,
which I felt so hard. Later when Ken never apologized
(09:57):
to Barbie, he literally stole her house, and Barbie was
one to apologize to Ken for leading him on, which sure,
maybe she needed to do that, she needed to own
up to that, And I think that's a really important
part of this movie to remember, is that Barbie took
accountability for some of the things that she did were
that were not cool, like she should have apologized. She
(10:18):
wasn't very kind to Ken, and did kind of take
advantage of him, and there was acknowledgment of that. And
I think that that is so powerful because what it's
saying is this isn't a black and white thing. We
can say, hey, what I did isn't cool, and what
we're doing right now isn't working, So I can take
responsibility and it's not on my fault, and we can
work together to find something that actually works for more
(10:40):
of us. And I think what I have been seeing
is that the movie evoked a lot of discomfort for
how men were portrayed in Barbie Land, which I feel
so funny talking about Bobby Land Ken Barbie, but I
think a lot of people did not like that Ken
had no power, he was overlooked and kind of seeing
his dumb and shallow at times. And I don't know
(11:03):
my interpretation. I don't know that anyone was trying to
say that men shouldn't have power and that they are dumb.
It was more so a glimpse of what women have
been fighting for all of their lives, and the movie
was not really about men at all. It's about women
and showcasing the reality of what this world would look
like if the roles were reversed, and yeah, it was
(11:25):
exaggerated at times, and that's where this the Sometimes you
have to do that to drive a point, and sometimes
I mean it's a movie. Part of it was entertaining,
but again, this really was showcasing the reality of what
it would look like if roles were reversed, and what
we have grown to just think is normal. It's like
a custom for this kind of universe to just being
(11:47):
normal here. And really, if we flip the script, wait,
this isn't cool, and so I want to I wanted
to just touch on that because this thing that is
so cool, it's this ability to to really show people
the experience that women have, really show them what it
looks like. None of that is for the purpose, in
(12:08):
my experience, of shaming men or making men feel worthless
or bad. It's just a picture that can easily be seen.
Oh this makes sense. And you know, one of the
most interesting things and one of the things that hit
me the most in this movie is after Barbie went
and experienced the real world, she said, everyone hates women.
(12:31):
Men hate women, women hate women. It's the one thing
that everybody can agree on. And this movie is just
a glaring highlight of the impossible place women are in.
They put themselves in it, and people put them in
that position. We're just in this very difficult position, and
we have our own internal and conscious bias that pit
(12:52):
us against each other. Even while we're working to untie
ourselves of past versions of women and what women were
seen as and how women were treated, we still end
up doing that a little to ourselves. This was important
to me because in the discussion of equality, in the
discussion of gender bias and any of that, in those discussions,
(13:17):
we generally tend to call one person to the table
and we kind of just like put blame on them,
and it's also their job to change so then we
can be better or we can have a better life.
There's a lot of canceling. It's like one person's in
trouble and like they didn't learn those behaviors or thoughts
or beliefs from anybody else. We've just gotten in this
(13:37):
routine of pitting one person against another group of people,
which makes sense, But I think that what might be
more helpful, and what I heard in a lot of
this movie, again with my own lens of viewing it,
is that we have to call everyone to the table.
Instead of pointing the blame on one person. I guess
people generally don't like being called to the table. We
(14:00):
get defensive really quick. I do it as well. But
rarely is it one person's fault and rarely can it
be one person's responsibility to shift things alone. And with
the fault it goes back to like, people are influenced,
and so we also have to look at what are
they being influenced by. We learn our beliefs, we learn
about the world. We learn about everything by our experiences,
(14:22):
by seeing things, by hearing things. We don't have any
original thoughts. All of our thoughts from come from things
that we've seen, her, done, experienced. And everyone fuels attacked
all the time and our current climate, But are we
attacking people all the time or are we trying to
(14:43):
create conversations and really don't know how? And maybe we
are attacking people all the time. I also don't know
if we just haven't been taught how to have conversations
and we haven't been taught how to access what we're
really having conversations about. And maybe that's a comversation worth
having before we talk about anything else. Is how do
(15:04):
we access what the conversation is really about how do
we bring that to the forefront. And I wrote a
post on Instagram on Monday about learning how to love
people well? And that's been something that I've really been
digging into in my own personal life. Learning how to
love people well that I don't agree with, that scare me,
that have hurt me, like people that I don't have
(15:26):
an issue with at all, how do I love them well?
