The Plastic Feminism of Barbie
Summary
TLDRThe video script explores the controversial history of Barbie, from Mattel's initial aversion to Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' song for its critique of beauty standards, to their attempts to rebrand with more 'inoffensive' lyrics. It delves into the commodification of feminism in Barbie's marketing, critiquing the film's superficial nods to feminist issues while ignoring deeper systemic problems, such as labor exploitation in Mattel's factories. The script questions the authenticity of Barbie's feminism, suggesting it's a strategy to sell products rather than a commitment to social change.
Takeaways
- 🎤 The song 'Barbie Girl' by Aqua was initially seen by Mattel as offensive and damaging to the Barbie brand due to its commentary on plastic surgeries and beauty standards.
- 🔄 In an attempt to redeem the song's reputation, Mattel released a cover with less controversial lyrics, aiming to align the song with their brand's marketing strategy.
- 🎬 The new Barbie film features a sample of the song by Nikki Minaj and Ice Spice, with the original social commentary by Aqua being largely neutralized by Mattel's influence.
- 💰 The power of capital is highlighted in the ability of companies like Mattel to control narratives and criticism, as seen with the satirical availability of anti-Netflix content on Netflix itself.
- 💡 Margot Robbie's discussions with Mattel's CEO about the Barbie movie included acknowledging the brand's controversies and the importance of being part of the conversation surrounding them.
- 🎭 Greta Gerwig, known for her feminist approach in films like 'Lady Bird' and 'Little Women', was brought on to direct the Barbie movie, with expectations of her addressing the franchise's past sexism.
- 👩💼 The film portrays the CEO of Mattel as a comedic villain, using meta-commentary to position Barbie as a victim of Mattel's decisions and societal hatred, rather than criticizing the company directly.
- 🛍️ Barbie's evolution from a fashion model to a symbol of consumerism and shopping is discussed, highlighting how the brand was designed to encourage continuous purchasing of products.
- 🚀 The modern Barbie brand has shifted to include various career dolls and STEM toys, promoting an image of empowerment and diversity, although this is critiqued as potentially superficial.
- 🤔 The script questions the authenticity of Mattel's commitment to feminism, given their avoidance of the term and the commodification of feminist ideals for profit.
- 🌐 The broader issue of corporate feminism is critiqued, where companies like Mattel capitalize on feminist movements for marketing purposes while not necessarily supporting systemic change or improving conditions for their workers.
Q & A
Why did Mattel, the creators of Barbie, initially dislike Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' song?
-Mattel found the song offensive and damaging to their brand as it was about plastic surgeries and beauty standards that Barbie was seen as reflecting, which could lead people to feel they needed to change their bodies.
What was Mattel's attempt in 2009 to change the perception of the 'Barbie Girl' song?
-Mattel tried to salvage the song by covering it with new, inoffensive lyrics that were meant to fit their marketing of Barbie and make it something inoffensive for their brand.
How has the Barbie brand evolved in response to criticisms and changing societal norms?
-The brand has introduced more body types, various career options for the doll, and has associated itself with influential women and feminist concepts to appear more inclusive and empowering.
What role did Greta Gerwig play in the development of the Barbie movie?
-Greta Gerwig, known for her work in Lady Bird and Little Women, was involved in the movie to bring a careful balance and a feminist perspective to the Barbie franchise.
How does the script suggest the new Barbie film addresses the doll's controversial past?
-The film uses meta commentary and self-awareness to position Barbie as a victim of Mattel's problematic choices and societal hatred, while also nodding to past sexism and trying to appease modern feminist standards.
What is the criticism regarding the 'Inspiring Women' doll series by Mattel?
-While the series includes dolls of famous historical women, the criticism is that Mattel seems averse to the word 'feminism' and that the brand's actions, such as the release of these dolls, may be more about marketing and less about genuine social change.
How does the script describe the evolution of the 'girl power' concept from Riot Grrrl to the Spice Girls?
-The script explains that the Riot Grrrl movement started the concept of 'girl power' with a focus on political and systemic change, but it was later commercialized and watered down by the Spice Girls for mainstream appeal, resulting in a loss of its original subversive power.
What is the script's view on the effectiveness of corporate feminism as portrayed by Mattel and the Barbie brand?
-The script suggests that corporate feminism, as shown by Mattel, is artificial and appropriated to sell products rather than being a genuine effort to promote social change or challenge existing beauty standards.
How does the script relate the issues faced by workers in Mattel's factories to the brand's public image of promoting women's empowerment?
-The script contrasts the brand's public image with the harsh realities faced by the female workers in Mattel's factories, highlighting the discrepancy between the company's marketing and its labor practices.
