"Why didn't Barbie tell me about patriarchy?"
— Ken
Two weeks ago, I published a piece I had planned to write since 2017 at least, about what I termed Hermione Syndrome. It took me a while to structure the piece. When I got to the point in the essay where I asked the question, “[What] happens to real-life Hermiones when they grow up?” I hit a wall. It was not enough for me to point out what every woman I’ve ever known knows in their soul. It needed more. The primary question I ask myself as I write a piece is: “So what?” I could feel you thinking: “That’s right Mark, tell me what we already know. So what?” How do I answer that? How could I, a product of the patriarchy in more ways than you can know, answer that? I sat with the piece stewing in my psyche for days. I started down one path - hit the wall. Tried another path. Hit the wall. Over a thousand words of hitting my head and my heart against the wall. And finally, the piece became clear, and the result became Hermione Syndrome.
I had three audiences in mind as I wrote this piece. The first was myself. What did I actually see? What was my own role in this? What actually was going on? I had to work through a few things. The second audience was the women I have known and worked with, telling them, Yes, you are right, and yes, I see this. Not that my acknowledgement means anything more than “it’s nice to see a guy figure this out. Freaking lunkhead.” But the target audience is every man I’ve worked with, and every man who will ever work with women. And my message is clear: Knock it off.
Three days later, the movie Barbie was released. Now, I had zero intention of seeing this movie. A movie about Barbie? With Mattel as a producer? Uh, no, just as I had no intention of seeing the Super Mario Bros. Movie, or The Lego Movie, or the Marvel or DC Comics movies, and I lumped Barbie in with that lot.
Then the reviews came in. The people I respected loved this movie. And the people I, well… is loathe too strong a word? Those people hated it. One such man-child actually made a 45 minute YouTube diatribe against the movie. Against Barbie. Seriously? Meanwhile, the rave reviews were piling up, and I realized that I had to see this movie. And so a good friend and I took in the matinee last Saturday.
It is a fantastic movie. Fantastic. It is funny, it is insightful, it is perfectly written, it is perfected acted, it threads a needle that seems impossible to thread. It celebrates women and girls and pokes fun at the boys. The movie is, like Barbie, everything. Bravo to all involved.
I can’t review the movie and do it justice. Barbie is a classic. Just see it.
Now, I watched this movie in a Hermione Syndrome mindset, contemplating what should be my follow-on piece. And here is Barbie as a perfect feminine voice crying her civilized yawp on the screens of the world. I feel like I somehow tapped into the zeitgeist.
But the zeitgeist has another side.
This article in the Washington Post by columnist Christine Emba, titled “Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness.” is an excellent overview and explainer of the other side of the zeitgeist: the idea that men as men are foundering.
In the Hermione piece I told men to “change their minds, and man up, and treat every single person as a human being with a right to be there, not a privilege that they bestowed.” I chose the words every single person on purpose. Certain men have been at the pinnacle of privilege since Adam was whelped by the Lord. In America, this pinnacle consisted of white men of Northern and Western European descent. To them, everyone else were women, slaves, “savages,” “swarthy,” “tawny,” “hot-blooded,” “oriental,” etc. Jefferson wrote our manifesto of freedom, and yet he owned slaves. To them, everyone else was sub-human. But in reality, what did they all have in common? They were all persons, they were all human beings. In the ensuing years and decades, wars, riots, protests, legal decisions, and lives were spent gradually, gradually, expanding the scope of what America recognizes as human.
There was never a time in America, including the present, when men were not the top of the heap, when men were not at the pinnacle of privilege. And now they are whining about being lost in the “wilderness?” I’m sorry, but there's no crying when the world catches up with you.
But nonetheless, men once again are questioning their manhood and need an old white guy to tell them what to do. And I’m just the old white guy to do it. The piece that will be the follow-on I’ve been contemplating since I finished the Hermione piece is taking shape.