And yeah, I mean people I agree with, in people
I don't agree with. And what I've come to is
that idea that loving people well is less about teaching
them what is right and teaching them what is wrong,
and it's more about learning how to sit with my
own discomfort around differences that I'm experiencing. And I really
(15:47):
don't think most of us are good at doing that.
I'm often not very good at doing this. I'm learning
a lot about my own ability to regulate different people's
opinions and thought processes. It's hard. And so I could
talk about the Barbie movie all day, I really could.
I could make a podcast that's seven hours long about
the Barbie Movie. I could interview so many people about
(16:08):
some of the stuff that comes up in it. But
I want to leave you guys with this more than
anything else is I want you to form your own
opinions about this movie or don't. I'm very aware that
many people won't even watch. I don't know that you'd
be listening to this podcast, but I'm very aware that
everybody's going to watch this movie. But I want you
to form your own opinions. You don't have to interpret
(16:29):
things the way I do. Who's to say I have
the best brain out there, you know. But while you
hold your own opinions, I want to challenge you to
allow others to have theirs without taking it personally. And
instead of starting to debate about who is right and
who is wrong, if we started conversations about how you
(16:50):
felt watching this movie, if we talked about our feelings,
I really think this discourse would be very different. And
if we think about it, you know, going back to
how a lot of people are focusing on the patriarchy
and how there's reverse sexism in this movie, and a
lot of the critiques are or around kind of how
that has been displayed. But if the people that are
(17:13):
looking at that or watching that, or maybe they haven't
been watching it, and that's one of the problems instead
of just talking about the subject matter, What if they
talked about what it felt like, what they felt when
they saw that. Because if we could express our fear
or our anger or our joy, then I think we'd
be having a different conversation than we're having now, and
(17:35):
we'd be having probably a fruitful conversation and will while
we lead to a much cooler place, and a much
more exciting place, and a much more just a place
where things can actually get done, Because I just feel
like when stuff like this comes out and it's polarizing,
we just start yelling at each other in sev talking about,
(17:56):
oh my gosh, I felt so empowered when I watched that,
I felt so understood, I felt a sense of relief,
And then this other person over here could say I
felt judged and I felt hurt and I felt scared.
If we talked about those things, then we actually are
going to start to listen to each other, because that's
(18:18):
what's driving a lot of our feelings. You know, I
love feelings. That's why they're so important to be able
to access and allow ourselves to access and talk about,
because our feelings are driving forces towards our behaviors. And
if I don't allow myself to access my feelings, I'm
going to let my driving, my behaviors be driven by
(18:39):
my attempt to avoid those feelings. But our feelings are
often things at our leading us to what we need,
so then we never even get to what we need.
And I know a lot of you have heard me
talk about that before, but I just think it's important
because it's so like that is tied into all I'm
talking about the Barbie movie and it comes back to this.
It all, it's very often coming back to this, And
(19:02):
so again I could talk about so many of these
scenes and how awesome they were from my perspective, and
how I could say all these people that are saying X,
Y Z are wrong and they're hearing it wrong, And
you know what, I think when it comes down to
they're seeing it differently, they're interpreting it differently, they're having
a different experience, and could we have a conversation about
(19:23):
that different experience versus saying you have to watch this
and you have to like this and you have to
understand why this is good, or don't watch this. It's
going to send you to hell and the Devil's going
to take over your soul and it's going to ruin
our country. What There's got to be some middle ground there.
So if you've seen the movie, let me know, like
(19:44):
share your opinions. What did it bring up with you
for you? I'd love to hear that and we could
have conversations about that and open up a space to
create change and help people through that versus yelling on
each other. I don't know. It's just never been helpful
long term. So that is going to do it today.
I know couch Talks was different. I'll get back to
(20:05):
the questions next week. If you have any questions, feel
free to send them. You can send them Katherine with
a y at Yountherapy podcast dot com. If you have
questions about specifically the Barbie moovie, I'd love to get
them feedback. We can talk about this as a group
on another episode. If you would like to follow us
at You Need Therapy Podcasts and at cat dot Defoda
on Instagram, and then you can also follow at Three
(20:27):
Quords Therapy on Instagram as well. That is my therapy
practice that is in Nashville. Until I talk to you
guys on Monday, I hope you guys have the day
the week, all of the moments that you need to have,
and that is all I have for you for today. Bye.
