On this episode of “Death in The Garden” we are joined by James Connolly, producer of the film series and dear friend, to discuss this recent “Barbenheimer” phenomenon to accompany the piece Maren wrote on the subject last week in her piece below:
I enjoyed this little jaunt! At one point yall mentioned the connection to regenerative ag, Aubrey Marcus, and trad wives. Yall introduced it as if the connections between these is apparent. Can you explain that? I'm endlessly interested in the ways that seemingly disparate ideologies come together when they edge out far enough in to the extremes.
Hey Jordan! I believe James brought that up, so I can't really speak to his analysis on the strange bedfellows that have emerged over the past few years. From my (Maren) point of view, it seems that there is a sort of confluence of psychedelic communities and a desire to come back to the land through regenerative agriculture, which makes a lot of sense to me. Jake and I actually met some of the guys who are living at Aubrey Marcus' ranch, and they were really nice and I personally resonate with the usage of plant-medicines as a part of reconnecting with ourselves and nature. A lot of people in the regenerative world (that I'm aware of) also have a deep spiritual purpose for their efforts, and often that seems to be associated in some capacity to experiences with psychedelics. So speaking of Aubrey Marcus in this case (from my recollection) was sort of a catch-all for the communities that are arising that incorporate regenerative agriculture into their mode of living, but also have a healing/psychedelic modality attached.
The "trad wife" connection I'm less personally aware of, but my guess would be a sort of return to more traditional gender roles as a rebellion against a lot of the excesses of modern feminism. I don't know enough about the phenomenon James was referring to specifically, but my sense is that a lot of women want to feel like it's okay to be mothers again - that it's okay to want to be a caretaker rather than a breadwinner. Interestingly, in Barbie part of the monologue that America Ferrera gives about the impossible duality of womanhood touches on this: she says something about how it's problematic to be a mother, and problematic to not be a mother. I think this is largely true, but I think that women are actually probably harder on women than men are in this case. There's a lot of scorn and judgement that mothers receive from non-mothers, and the reverse is true as well. So I think that the trad wife movement (if we can call it that) is in response to that, and I think the relation it may have in the regenerative world is that motherhood is another way for women to feel "back-to-the-land" in a sense. Like eschewing the sort of career-ladder for something more earthbound.
That would be my guess on the connection! Although I can also see that it's likely that many of these women would not consider themselves to be trad wives because of the sort of conservative/republican (and possible Christian) undertones, but I could be wrong about that too!
Big love on this one ya'll. I really ought to connect with you soon. Either way, figured I would come here and share that Alexander Beiner wrote a nice rich article on the subject as well. Thought you might enjoy another take. Cheers.
Thank you so much for sharing this! This is a really interesting perspective, and I appreciate how intelligently he delves in to the gender politics at play in both films. I certainly felt appalled at much of the gender/sex narrativizing in Barbie, but didn't want to lament too heavily in the piece I wrote about it, for fear that I might minimize the argument against corporatism and commercialism. I appreciate how Beiner breaks down the history of feminism (of which I admittedly only have a cursory knowledge) and doesn't shy away from being critical of the representation in Barbie (while also being fair to the ways it is successful). I think I have a strong reaction to the feeling of being pandered to generally, so I did not feel represented as a woman watching the film, but can understand why so many did. I like that Beiner brings in other critiques of the "strong woman" trope that has been paired so inelegantly with the denuding of male characters. I like this quote, "Men won’t stop being a threat to women, or each other, because blockbuster films cast them as inept and ineffectual... Male violence is a collective problem that can only be solved in a conscious, thoughtful and collaborative partnership between men and women." I think, on the whole, Barbie does more harm than good in ensuring this "thoughtful and collaborative partnership" between the sexes in complicated, circular ways. One way I think about it is this: in some ways the feelings of validation from a movie like Barbie create the conditions for the need to feel validated like that. What I mean is, I think ideology and perception do impact how we experience the world, and therefore what we invite into our lives. When I was younger and held to all of the typical "man bad" dogmas, I found ample evidence that that was true, because we tend to invite in what we expect to see in the world and then feel confirmed in our biases. I held a belief for a long time that I would always struggle to find a respectful partnership and find men who respected me for my personhood and intellect. This ingrained belief actually led to a lot of cognitive dissonance when I started engaging in spheres where this wasn't true, and suddenly I experienced a lot of confusion about being respected by men! So, on the whole, I think teaching our girls that we need to be on guard with all men actually may lead us to being unable to identify healthy expressions of masculinity, paradoxically leading us to accept bad treatment from unhealthy expressions of masculinity because our expectations are set so low.
