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Monday
I’m a bit dumbstruck to learn that one of the major inspirations for the Barbie movie is Milton’s Paradise Lost, although in retrospect it makes a lot of sense. Here’s what director Greta Gerwig has to say about her use of the 17th century epic:
I remember the first time when I read Milton and I realized this idea of, Paradise has no poetry. Because what do you need metaphor for if everything is literally what it is? You need this sort of separation from your environment in order to have a need for the beauty of poetry.
I don’t entirely agree about there being no poetry in Eden—I’ll give an example in a moment—but I get Greta Gerwig’s point. The aspects of the poem we are most likely to recall are (1) Satan’s fall and (2) Adam and Eve’s temptation. There’s not much drama to be found in the first humans pruning bushes and having beautiful sex.
And yes, Milton believes that Adam and Eve had sex. After all, they needed to turn out more bush pruners. The poet does, however, draw a discrete curtain over the act, essentially saying that the two did not not have sex. Or as Milton puts it, after lying down naked side by side, they didn’t refuse “the rites mysterious of connubial love”:
…and eased the putting off
These troublesome disguises which we wear,
Straight side by side were laid, nor turned I ween
Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites
Mysterious of connubial Love refused…
But as for poetry, right before this scene there’s some pretty good verse, offered up as a hymn of gratitude:
Thus at their shady lodge arrived, both stood
Both turned, and under open sky adored
The God that made both sky, air, earth and heaven
Which they beheld, the moon’s resplendent globe
And starry pole: “Thou also mad’st the night
Maker omnipotent, and though the day
Which we in our appointed work employed
Have finished happy in our mutual help
And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss
Ordained by thee, and this delicious place
For us too large, where thy abundance wants
Partakers, and uncropped falls to the ground.
But thou hast promised from us two a race
To fill the earth, who shall with us extoll
Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake,
And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.”
Greta’s version of this prayer might be Barbie reveling in her dream house. But where both poem and movie pick up, one focuses on what happens after the fall. What seems at first a tragedy—that’s how Barbie initially regards the introduction of discordant elements into her ideal world—eventually becomes a blessing. In Adam’s case, he learns that the first humans can appreciate God’s love even more after the fall because they will see how much God, in his love for humankind, is willing to sacrifice. Being told of this self-sacrificing love, Adam rhapsodizes,
O goodness infinite, goodness immense!
That all this good of evil shall produce,
And evil turn to good; more wonderful
Then that which by creation first brought forth
Light out of darkness!
Adam’s excitement is not unlike Barbie’s excitement about the world that awaits her after she leaves her pink plastic paradise. Milton scholar Orlando Reade notes that the montage of the life that awaits Barbie as a real-life human is not unlike the angel Michael’s account of humankind’s future history, which he recounts to Adam prior to the couple being driven from the garden. To be sure, Michael’s account is grimmer that the film’s montage, which is not exactly filled with images of violence, sickness and death.
Gerwig points out another parallel between the film and the poem. Barbie actually reverses Milton’s genesis story. Whereas Eve is taken from Adam’s rib, Barbie precedes Ken, who owes his existence to her. Running with the idea, Reade teases out other parallels:
Ken exists in a state of perpetual anxiety, hoping only to please Barbie. In this, he resembles Milton’s Adam. When Eve is born, she falls in love with her own reflection in a pool of water. On first seeing Adam, she is unimpressed. Adam worries about her self-sufficiency and complains about his desire for her. Milton is said to have invented the word “self-esteem,” and that is exactly what Adam lacks. Fear of living without Eve compels him to eat the fruit.
In the poem, Adam and Eve have a major falling out after the fall, as do Barbie and Ken. Sin and Death enter Milton’s world whereas toxic patriarchy enters Barbie’s. But in the end, Adam and Eve reconcile and bravely go forth, as do Ken and Barbie. Ken realizes that life is much more fulfilling if he learns to define himself as himself—“Ken is me!”—rather than in relation to Barbie. He learns he doesn’t require a docile woman to be strong.
In the final scene, Ken and Barbie may not be holding hands, as Adam and Eve are, but the final lines in Paradise Lost fit their situation. There’s even a version of the tear that rolls down Barbie’s cheek as she contemplates leaving Barbie Land:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Having previously had everything handed to her, Barbie is now going to experience what it’s like to earn a living, have children, and grow old and die. Same with Adam and Eve. Ultimately, this is what we all should want.