I am telling men to man up. What does that mean? That, my friends, will be in the next edition. Why me? Why not me? When people like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, Josh Freaking Holly, Joe Rogan, and Scott Galloway are trying to own this space, someone needs to set things straight. They have their voice. I have mine. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, a little lighter fare.
The Wizard of Oz
When is the last time you watched The Wizard of Oz? I mean, the last time you watched it, not as a kid, or not as background to some family event, or at camp, or while high and playing The Dark Side of the Moon?
I watched it a few days ago. It popped up on Max/HBO, and I realized that I have never actually watched the movie, except when I was a kid and the flying monkeys scared the hell out of me. The first time I saw The Wizard of Oz was when I was five or six years old and it was on our black and white TV. The movie’s spectacular use of Technicolor was completely obliterated by the wavy gray lines. It was a horror movie to me. The flying monkeys were ominous dark demons from hell, from which I never fully recovered. And so when I saw it was on HBO, I decided to watch the movie in earnest. It was made in 1939, which is one of the best-ever years for movies. And I watched it on my high-def TV.
This movie is no longer merely a movie, it is a cultural event. Its images and phrases have taken on lives of their own. “The Yellow Brick Road,” “Surrender Dorothy,” “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!", “I’m melting!”, “The lollipop kids,” “Munchkins,” “The Emerald City,” “There’s no place like home,” “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” “And your little dog Toto, too!”, I mean, this movie is embedded in our souls. But beneath all that is a 101 minute long movie. And watching it for the first time in decades in a way that showed it in all of its glory was, well, glorious!
1939 was the tail-end of the depression, and it was released on August 25th, 1939. A week later, World War II started in Europe. So, of course, the world was black and white. And so was Kansas. Dorothy’s dog Toto caused a little too much trouble for the meddling neighbor Almira Gulch, and the sheriff came by to take Toto away from Dorothy, in order to be destroyed. Toto, a wise pup, escapes, and comes back home, and Dorothy does the natural thing to save her dog: she runs away, Toto in her arms. She runs across a traveling huckster, Professor Marvel, who wisely advises (and shames) her into going back home - Auntie Em surely would be worried sick about her (as she, of course, was). But it was stormy in Kansas, and a tornado made it home before Dorothy did. Kids, in 1939, there were no high-tech tornado warnings, they just showed up virtually unannounced. Dorothy was caught up in the tornado, and… entered Oz.
I wonder what it was like in the theater when the first audiences saw the reveal of Oz? Looking at this now, 84 years later, it took my breath away. The colors were unbelievable. The sets were incredible. The green makeup of the Wicked Witch of the West is astonishing. Surely a green like that does not exist in nature! Margaret Hamilton, the actor who played the witch, complained about it - it’s a wonder she didn't get radiation poisoning.
Movie magic was rampant in the ‘30s. Fantastic sets, Busby Berkeley, Robin Hood, Gone with the Wind, the creativity of the era was astounding. And The Wizard of Oz is the pinnacle of the craft.
You owe it to yourself to watch this movie as if you have never seen it before. It is worth it.
Thank you for reading Things to Realize. I’ve been a bit serious these last few pieces, but it is in me, and it’s got to come out. I appreciate your coming along. Please like, subscribe, comment, and share my work if you are so inclined. Thanks again!
Loved it, brother, and I will watch the movie again. Both.
Barbie and the Zeigeist is a perfect follow-up to the Hermoine Syndrome. I ponder why men feel and behave this way? I can think of a couple reasons and none shine a particularly positive light on men (in general, not specifically, as there are always exceptions.)
Do they measure their own self worth by belittling women? Do they lack self confidence in the value of their own accomplishments?
As a woman, I stand on the sidelines and wonder what is going on inside men's heads. Perhaps that is the difference? I want to understand why so I can try to make it better but do you think most men reciprocate and wonder how their behavior affects the women around them? I have my doubts they even think about how it feels on the other side of the fence.
Great article, Mark!