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of Couch
Talks on You Need Therapy. My name is kat I
am the host. And if you're new or newer and
you don't know what couch Talks is, it is the
special bonus episode of You Need Therapy podcast where I
answer questions that you guys send to me and you
can send those to Katherine at You Need Therapy podcast
(00:31):
dot com. My name is spelled with the y Katherine
k r y N. I know it's not the normal
way people spell Katherine, And you know what, it actually
did affect me growing up because I could never get
the like keychains or those necklaces of like the little
piece of rice with your name written on it, or
any of those things that were personalized on like field
(00:52):
trips or gas stations, the aquarium, the zoo, any place
like that, because they always spelt my name kt an e.
And at one point I tried to change my name
to Katie but it didn't stick. So I just never
got any of those things. Anyway, if you've been selling
my name, kat Ie, I haven't been getting your emails.
(01:13):
So it's Catherine with a why. I feel like I
haven't shared that with you guys yet, so I guess
it just felt like the appropriate time, still working through
that experience as a child. Anyway, before we get into
today's conversation, I want to give the little disclaimer that
I do it on every episode that although I'm a therapist,
(01:34):
the podcast is you need therapy, this does not serve
a replacement or a substitute for any actual mental health services. Now,
I know, I just explained to couch Chalks and I said,
we're going to answer a question that somebody sent in. However,
today's a special day because it is the weekend or
the week after the weekend of Barbenheimer, which was the
(01:54):
release weekend of the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer movie. I
had no intention of seeing either of them, and I
saw both of them this weekend. I saw Oppenheimer on
Friday night with a bunch of friends, and I saw
Barbie the next day on a whim. We randomly bought
tickets and went with a friend, and both of the
movies were, in my opinion, awesome. Oppenheimer was very confusing
(02:17):
and was so fast. I think that I want to
see it again because I think a lot of it
would make a lot more sense now that I kind
of know what's going on Barbie, I want to see
it again, just because it was so good and I
laughed so hard, and to be honest, like I said,
I went on a whim. I didn't really care much
about seeing it, and a friend randomly was like, we
should go see the Barbie movie. So I had no
(02:38):
idea what I was walking into with the Barbie movie.
I actually did a little bit research before Oppenheimer, but
I had no idea what I was walking into. I
obviously knew know what Barbie is, but I didn't know
what kind of movie was supposed to be, what it
was supposed to be about. And maybe that's why I
didn't really have any interest in going to see it.
But I'm so glad I did, and it was a
movie that was meant to be, from my experience, both
(03:00):
challenging and thought provoking and entertaining, which I feel people
have missed a little bit. And I personally, like I said,
thought the movie was hilarious, and often it was that,
oh my gosh, this is so funny. I'm laughing because
it's true humor, and then deep down you're going like,
oh my god, it's true, like when Barbie responds to
(03:24):
an award she was getting by saying, I worked hard,
so I deserve this, and everybody laughs because well, women
aren't supposed to say that, and the usual response to
award is oh, my gosh, I can't believe it, Like, oh,
I feel like there's so many other more deserving people
out there. I couldn't possibly but it was just no,
I worked hard and I deserve this, And I thought
(03:46):
that was very I mean, it was funny. It was
eye opening because I was like, oh my gosh, I
can't imagine ever saying that. And I left this movie
with a lot of thoughts. I had good thoughts. I
had some really empowered thoughts, thoughts that I knew we're
going to bring up some different more thoughts. And out
of all of those thoughts, none of them were centered
(04:07):
in my experience around fearing. I left feeling very excited
to have conversations about it and validated. That's how I left. Now,
I know my experience is different from many others. There's
a lot of things that impact how I perceive and
take in and digest content. One of those I think
(04:28):
that makes a big difference in the Barbie movie is
being a woman, and very quickly, I learned after watching
this movie that a lot of people did not have
the same experience as me. People were deeply offended by
the movie, deeply frightened by the movie, like very frightened,
like stay away, keep your kids away, this is going
(04:50):
to ruin your salvation, this is going to ruin our
country kind of stuff, like very extreme. Now again, I've
my experience was. I felt empowered, validated, grateful for this
movie and also challeng at the same time, which I
think is a very cool place to be. And I
think that goes back to me saying this movie was
supposed to be entertaining and thought provoking. That's a very
cool place to be. I don't feel like as a
(05:12):
person I have everything figured out, so I'm very open,
even though it can be uncomfortable at times, to get
feedback about myself, my beliefs, what I think, how I act,
and this movie kind of hit on some things that
maybe I need to do some more digging around on,
or work on, or pay attention to more. Now, for
the record, I'm totally fine with anybody disagreeing with how
(05:35):
I interpreted the movie because we're all different humans, so
we're going to have different experiences. Anyone's allowed to like it,
anyone's allowed to not like it. It just becomes very
disheartening when the responses to something that hits on a
nerve can be so I want to say, like mean
spirited and hateful and just unkind. We cannot like something
(05:59):
and also not have to rip it to shreds. I
can not like a meal I get at a restaurant
and not have to go to yelp and give them
a zero star review and tell everybody not to ever
go there because it's the worst place in the world.
