You don't have to think about the Barbie movie if you don't want to

I have avoided discussing the Barbie movie on this platform only because it is obviously just too stupid to really give much consideration. Moreover it is just unbelievably Online, a movie made from and for Internet discourse; it is transparently and completely just a total distillation of every awful Internet-fueled meme about men, women, society, sexual dynamics. It’s basically social media in movie form, which means it’s overwhelmingly just not worth writing about or even thinking about all that much.

So I won’t. And that’s liberating. It’s just great. As a writer I am sometimes obliged to think about and write about things I’d rather not, but that doesn’t happen too often. Here is a rather lovely secret you may not be aware of: You can build your life around things that are pleasant and enjoyable instead of things that are awful and unpleasant. I think we often forget that in the modern era, where it can feel like we all have to be aware of and informed on everything that happens at all times. That’s true especially of those of us who are obliged to spend at least part of our working lives on the Internet, where awful things can proliferate like fungus on an old hunk of suitcase cheese. But it’s more broadly true as well. I feel like even the people who work in non-Internet-centric jobs and industries often consider themselves duty-bound to have an opinion about dumbass movies and cultural outbursts like the Barbie movie. But nobody’s required to do that. You can just ignore it and live your life and be happier for it.

There is a certain line of thinking that goes like this: As conservatives, we are fighting against the degradation and collapse of the precious culture handed to us by our forebears. We’re in something of a wartime right now. Consequently, we should be aware of the belligerents on this battlefield so that we can properly wage the fight. Maybe this is true in a broad sense but it doesn’t have to be true in a particular sense. You don’t need to see the Barbie movie or even read all that much about it to recognize immediately that it’s an impossibly moronic and poisonous film, that it’s just going to be a paean to all the worst things and impulses of modern life, and that it’s a malign cultural artifact that will make things worse and not better. That’s so obvious that it’s barely even worth remarking on. You don’t really have to waste your finite time and precious energy on it beyond that.

I mean suppose a new pro-Nazi film was released in theaters every three weeks. How many would you need to see before you were satisfied that Nazism was a bad thing? How long would you continue to subject yourself to that, or even think about it? Why stress about it?

Instead of worrying about any of this, try something different and better. Read a good book. Read many good books. Start a book group at your church. Start a walking habit: Go on a walk for fifteen minutes a day, a new random route every evening just to keep things interest. Take up cooking as a sincere vocation. Watch some old, good movies—noir, maybe, or maybe resolve to work your way through Hitchcock or something. Take up a hobby that’s both fun and domestically productive: Sewing, say, or carpentry, or welding. Have another kid, or a bunch of them, and devote yourself to the endlessly complex and gratifying byways of parenthood. All of these things will take up plenty of time in your life, time that won’t be wasted on thinking about and talking about lesser, useless things like Barbie.

In short, fill your life with good people and interesting things and don’t even worry about these idiot poisons that now dominate our culture. I guarantee the life and the world you’d be helping to build would be infinitely more valuable than any opinion, or insight, or commentary you might have about another awful and pointless cultural phenomenon. You’ll be happier if you don’t waste your time and spirit on something not even remotely worth either one.