Gelotophobia is the fear of being laughed at. Whether it’s giving the wrong answer in grade two or a gaffe in a board room presentation, no one likes to be laughed at. Being outside of the group rubs our limbic brain the wrong way.

I went to see Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie the first week it was in theatres. To me, the best part of the movie was the way it made fun of the patriarchal social order. From Will Farrell’s paranoid send-up of a high ranking CEO to Ryan Gosling’s version of Ken caught up in the wild embrace of all things macho, the movie pokes fun at behaviours that are taken far too seriously within their context in the real world.

I worked in a male dominated profession for over twenty years. My first week in the office, a male colleague questioned my motives for coming into the industry and declared me ‘an enigma’. Personally, I think we need more enigmas of all shapes, colours and genders across all industries. 

Poking fun at the status quo is one way to promote change. It starts the questions, the challenges, and maybe, just maybe, it makes us all uncomfortable enough to seek answers and revisions.

Long before Barbie, in post WWII U.S.A., Stetson Kennedy exposed secrets of the KKK using the children’s radio show Superman. The popularity of the show meant children everywhere were running about using the same secret handshakes and silly code words used to recruit or identify members of the clan. Apparently recruitment dropped to zero as grown men took a new look at participating in such ludicrous behaviour. (This story is written in Kennedy’s book The Klan Unmasked and in the book Freakonomics.)

The Barbie movie beautifully points out the flawed logic that is inherent in a patriarchal social order. As a system, it’s a ‘made up’ way to behave; it’s not grounded in the biology or physiology of men versus women. It’s a human construct. Seeing macho tropes in a comic send up of such ridiculous proportions can, at the very least, promote a healthy questioning; Tell me again, why do we do things this way?

My main criticism of Barbie was it should have ended with a more equally restored balance of power between the characters. Ken and Barbie both recognize they had erred in their treatment of each other, but I would have liked to have seen the board room of the toy company end with a better balance of diversity. America Ferrara’s character being promoted to a board position would have been a positive for me. But no one called to ask my opinion.

The sad fallout of a patriarchal social order, and I include systemic racism in this discussion, is how restrictive it is. Even those who are at the top of the patriarchal pyramid have to conform. Play along or leave the playground. We can only guess at the tremendous amount of talent that has been overlooked through the decades. Or centuries. On behalf of enigmas everywhere, we can do better.

Keep your joy.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger, unless it’s a holiday weekend. Or summertime. Facebook or email.