I can just like not go back. The thing about
this movie that was cool is that it may makes
you think. For a lot of people, including myself, thinking
(06:21):
can be scary because what if this changes things? What
if the world changes? Well in the world of Barbie.
In the Barbie movie, they actually hit on that and
they said, that's one of the quotes that people are
really grabbing onto. Is actually I don't know if this
is the Diruct quote, but there was something along the
lines of like, that's life, Like it's constantly changing. If
you're living life, you're constantly changing, and life is in
(06:44):
the world is constantly changing. And the movie had a
lot of messages, but the main thing that I felt,
other than that empowered sense of validation, the main thing
I left feeling was a sense of relief. And I
think the big thing that people are paying attention to
and focusing on is the patriarchy and how they talked
(07:04):
about that and how men are portrayed in the movie.
And yeah, that is a huge part, and there could
be a lot of discussion on this, and there is
out there. And what felt more important to me than
to dissect all of that is the amount I actually
felt like I was understood and I was not alone,
(07:25):
and being that understood, there's a lot of people in
that theater that you could tell by some of the
size of relief or the certain kinds of laughter. It
wasn't just me that feels this pressure that was kind
of released in some of the scenes of this movie.
I think it was the acknowledgment of a lot of
the pressure that I, as a woman in this world, feels.
(07:46):
It was the acknowledgment of that pressure that for a
small moment kind of released some of the pressure. And
I was not expecting to leave this movie feeling that
because the Barbie Doll has been a part of of
our culture that has reinforced some really challenging expectations and
unhealthy beauty standards to live up to. So I did
(08:10):
not feel like that was what this movie was going
to bring me. I was pleasantly surprised. And I saw
Margo Robbie say in an interview that Barbie went to
the moon like the Barbie Doll went to the moon
before women were allowed to have credit cards, And so
this is saying and giving an example of how Barbie
was this example that women could be what they want
(08:32):
to be. They could be anything, which is amazing. At
the same time, this has gotten a little out of
hand because we take that so often to mean that
women have to be everything, because they can be anything.
We can't choose one thing, because we can be all
of these things. So then we have to be all
these things. And that's because we should be grateful that
(08:52):
we can be all these things, and we have to
take advantage the ability to do that, because we haven't
always had that ability. And America Fararra's character really hit
the nail on the head. If you've seen the movie,
you know exactly what I'm talking about with her monologue
that was near the end, and if you haven't seen it,
I highly recommend going googling that you can find it
on the internet right now. I also recommend seeing the movie.
(09:14):
But in it, part of what she said this is
just a little chopped up pieces of it. Part of
what she said, this is just a little chopped up
pieces of it. It's not the whole thing. But she said,
it's literally impossible to be a woman. We have to
be extraordinary, but somehow we always are doing it wrong.