What is the script's final assessment of the Barbie film's portrayal of feminism?
-The script concludes that the film's portrayal of feminism is superficial and designed to sell products, rather than being a meaningful contribution to feminist discourse or social change.
How does the script suggest that the Barbie brand has commodified feminist ideals?
-The script implies that the Barbie brand has taken radical feminist messages and mainstreamed them into an aesthetic style that is mass-produced and sold as products, effectively turning feminist ideals into mere commodities.
Outlines
🎤 Mattel's Controversial Relationship with 'Barbie Girl'
Mattel, the company behind Barbie, initially found Aqua's hit song 'Barbie Girl' offensive and damaging to their brand image due to its implications about plastic surgeries and unrealistic beauty standards that Barbie was perceived to epitomize. In an attempt to neutralize the song's controversy, Mattel released a cover with more inoffensive lyrics in 2009. However, the song's sampling in the new Barbie film by Nikki Minaj and Ice Spice has further muddled its original social commentary. The narrative discusses the complex relationship between criticism, branding, and the transformation of the Barbie image over time, including director Greta Gerwig's attempt to modernize Barbie with a feminist twist, similar to her approach with 'Little Women'.
💄 Barbie's Evolving Image and the Illusion of Feminism
This paragraph delves into how Barbie's brand has evolved from a symbol of consumerism and unrealistic beauty standards to a supposedly feminist icon. It discusses the introduction of various body types and careers for Barbie dolls, the launch of STEM Barbie, and the marketing strategies that equate purchasing power with female empowerment. The paragraph also highlights the commodification of feminist ideals, such as 'girl power', and how they have been co-opted by mainstream media and brands for profit, often at the expense of genuine social change. It critiques the superficiality of these efforts and the disconnect between Mattel's public image and the realities of their business practices.
🌟 Co-opting Feminism for Profit: The Case of Barbie and Frida Kahlo
The third paragraph examines the co-opting of feminist symbols and figures for commercial gain, using the example of Frida Kahlo's image being used to sell Barbie dolls. It contrasts the radical, anti-capitalist roots of the Riot Grrrl movement with the sanitized, market-friendly 'girl power' propagated by the Spice Girls. The narrative criticizes the commodification of feminism, where radical messages are flattened into consumable aesthetics, and the exploitation of figures like Kahlo to lend an air of empowerment to products that fundamentally contradict her values.
🎬 The Facade of Feminism in Media and Entertainment
This paragraph explores the superficial incorporation of feminist themes in mainstream media, focusing on the remake of 'Beauty and the Beast' with Emma Watson and Greta Gerwig's involvement in the Barbie film. It critiques the superficial changes made to these franchises to give them a veneer of progressivism while ignoring deeper systemic issues. The narrative also touches on the cognitive dissonance of promoting body positivity in films while simultaneously selling beauty products that perpetuate unrealistic standards.
🏭 The Dark Reality Behind Barbie's Plastic Facade
The final paragraph reveals the harsh realities behind the production of Barbie dolls, citing reports of inhumane working conditions, exploitation, and discrimination against female factory workers in Mattel's factories. It contrasts the on-screen portrayal of Mattel executives as harmless with the actual abuse faced by workers. The narrative challenges the film's feminist claims and the brand's marketing tactics, arguing that the real-world implications of Barbie's production are at odds with the progressive image it projects. It concludes by questioning the authenticity of Barbie's feminism and the broader system of media and culture that perpetuates exploitation.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Barbie
💡Feminism
💡Body Image
💡Commodification
💡Plastic Surgery
💡Riot Grrrl
💡Consumerism
💡Influencer
💡Labor Exploitation
💡Cognitive Dissonance
💡Patriarchy
Highlights
Mattel's initial dislike of Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' song, considering it offensive and damaging to the Barbie brand.
The song's critique of beauty standards and plastic surgeries, which Barbie was seen to represent.
Mattel's 2009 attempt to rebrand the song with inoffensive lyrics to fit their marketing strategy.
The new Barbie film featuring a sample of the song by Nikki Minaj and Ice Spice, neutralizing the original social commentary.
The irony of media companies using satire against themselves while only being available on their own platforms.
Margot Robbie's candid discussion with Mattel's CEO about the widespread dislike of Barbie and the decision to engage in the conversation.
Greta Gerwig's challenge of addressing Barbie's past sexism while meeting modern feminist standards.
The meta commentary in the Barbie film that positions Barbie as a victim of Mattel's problematic choices.
The transformation of Barbie from a fashion model to a symbol of consumption and the aspirational qualities of modern young women.
The evolution of Barbie's role to reflect changing societal expectations of women, including STEM careers and body diversity.
