Recently I had the pleasure of spending some quality time with my wife alone with our 8 year old daughter Libi. As she is the youngest of four this is pretty rare. Her siblings are all at overnight camps so we decided to see the new Barbie Movie. I had not heard much about that movie. I just assumed it was something appropriate for a girl of eight who likes to play with dolls. Well, I was very pleasantly surprised.

It turns out that this is really a movie for everyone. It is for those who are young and old. It is for those who identify as female and male. It is actually a rather clever and accessible critique of the patriarchy. In its own way it teases apart the system constructed to make men as a group superior to women as a group. Yes, I do appreciate the richness of this being written by a cisgender male heterosexual Orthodox Rabbi, AND we all have a mandate to do what we can to work against any baseless grounds for authority of one group over another. I know that there is a lot there to unpack.

One thing I enjoyed in the movie was the message that Ken needed to define himself beyond his relationship to Barbie or his power over women. He needed to understand that he was enough. And there was of course the SWAG:

What would it take for more men to really understand that they were enough? We do not need to and should not take up more power, space, or resources then what we deserve. We are all equal and need to behave accordingly.

This of course led me to to think about what the Jewish SWAG should be. Would our version be the Yiddish translation or the Biblical interpretation?

איך בין קענוג- ikh bin KENug-twist on ikh bin gegug– I am enough

or

עזר קענגדה –Ezer KENegda – see  “It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ-ezer kenegdo]” (Genesis 2:18)

So which one? Who wants to help me make them?

There is still more to explore in terms of the messages of the Barbie movie. I am sure to unpack this with Libi over the next few weeks. And at this point I will probably have to watch it again with my two sons. The question is which shirt are we making?