At the beginning of the 2023 blockbuster hit, Barbie, the narrator makes two claims: “All of these women are Barbie and Barbie is all of these women” and “Because Barbie can be anything, women can be anything.” Despite the appearances of Barbie being a superficial movie about a children’s toy, this sets the stage for […] The post Becoming Real: Barbie and the Crisis of Existential Identity first appeared on Blog of the APA.| Blog of the APA
The now classic movie-riffing series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), and its spinoffs such as Rifftrax, can tell us something about how to deal with existential absurdity. Although MST3K more directly targets the “aesthetic absurdity” of flawed filmmaking, the strategies used for coping with bad movies can also be applied to the absurdities of life.…| Blog of the APA