The commodification of feminist movements, turning radical messages into mainstream, neutered versions for profit.
The controversy surrounding the Frida Kahlo Barbie doll and its misalignment with the real Frida Kahlo's anti-capitalist beliefs.
The critique of Disney's live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast and its superficial feminist updates.
The film's self-aware approach to addressing criticisms of Barbie, such as body image issues.
The underlying message that purchasing Barbie products can contribute to social change and female empowerment.
The film's portrayal of Mattel bosses as harmless, contrasting with reports of worker mistreatment in Mattel factories.
The cognitive dissonance of promoting feminist values while exploiting labor, as seen in corporate feminism.
The film's failure to address the real issues faced by women in the workforce, such as the conditions in Mattel's factories.
The conclusion that the Barbie film's feminism is artificial, designed to sell products rather than promote genuine change.
Transcripts
Mattel, the creators of Barbie, hated Aqua’s “Barbie Girl.” They found it
offensive and damaging to their brand, and they were kind of right.
The song was about plastic surgeries and the beauty standards that lead people to feel they
needed to change their bodies, standards which of course Barbie heavily reflected.
But in 2009, Mattel made an attempt to salvage the song by covering it with new, inoffensive lyrics.
AQUA’S SONG: ♪ I’m a blonde bimbo girl in a fantasy world ♪
MATTEL’S COVER: ♪ I’m a girl in my world full of fashion and fun ♪
It wasn't meant to be frightening, regardless of the effect, but the point was to take the
controversial song and make it into something inoffensive for their brand,
make it fit their marketing of Barbie.
Now with the release of the new Barbie film, the song has been sampled by Nikki Minaj
and Ice Spice. Any of Aqua’s original social commentary has long been neutralised by Mattel.
When you’ve got the cash, it's not so difficult to subsume criticism of your own company.
You can see it in other media, such as Black Mirror satirising streaming
services and their exploitation of workers - this
satire being of course available only on the very company they seek to satirise.
If you hate Netflix, subscribe to Netflix for the best anti-Netflix content!
So when Margot Robbie met with Mattel’s CEO to discuss developing a Barbie movie,
she was very blunt about the fact that a lot of people f*cking hate Barbie.
She said that the conversation around Barbie’s controversies is going to happen either way,
so…better to be involved in that conversation.
And we all know the criticisms, right? Barbie isn’t feminist enough,
she’s too skinny, she’s bad for self esteem, etc., etc.
Well that’s where Greta Gerwig comes in, famed director of Lady Bird and Little Women.
Gerwig had managed to pull off a careful balance with Little Women,
giving it a feminist twist commenting on the expectations for women to have a romantic ending,
while also… just going ahead and giving us the romantic ending anyway.
Women truly can have it all… as long as they’re incredibly beautiful of course.
Gerwig had her cake and ate it too, shattering the
glass fourth wall for a self aware nod to critics of Little Women’s ending.
Could she do the same for Barbie, bringing the franchise into the 21st century with careful nods
to the sexism of the past while also appeasing the pop culture feminist standards of the present?
Gerwig’s Barbie stars Will Farrell as a wacky loveable villain, the CEO of Mattel:
a man in charge of Barbie, trying to capture her and put her in a box! Oh no!
This meta commentary positions the Barbie character as a victim of Mattel’s more
problematic choices, as well as a victim of the hatred and vitriol she receives from the
women and girls of the world to whom it is her life’s goal to bring happiness.
It’s an interesting way of, kind of, anthropomorphising the brand. You’re
not criticising Mattel when you talk shit about Barbie, you’re being mean
to poor little Barbie herself! Poor Barbie, she never did anything wrong!
Time Magazine did the same thing back in 2016 when the new “curvy” Barbie doll was released.
"Now can we stop talking about my body?"
As if Barbie herself had been a victim of some sort of body shaming. Her thinness wasn’t a piece
of plastic embodying societal expectations of what women’s bodies should look like - rather
she was just an innocent skinny woman whose body was constantly under scrutiny by the public.
Aren’t you tired of watching women like Barbie twisting themselves into knots
just to be liked? As the film states, if all these misogynist standards for women
are even put on a doll just representing women… then, is there hope for any of us?
If you hate Barbie, it's clearly just because you hate women. If you hate Barbie,
then maybe you are the real misogynist.
That’ll be $10.99 please.
♪ I’m a Barbie girl ♪
The Barbie film opens with a send up of 2001: A Space Odyssey where little girls
smash their babydolls with the arrival of the magnificent Barbie, a symbol of modernity,
of progress! The age of the baby doll was over, Barbie was the way of the future!