The spirit y’all embody is encouraging. To be able to acknowledge blind spots in your perspective is a noble thing to do. Humility is grossly neglected unfortunately - y’all are really stepping up as leaders. It’s much needed in a world so bent on destruction and division.
It’s spooky how easily something can grow out of our control and seemingly beyond the point of return. How easy we can be subjugated by our own creations if we’re not careful. I’ve been thinking on this for a bit but I believe that every movement we make must begin with respect and mindfulness.
I wanted to share this quote from the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset that I recently came across:
"The man with the clear head is the man who forces himself from those fantastic "ideas" [denials, avoidance, conditioned hero systems a la Denial of Death by Ernest Becker] and looks life in the face, realizes that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost - he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a questions of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost, is without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality."
My sense from this quote is that the best place for us to start in creating the solutions we seek, which could lead to us creating the communities we want to live in, the society we want to steward, comes from the space of being shipwrecked - from the upheaval, the unveiling of all of the bullshit and lies. I think the frustrating thing is that it's really painful to go through that and know that the work has only just started. I often wonder if this is the step that is missing from a lot of land-based communities or organizations that end up falling apart - like their idealism wasn't tempered enough by a confrontation with the true darkness of our present reality?
But yeah, in general, it's so challenging to live in the modern world with all of the constraints and limitations we experience from the economic system AND attempt to face and resolve these mounting issues AND also not go insane. It's definitely a lot to think about! It's too much most of the time, I would say...
I'd be curious to hear your perspective about why it is that we have to look outside of the US for functional land-based communities. My sense is that there's something in our cultural story that somehow prevents us from being more equipped to actually create that change, but I'd love to know your thoughts/experience.
I enjoyed this little jaunt! At one point yall mentioned the connection to regenerative ag, Aubrey Marcus, and trad wives. Yall introduced it as if the connections between these is apparent. Can you explain that? I'm endlessly interested in the ways that seemingly disparate ideologies come together when they edge out far enough in to the extremes.
Hey Jordan! I believe James brought that up, so I can't really speak to his analysis on the strange bedfellows that have emerged over the past few years. From my (Maren) point of view, it seems that there is a sort of confluence of psychedelic communities and a desire to come back to the land through regenerative agriculture, which makes a lot of sense to me. Jake and I actually met some of the guys who are living at Aubrey Marcus' ranch, and they were really nice and I personally resonate with the usage of plant-medicines as a part of reconnecting with ourselves and nature. A lot of people in the regenerative world (that I'm aware of) also have a deep spiritual purpose for their efforts, and often that seems to be associated in some capacity to experiences with psychedelics. So speaking of Aubrey Marcus in this case (from my recollection) was sort of a catch-all for the communities that are arising that incorporate regenerative agriculture into their mode of living, but also have a healing/psychedelic modality attached.
The "trad wife" connection I'm less personally aware of, but my guess would be a sort of return to more traditional gender roles as a rebellion against a lot of the excesses of modern feminism. I don't know enough about the phenomenon James was referring to specifically, but my sense is that a lot of women want to feel like it's okay to be mothers again - that it's okay to want to be a caretaker rather than a breadwinner. Interestingly, in Barbie part of the monologue that America Ferrera gives about the impossible duality of womanhood touches on this: she says something about how it's problematic to be a mother, and problematic to not be a mother. I think this is largely true, but I think that women are actually probably harder on women than men are in this case. There's a lot of scorn and judgement that mothers receive from non-mothers, and the reverse is true as well. So I think that the trad wife movement (if we can call it that) is in response to that, and I think the relation it may have in the regenerative world is that motherhood is another way for women to feel "back-to-the-land" in a sense. Like eschewing the sort of career-ladder for something more earthbound.
