Aesthetic Epiphany

Barbie and the Myth as Enlightenment

Authors

  • Josef Früchtl University of Amsterdam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23925/2318-9215.2023v9n1D1

Keywords:

Barbie, Epiphany, Myth, Enlightenment, Critical Theory

Abstract

The article argues for Greta Gerwig’s film “Barbie” as an aesthetic epiphany, as an aesthetic phenomenon that confesses to be appearance and therefore offers a fine example of a product of “culture industry” that simultaneously affirms and criticizes the manifestations of ideology. The movie creatively works on the myth of Barbie, outwitting it, and thus becomes a piece of enlightenment itself. 

Author Biography

Josef Früchtl, University of Amsterdam

Filósofo alemão e professor universitário. De 1996 a 2005 lecionou na Universidade de Münster e de 2005 a 2020 na Universidade de Amsterdã/Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA). É autor de vários artigos e livros sobre Estética, Teorias da modernidade, Teoria crítica da cultura e a Filosofia do filme. Seu livro mais recente é Demokratie der Gefühle: Ein ästhetisches Plädoyer, Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag, 1. Juli 2021.

References

ADORNO Theodor W. “Culture Industry Reconsidered”. In: The Culture Industry. Selected essays on mass culture, edited and with an introduction by J.M. Bernstein, London and New York: Routledge, 2001, pp. 98-106.

ADORNO, Theodor W. “Transparencies on Film”. In: The Culture Industry, loc.cit., pp. 178-186.

BOHRER, Karl Heinz. Plötzlichkeit. Zum Augenblick des ästhetischen Scheins. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1981.

CAMPBELL, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1949.

HEGEL, G.W.F. Hegel’s Aesthetics. Lectures on Fine Art. Transl. by T.M. Knox, Vol. I, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1988.

HEGEL, G.W.F. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Transl. by A.V. Miller with analysis of the text and foreword by J.N. Findlay, Oxford University Press, 1977.

HORKHEIMER, Max / ADORNO, Theodor W. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Philosophical Fragments. Transl. by Edmund Jephcott, Stanford University Press 2002.

MORRIS, Beja. Epiphany in the Modern Novel. Seattle, University of Washington Press 1971. Peter Owen, 1971.

RATZINGER, Joseph. „Die Wallfahrt der Völker“ (1987), in: Gesammelte Schriften 14/1, Freiburg i.Br.: Herder, 2019.

REBHANDL, Bert. „Das Leben in Rosa“, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (faz.net), 13.08.2023.

TAYLOR, Charles. Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1989.

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Published

2024-07-28

How to Cite

Früchtl, J. (2024). Aesthetic Epiphany: Barbie and the Myth as Enlightenment. PARALAXE, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.23925/2318-9215.2023v9n1D1

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2023): Dossiê Filme e Filosofia

Section

Dossiê

License

Cedo à revista Paralaxe os direitos autorais de publicação de meu artigo e consultarei o editor científico da revista caso queira republicá-lo depois em livro.