And that’s fairly true to life, besides the proportions and the smashing. Before Barbie,
girls were expected to play pretty exclusively with baby dolls,
training from an early age for their role as mother, as caregiver.
But Barbie changed things, she was a new toy for the modern girl, a fashion model embodying all
of the aspirational qualities of the modern young woman of the late 50s and early 60s.
Barbie wasn’t a mum, she was a young woman with a job, and with that job came money to spend!
Her work as a fashion model tied in with your play of her:
you bought the doll which was cheap enough, and then you had to buy all the different
clothing sets for Barbie to model! Your shopping was a part of the Barbie play!
Repeatedly purchasing more Barbie products was basically a necessity, shopping was built into
the product, genius really - you kept those little kids buying and buying, all for this one doll.
And that’s what made Barbie the modern woman - that she was a shopper, a consumer.
She reflected the developing teen culture of the 1950s,
one with its own distinct language, music, and clothing. After all,
Barbie was only 19 years old! The youth of the day had money and they were ready to spend it!
What made Barbie the young woman of the modern world wasn’t some noble feminist goal… it was
her relationship to consumption. Indulgent spending was the aspiration of the day and
Barbie helped teach girls to associate adulthood with carefree consumption.
GIRL: I think I’d like… SECOND GIRL: …all of them!
VERITY: But times have moved on yet again,
and the role of the middle-class woman has evolved, and so has Barbie’s. Obviously
Barbie’s brand is no longer about just being a young woman with money to spend!
She’s no longer just a fashion model even; Barbie can be anything! A doctor! An astronaut!
A yoga instructor! That’s the feminism of today: a woman who can have it all!
Now you can help your little girl develop her interest in STEM with
the STEM Barbie doll! But you don’t wanna just influence your kid with only one job,
do you? Remember, girls can do anything! Lots and lots and lots of anything!
Today’s Barbie is so much more than just a shopper. But if you want to
really explore her big wide world of female empowerment,
you gotta spend a few bucks. You purchase Barbie’s identity. She is what she owns.
BARBIE: I’ve got the clothes from every career I’ve ever had!
VERITY: We may not associate Barbie with “fashion model” anymore,
but she is a youtuber, and she’s on instagram. If anything,
Barbie is an influencer now. Basically the 2023 equivalent of the 1959 fashion model!
In a way, she’s always been an influencer, hasn’t she, that’s her main job.
AD VOICEOVER: If you were a fashion model like Barbie,
you’d lead a different life every day of the week.
VERITY: But at least she’s always been a responsible influencer, a feminist one even.
As their website states, Barbie went to the moon back in 1965,
four years before real world men did!
NIKKI: You went to the moon?
BARBIE: You haven’t?
VERITY: In the 80s, Barbie proved that girls can do anything!
AD SONG: ♪ And we girls can dream anything, right Barbie, right Barbie? ♪
VERITY: And yes there have been some controversies over the years with regards
to how she affects girls body image, but even that has changed now! In 2016,
Mattel released 3 new body types, finally bringing some body diversity to the brand.
And now, with their Inspiring Women doll series, you can buy Barbies of famous historical women
such as Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Helen Keller and of course, a most barbilicious Frida Kahlo!
Barbie helps to show girls that they can have jobs, just like men! The feminism is real.
Except… Mattel actually seems pretty averse to the word “feminism.” They
recently went so far as to state that the new film is “not a feminist movie.”
Huh, okay, that casts a slightly different light on things.
I guess Barbie “went galactic four years before men” did, but the first woman had
actually already been to space a few years before the Barbie astronaut outfit was released. Funny
how Mattel never mentions that, they just heavily imply that she beat men to the moon,
even though going to the moon wasn’t part of the original astronaut costume marketing.
And yeah, Barbie did release new body types, but only after their profit crashed in 2015.
Mattel needed to rebrand because the decades of body image criticism caught
up with them and everyone saw Barbie as irrelevant and socially irresponsible.
The new body types were major press fodder,
and who doesn't love some free advertising through media reports?
But if you actually look at the bodies… we’ve got classic skinny, short skinny,
tall skinny, and slim thick, who is actually still really skinny compared to real women’s
bodies. She’s just rocking that 2010s Kim Kardashian booty. Is this body diversity?
Barbie’s body has been controversial since the beginning. In 1959,
mums weren’t comfortable with the idea of getting their daughters a doll with boobs.
And this chick came with very skimpy outfits early on including the "nighty negligee set".
Barbie’s design itself was actually snatched from a sexy german doll made for men,
Bild Lili. Ruth Handler of Mattel, who is credited with creating Barbie, found Lili while
on vacation and Mattel copied the doll who looks almost exactly the same as the original Barbie.