That would be my guess on the connection! Although I can also see that it's likely that many of these women would not consider themselves to be trad wives because of the sort of conservative/republican (and possible Christian) undertones, but I could be wrong about that too!
Thank you for your thoughtful response, Marin!
Big love on this one ya'll. I really ought to connect with you soon. Either way, figured I would come here and share that Alexander Beiner wrote a nice rich article on the subject as well. Thought you might enjoy another take. Cheers.
Thank you so much for sharing this! This is a really interesting perspective, and I appreciate how intelligently he delves in to the gender politics at play in both films. I certainly felt appalled at much of the gender/sex narrativizing in Barbie, but didn't want to lament too heavily in the piece I wrote about it, for fear that I might minimize the argument against corporatism and commercialism. I appreciate how Beiner breaks down the history of feminism (of which I admittedly only have a cursory knowledge) and doesn't shy away from being critical of the representation in Barbie (while also being fair to the ways it is successful). I think I have a strong reaction to the feeling of being pandered to generally, so I did not feel represented as a woman watching the film, but can understand why so many did. I like that Beiner brings in other critiques of the "strong woman" trope that has been paired so inelegantly with the denuding of male characters. I like this quote, "Men won’t stop being a threat to women, or each other, because blockbuster films cast them as inept and ineffectual... Male violence is a collective problem that can only be solved in a conscious, thoughtful and collaborative partnership between men and women." I think, on the whole, Barbie does more harm than good in ensuring this "thoughtful and collaborative partnership" between the sexes in complicated, circular ways. One way I think about it is this: in some ways the feelings of validation from a movie like Barbie create the conditions for the need to feel validated like that. What I mean is, I think ideology and perception do impact how we experience the world, and therefore what we invite into our lives. When I was younger and held to all of the typical "man bad" dogmas, I found ample evidence that that was true, because we tend to invite in what we expect to see in the world and then feel confirmed in our biases. I held a belief for a long time that I would always struggle to find a respectful partnership and find men who respected me for my personhood and intellect. This ingrained belief actually led to a lot of cognitive dissonance when I started engaging in spheres where this wasn't true, and suddenly I experienced a lot of confusion about being respected by men! So, on the whole, I think teaching our girls that we need to be on guard with all men actually may lead us to being unable to identify healthy expressions of masculinity, paradoxically leading us to accept bad treatment from unhealthy expressions of masculinity because our expectations are set so low.
The spirit y’all embody is encouraging. To be able to acknowledge blind spots in your perspective is a noble thing to do. Humility is grossly neglected unfortunately - y’all are really stepping up as leaders. It’s much needed in a world so bent on destruction and division.
It’s spooky how easily something can grow out of our control and seemingly beyond the point of return. How easy we can be subjugated by our own creations if we’re not careful. I’ve been thinking on this for a bit but I believe that every movement we make must begin with respect and mindfulness.
Jason, thank you for this comment!
I wanted to share this quote from the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset that I recently came across:
"The man with the clear head is the man who forces himself from those fantastic "ideas" [denials, avoidance, conditioned hero systems a la Denial of Death by Ernest Becker] and looks life in the face, realizes that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost - he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a questions of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost, is without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality."
My sense from this quote is that the best place for us to start in creating the solutions we seek, which could lead to us creating the communities we want to live in, the society we want to steward, comes from the space of being shipwrecked - from the upheaval, the unveiling of all of the bullshit and lies. I think the frustrating thing is that it's really painful to go through that and know that the work has only just started. I often wonder if this is the step that is missing from a lot of land-based communities or organizations that end up falling apart - like their idealism wasn't tempered enough by a confrontation with the true darkness of our present reality?
But yeah, in general, it's so challenging to live in the modern world with all of the constraints and limitations we experience from the economic system AND attempt to face and resolve these mounting issues AND also not go insane. It's definitely a lot to think about! It's too much most of the time, I would say...
I'd be curious to hear your perspective about why it is that we have to look outside of the US for functional land-based communities. My sense is that there's something in our cultural story that somehow prevents us from being more equipped to actually create that change, but I'd love to know your thoughts/experience.