(09:36):
Not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything
is your fault. And then she went on later to say,
I'm so tired of watching myself and every single other
woman tie herself in knots so people will like us,
which I felt so hard. Later when Ken never apologized
(09:57):
to Barbie, he literally stole her house, and Barbie was
one to apologize to Ken for leading him on, which sure,
maybe she needed to do that, she needed to own
up to that, And I think that's a really important
part of this movie to remember, is that Barbie took
accountability for some of the things that she did were
that were not cool, like she should have apologized. She
(10:18):
wasn't very kind to Ken, and did kind of take
advantage of him, and there was acknowledgment of that. And
I think that that is so powerful because what it's
saying is this isn't a black and white thing. We
can say, hey, what I did isn't cool, and what
we're doing right now isn't working, So I can take
responsibility and it's not on my fault, and we can
work together to find something that actually works for more
(10:40):
of us. And I think what I have been seeing
is that the movie evoked a lot of discomfort for
how men were portrayed in Barbie Land, which I feel
so funny talking about Bobby Land Ken Barbie, but I
think a lot of people did not like that Ken
had no power, he was overlooked and kind of seeing
his dumb and shallow at times. And I don't know
(11:03):
my interpretation. I don't know that anyone was trying to
say that men shouldn't have power and that they are dumb.
It was more so a glimpse of what women have
been fighting for all of their lives, and the movie
was not really about men at all. It's about women
and showcasing the reality of what this world would look
like if the roles were reversed, and yeah, it was
(11:25):
exaggerated at times, and that's where this the Sometimes you
have to do that to drive a point, and sometimes
I mean it's a movie. Part of it was entertaining,
but again, this really was showcasing the reality of what
it would look like if roles were reversed, and what
we have grown to just think is normal. It's like
a custom for this kind of universe to just being
(11:47):
normal here. And really, if we flip the script, wait,
this isn't cool, and so I want to I wanted
to just touch on that because this thing that is
so cool, it's this ability to to really show people
the experience that women have, really show them what it
looks like. None of that is for the purpose, in
(12:08):
my experience, of shaming men or making men feel worthless
or bad. It's just a picture that can easily be seen.
Oh this makes sense. And you know, one of the
most interesting things and one of the things that hit
me the most in this movie is after Barbie went
and experienced the real world, she said, everyone hates women.
(12:31):
Men hate women, women hate women. It's the one thing
that everybody can agree on. And this movie is just
a glaring highlight of the impossible place women are in.
They put themselves in it, and people put them in
that position. We're just in this very difficult position, and
we have our own internal and conscious bias that pit
(12:52):
us against each other. Even while we're working to untie
ourselves of past versions of women and what women were
seen as and how women were treated, we still end
up doing that a little to ourselves. This was important
to me because in the discussion of equality, in the
discussion of gender bias and any of that, in those discussions,
(13:17):
we generally tend to call one person to the table
and we kind of just like put blame on them,
and it's also their job to change so then we
can be better or we can have a better life.
There's a lot of canceling. It's like one person's in
trouble and like they didn't learn those behaviors or thoughts
or beliefs from anybody else. We've just gotten in this
(13:37):
routine of pitting one person against another group of people,
which makes sense, But I think that what might be
more helpful, and what I heard in a lot of
this movie, again with my own lens of viewing it,
is that we have to call everyone to the table.
Instead of pointing the blame on one person. I guess
people generally don't like being called to the table. We
(14:00):
get defensive really quick. I do it as well. But
rarely is it one person's fault and rarely can it
be one person's responsibility to shift things alone. And with
the fault it goes back to like, people are influenced,
and so we also have to look at what are
they being influenced by. We learn our beliefs, we learn
about the world. We learn about everything by our experiences,
(14:22):
by seeing things, by hearing things. We don't have any
original thoughts. All of our thoughts from come from things
that we've seen, her, done, experienced. And everyone fuels attacked
all the time and our current climate, But are we
attacking people all the time or are we trying to
(14:43):
create conversations and really don't know how? And maybe we
are attacking people all the time. I also don't know
if we just haven't been taught how to have conversations
and we haven't been taught how to access what we're
really having conversations about. And maybe that's a comversation worth
having before we talk about anything else. Is how do
(15:04):
we access what the conversation is really about how do
we bring that to the forefront. And I wrote a
post on Instagram on Monday about learning how to love
people well? And that's been something that I've really been
digging into in my own personal life. Learning how to
love people well that I don't agree with, that scare me,
that have hurt me, like people that I don't have
(15:26):
an issue with at all, how do I love them well?
