Barbie Knocks One Out of the Ballpark

I'm not a big fan of Barbie. Not really.

Growing up, I wanted to be her, of course. I was much older before I realized that her body proportions are unattainable by mere mortals.

So it was with little wonder why I was reluctant to let my daughter view a Barbie DVD she received for Christmas from someone who obviously did not know my feelings about the diva doll.

I watched it with her, and I have to say....

I was WRONG.

(Not about the body proportions, though.)

Mattel Entertainment did a wonderful job with Barbie as Rapunzel. I liked this movie better than I did Disney's version, Tangled. That's saying something, because I think that movie is as cute as all get out.

There are two reasons why Barbie rocks Rapunzel better: 

1) There's a moral premise.

My daughter actually came away having learned a lesson. Here's the moral premise (a la Dr. Stanley Williams) of Barbie as Rapunzel:

Telling the truth leads to happiness and love.

Telling lies leads to bitterness and solitude.

Tangled did not have a moral near so clear, if indeed it had one. (Perhaps Flynn Rider learned not to steal?) Barbie manages to escape her Cinderella-like captivity to Lady Gothel by finding a secret passage way out of the house.  While out in the village, she meets the prince, unbeknownst to her. She leaves before catching his name, which proves to be a very important point later.

Lady Gothel's pet rat? otter?--you tell me--sees Rapunzel with a guy and tells Gothel, who demands to know who he was. Rapunzel honestly didn't know, but Gothel believes her to be lying, so magically creates a tower to keep her locked away.

Resourceful Barbie Rapunzel paints a scene with a magic paintbrush that enables her to leave the tower. She runs into the prince again, and he gets her name, but Barbie Rapunzel actually asks him not to tell her his name, because it was "better for her not to know."

Sure enough, Gothel asks Rapunzel again, and she honestly answers that she doesn't know who the man was she met. Her truthfulness enables her to break through the spell Gothel placed on the tower, which was intended to bind the lying heart inside forever.  

2) Gothel isn't cruel because of vanity.

In Disney's version, it's apparent that Mother Gothel only takes Rapunzel because of her magic hair. that enables her to stay young. In Barbie's version, Lady Gothel, as she is called, has a whopper of a backstory.

We get hints of it very early on that she has a history, something to do with a man in her past and a slashed picture of them. As a result, she's a far more developed character in general because of it. Anjelica Houston does a marvelous job of making her spectacularly evil and somewhat sympathy-inducing...because it was ultimately a broken heart which prompted her to steal Rapunzel and get her comeuppance in the end.

So, this therapist's take on Barbie has been altered. Just as you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't judge a poor doll by her abnormally svelte legs and neck. My daughter and I have watched several more Barbie movies as a result, and I believe Mattel has some creative writers on its team, and your children would benefit from the morals of these stories.

Let's Analyze

Have you ever watched a Barbie flick? What did you think about it?

How Important is Moral Premise?

I used to think characters were the most important aspect of fiction writing. (This from a character-driven novelist/therapist. Go figure.) But after doing some research, I’ve come to the conclusion that the moral premise might be the most important thing in a book outside of the actual story premise.

The moral premise of a story is a single sentence statement describing the lesson of the story as it reflects on real life. Filmmakers have gotten the hang of this quicker than fiction writers, but Aristotle knew way back when that there was a correlation between a play’s moral message and it’s popularity. (Read his Poetics.)

When the moral premise of a movie sits “right” with the audience, that movie does better in the box office. This is was Dr. Stan William's book, The Moral Premise, is all about. Word of mouth spreads like my white cat sheds hairs—prolifically. On the flip side, if the moral premise is deceitful, the movie doesn’t do so well and people don’t tell their friends to go see it.

The same can and should be said for fiction. 

There are three ways people learn: experience, observation, and lecture. Lecture has the least to recommend it, experience the most, or the reason that the learner is using more of their senses. The more senses engaged, the greater the emotional tension and physical/emotional risk, thus the deeper the learning.

But fiction is unique in that is puts the reader in the position of learning via vicarious experience. The reader is (hopefully) transported into a new world that should become real to them. The reader should put themselves into the protagonist’s shoes, feeling the butterflies before a first kiss or the building apprehension the longer the killer goes free.

Some authors are simply gifted storytellers, weaving a tale that enthralls us. Others utilize the moral premise as well as draw from their innate author skills, and these are the books that capture the nation and beyond.

I’ll draw upon the cult following of The Twilight Saga to make my point. This set of books took America by storm. Stephenie Meyer wrote a book that spoke to the hearts of women (and men who will admit it), both young and old. Why?

Twilight is about love conquering all and not being able to choose with whom you fall in love. It’s a modern-day fairytale. (Why do you think factories are still pumping out DVDs of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast? They know that little girls everywhere dream about a prince coming one day. It’s timeless.)

Meyer’s book is essentially about Bella finding her prince. True, he’s a vamp, which means they have a few obstacles to overcome, namely Edward’s lust for her blood. But what book wouldn’t be complete without obstacles? It’s the obstacles that become your story premise.

Hopefully this simplistic assessment of Twilight’s universal appeal through its moral premise will get the wheels turning in your head about your story’s premise.

Q4U: Can you narrow it down to one sentence? Is it something that people can relate to, that they will want to talk about on their commute into town?