How Greta Gerwig's Barbie Demonstrates 'The Heroine's Journey'

Greta Gerwig's Barbie feels like a different and refreshing film for many reasons including its colourfully subversive cinematography, its introspective feminist explorations, and its talented and diverse cast to name a few! A large reason for the film's sense of cinematic reinvention however, lies in how the plot fits The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock.

All Images from Barbie 2023 Warner Bros.

You may have heard of the narrative model 'The Hero's Journey'. Nearly every successful story (especially in film) uses the structure in its screenwriting. Think Harry Potter, Interstellar, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, The Lion King, Lord of The Rings, The Karate Kid, The Matrix, The Hunger Games and many more. Even Shrek uses it!

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It is a popular and reliable writing strategy. However it has been done again and again. Barbie could have easily followed The Hero's Journey structure and still have been hugely successful. Yet the film feels so new and different to us as an audience. Especially after a long slew of superhero films, remakes, and sequels at the box office (all of which are built upon The Hero's Journey). Gerwig breaking this pattern with Barbie has been a delightful and very clever change. Thank god for Greta our saviour!

So what is The Heroine's Journey and how is it different to the Hero's? The steps were created by psychologist Maureen Murdock in her book designed to help women: The Heroine's Journey. The steps in Murdock's book outline a quest for identity that lend themselves beautifully to a narrative structure. They have thus been adopted as one (Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave and Sian Heder's CODA for example). The quest for identity in The Hero's Journey is a more basic 'one size fits all' outline from one identity to another, whereas The Heroine's Journey is about finding a balance between two identities that impose on each other. It is therefore more of an introspective battle that produces nuances and harder to portray in my opinion.

'The Heroine’s Journey described by Maureen Murdock is a quest for integration and healing. The circle closes with the union of male and female, representing a journey toward spiritual and societal growth.'

- Juia Blair, STORY GRID

Mythcreants http://mythcreants.com

1. Shifts from Feminine to Masculine: The feminine in The Heroine's Journey is the side of a woman that identifies with childhood and origin. In the case of Barbie, 'the feminine' is represented by Barbieland. Barbie is surrounded by the comfort of her female space (and naturally - being a Barbie also connects this state to childhood). 'The masculine' is represented by the patriarchal human world. Human thoughts of death intrude into Barbie's feminine bubble. Thus the narrative shift from the feminine to the masculine takes place.

2. The Road of Trials: Barbie enters the 'masculine' real world and is exposed to the truth of the human experience: sadness, happiness, anger, and even aging. She experiences female objectification by being subjected to harassment. Barbie is shocked to learn what all of these things are and that all of these things exist.

Barbie is also confronted with the fact that 'stereotypical Barbie' is not the 'perfect' role model or answer to all girls' problems in the real world like she always believed. The character Sasha, a young girl, raises all the societal arguments against Barbie as a brand and figure such as 'rampant capitalist consumerism', 'impossible' beauty standards, and the fact that stereotypical Barbie perpetuates an aesthetic aligned with male fantasies.

3. The Illusion of Success: The illusion of success actually happens twice for Barbie. Barbie believes she and Barbieland exist because they make all real-world women feel beautiful and powerful. The film shows that whilst 'Barbie' as an idea can be helpful and empowering to women (like Gloria), Barbie begins to see that women's reality is more complex than the solution she originally believed in. Her 'illusion' is broken by witnessing that real women do not rule the world and rarely feel powerful and beautiful. Barbie feels ineffective as a result.

The second illusion of success happens when Barbie plans to take Gloria to Barbieland thinking it will fix Barbie's new human thoughts of death and sadness, and Gloria's emotions too. (For context: Barbie initially gains real-world thoughts because Gloria would play with her when she was a little girl and was very attached. Gloria grew up and her real-world emotions seeped into Barbie because of their deep connection). Barbie believes her plan will work but this illusion is shattered when she finds Ken brought patriarchy to Barbieland whilst she was gone.

4. The Descent: Barbie has only ever known a seemingly perfect world and has never had to face adversity or discrimination until now in the story. With her new found human feelings, Ken's patriarchal order sends her into a depressive and existential spiral. She begins to truly feel as a human woman feels with all the complex and impossible contradictions that involves. This is beautifully and movingly described in Gloria's monologue to the Barbies at this point in the film.

Gloria's speech outlines all the contradictions that women are trapped within in society. Things like being told you can be a boss but must not be mean; you must love being a mother but shouldn't talk about your kids too much; you have to recognise the system is rigged but must be grateful; and many others. The constant duality that Gloria describes is what The Heroine's Journey aims to navigate. The Journey is about finding a balance within yourself - one you claim as your own identity and not what society continually and impossibly demands of you.

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5. Meeting with the Goddess: This happens, I would argue, twice in Barbie. It first happens when Barbie is in the real world and she briefly runs into her creator, Ruth Handler. However, because Barbie had not felt step 4 'The Descent' yet, Ruth's words don't have an impact until her sentiments are echoed and emphasised by Gloria in her speech about what it really means to be a woman. Gloria takes on the role of the goddess to Barbie in this moment because she is a real woman and also a mother who has experienced true womanhood.

'The goddess imparts a great truth to the heroine about herself and the feminine.

When the heroine parts with the goddess, she feels reborn.'

- Mythcreants

6. Reconciliation with the Feminine: After Barbie is 'reborn' she is able to reconnect with the Barbies and take the power over Barbieland back from the Kens. Barbie feels more fulfilled by reconnecting with her community of women from both Barbieland and the real world (Gloria and Sasha).

7. Reincorporation of the Masculine: If 'the masculine' is to mean the real world in this film, then Barbie wants to incorporate the human emotions she has learned into her life. Once she has experienced the true complexities of pain, sadness, and joy that a real woman has, she wants it. She doesn't want to go back to being an 'idea'/idealisation of a woman, because that is not human, that is not real. So despite all the negative experiences women endure through life, Barbie discovers being a real woman who feels, laughs, cries, ages, learns, and has ideas of her own, is more precious than anything an eternity of perceived perfection can offer.

8. The Union: The Union is about the heroine using her new balanced identity to help others in an identity crisis. Barbie teaches the Kens about believing they are enough as individuals as women are too. She tells Ken it is not 'It's Barbie and Ken' but 'It's Barbie and it's Ken'. She tells him he doesn't have to push others down to feel worth.

After imparting what she has learnt on her journey, Barbie becomes a human woman in the real world with her newfound balanced identity.

Barbie achieves the balance of the feminine and masculine identities by embracing the reality and complexity of womanhood in 'the masculine' real world but she still takes the positive lessons of a 'Barbie' with her. These are lessons from her origins - 'the feminine' identity: remembering she has power and beauty within herself and to surround herself with other women who help empower her and make her feel beautiful too.

Both the hero and the heroine narrative 'Journeys' don't have to be exclusive to gendered protagonists. For example Katniss in The Hunger Games has The Hero's Journey and the King in the The King's Speech follows the Heroine's. However The Heroine's Journey lends itself to female characters more than male ones because it is founded on the relationship between female psychology and society. Murdock's model is just so good at portraying the introspective experience of a woman. It helps make the film Barbie so unique and interesting. Hopefully, Greta Gerwig's installation of The Heroine's Journey into the mainstream has a ripple effect on the future scripts of cinema because I for one, will be seated if it does.