And yeah, I mean people I agree with, in people
I don't agree with. And what I've come to is
that idea that loving people well is less about teaching
them what is right and teaching them what is wrong,
and it's more about learning how to sit with my
own discomfort around differences that I'm experiencing. And I really
(15:47):
don't think most of us are good at doing that.
I'm often not very good at doing this. I'm learning
a lot about my own ability to regulate different people's
opinions and thought processes. It's hard. And so I could
talk about the Barbie movie all day, I really could.
I could make a podcast that's seven hours long about
the Barbie Movie. I could interview so many people about
(16:08):
some of the stuff that comes up in it. But
I want to leave you guys with this more than
anything else is I want you to form your own
opinions about this movie or don't. I'm very aware that
many people won't even watch. I don't know that you'd
be listening to this podcast, but I'm very aware that
everybody's going to watch this movie. But I want you
to form your own opinions. You don't have to interpret
(16:29):
things the way I do. Who's to say I have
the best brain out there, you know. But while you
hold your own opinions, I want to challenge you to
allow others to have theirs without taking it personally. And
instead of starting to debate about who is right and
who is wrong, if we started conversations about how you
(16:50):
felt watching this movie, if we talked about our feelings,
I really think this discourse would be very different. And
if we think about it, you know, going back to
how a lot of people are focusing on the patriarchy
and how there's reverse sexism in this movie, and a
lot of the critiques are or around kind of how
that has been displayed. But if the people that are
(17:13):
looking at that or watching that, or maybe they haven't
been watching it, and that's one of the problems instead
of just talking about the subject matter, What if they
talked about what it felt like, what they felt when
they saw that. Because if we could express our fear
or our anger or our joy, then I think we'd
be having a different conversation than we're having now, and
(17:35):
we'd be having probably a fruitful conversation and will while
we lead to a much cooler place, and a much
more exciting place, and a much more just a place
where things can actually get done, Because I just feel
like when stuff like this comes out and it's polarizing,
we just start yelling at each other in sev talking about,
(17:56):
oh my gosh, I felt so empowered when I watched that,
I felt so understood, I felt a sense of relief,
And then this other person over here could say I
felt judged and I felt hurt and I felt scared.
If we talked about those things, then we actually are
going to start to listen to each other, because that's
(18:18):
what's driving a lot of our feelings. You know, I
love feelings. That's why they're so important to be able
to access and allow ourselves to access and talk about,
because our feelings are driving forces towards our behaviors. And
if I don't allow myself to access my feelings, I'm
going to let my driving, my behaviors be driven by
(18:39):
my attempt to avoid those feelings. But our feelings are
often things at our leading us to what we need,
so then we never even get to what we need.
And I know a lot of you have heard me
talk about that before, but I just think it's important
because it's so like that is tied into all I'm
talking about the Barbie movie and it comes back to this.
It all, it's very often coming back to this, And
(19:02):
so again I could talk about so many of these
scenes and how awesome they were from my perspective, and
how I could say all these people that are saying X,
Y Z are wrong and they're hearing it wrong, And
you know what, I think when it comes down to
they're seeing it differently, they're interpreting it differently, they're having
a different experience, and could we have a conversation about
(19:23):
that different experience versus saying you have to watch this
and you have to like this and you have to
understand why this is good, or don't watch this. It's
going to send you to hell and the Devil's going
to take over your soul and it's going to ruin
our country. What There's got to be some middle ground there.
So if you've seen the movie, let me know, like
(19:44):
share your opinions. What did it bring up with you
for you? I'd love to hear that and we could
have conversations about that and open up a space to
create change and help people through that versus yelling on
each other. I don't know. It's just never been helpful
long term. So that is going to do it today.
I know couch Talks was different. I'll get back to
(20:05):
the questions next week. If you have any questions, feel
free to send them. You can send them Katherine with
a y at Yountherapy podcast dot com. If you have
questions about specifically the Barbie moovie, I'd love to get
them feedback. We can talk about this as a group
on another episode. If you would like to follow us
at You Need Therapy Podcasts and at cat dot Defoda
on Instagram, and then you can also follow at Three
(20:27):
Quords Therapy on Instagram as well. That is my therapy
practice that is in Nashville. Until I talk to you
guys on Monday, I hope you guys have the day
the week, all of the moments that you need to have,
and that is all I have for you for today. Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.