Jack Ryan, the designer who engineered Barbie, wanted her to be the perfect woman.
BOB MACKIE: They copied her exactly like the German one,
you know. So she had a little waist and great big, pointy ti--
VERITY: So no wonder the doll made parents uncomfortable!
To bypass parents' anxieties about this very provocative toy,
Mattel started selling her as a doll to teach “self-presentation skills” to little girls.
Barbie was GOOD for girls actually! And this marketing technique is still around
today. Girls can do anything! We love the idea that Barbie is actually a tool to help
girls become better women. After all, who encourages more girls to run for president,
Shirley Chisolm, Kamala Harris or Presidential Candidate Barbie?
Would any girls really learn to paint if they didn’t have a yassified Frida Kahlo Barbie?
Won’t little girls be more comfortable with their bodies now that they have curvy Barbie?
Well no, actually, studies have found that little girls really don’t like curvy Barbie, even calling
her fat. “Hello, I’m a fat person, fat, fat, fat,” said one little girl playing while others laughed.
And what I see on store shelves, to be honest, is overwhelmingly classic Barbie.
And of the Barbies made as film merch, only the skinny actors were adapted to Barbies,
possibly because a bigger body shape just doesn’t even exist.
But why, if Mattel is so eager to sell Barbie as feminist,
do they have this aversion to the word? If you’re going to use feminist movements
to sell your product, it seems weird to avoid the word “feminist”, right?
I mean they’re perfectly comfortable putting “girl power” on Barbie’s t-shirts,
and girl power is surely feminism in its purest most undiluted form. Right?
I mean the Spice Girls basically invented feminism,
freeing all women from the shackles of patriarchy.
Except that there was a precursor to girl power: the Riot Grrrl punk rock movement.
Riot Grrrls owned their own record labels and created a non-hierarchical,
DIY culture. They celebrated girls and sang about controversial issues such as
gendered violence, reproductive justice, body image and sexuality. They brought
feminist messages from academia into the lives of young women.
Riot Grrrl started to fall apart when the scene started receiving more media
attention which painted it as a fashion craze rather than a feminist movement.
It was Riot Grrrl which came up with the notion of girl power but the mainstream music industry
realised there could be a lot of money in this sort of branding. It was the Spice Girls who
really made girl power a worldwide phenomenon, but in the process the idea was completely
watered down so that it could appeal to the broadest possible audience for the most profit.
Where Riot Grrrl was able to be openly political because it wasn’t profit driven,
the Spice Girls on the other hand, lost a lot the subversive power of Riot Grrrl. They were created
and financed by a group of men who strategically engineered the group to fit a gap in the market.
Their work wasn’t rooted in feminism, it was looking to make a fashion craze.They
didn’t critique the status quo, they didn’t talk about systemic change,
they relied on traditional notions of beauty and the media loved them
because they generated massive amounts of attention and profit. The DIY culture of
Riot Grrrl feminism was turned into an endless stream of “girl power” merchandise for sale.
So there’s this commodification - we take a movement with a more radical message, something
which demands systemic change in our society, and we flatten it into an aesthetic, a style,
mass manufactured and packaged and placed on the shelves for purchase. It's a plastic feminism.
The movement becomes mainstream, but it’s a neutered version of it,
a powerless version. It’s not a movement, it’s a t-shirt. Barbie in a GRL PWR t-shirt is a far
cry from girl power’s Riot Grrrl roots. This Barbie doesn’t care about reproductive justice.
Frida Kahlo’s image and life have been used in a similar way.
In 2018, Barbie herself made a vlog about Frida Kahlo because
it was Barbie’s birthday and this was her gift to her subscribers.
BARBIE: My birthday present to you is to share the story of Frida Kahlo.
VERITY: Wow, that’s so nice of her to educate girls about Frida! Totally by coincidence,
unmentioned by Barbie, Mattel released their Frida Kahlo Barbie doll at the same time!
Now girls could feel inspired by this totally affordable Frida doll!
Frida herself was actually… a communist
and an anti-capitalist and would have absolutely hated the doll.
She also deliberately defied gender roles, classical beauty ideals and the objectification
of women, both in her life and her work. She portrayed women’s bodies as blemished,
imperfect, real and de-eroticised, a polar opposite to everything Barbie represents.
Her family members went on to protest the doll. Frida’s great niece said:
"It should have been a much more Mexican doll, [...] with darker skin, a unibrow,
not so thin because Frida was not that thin…”
But the real Kahlo isn’t what’s important. It’s the image that Kahlo brings to the Barbie brand
and to Mattel. She has come to be associated in popular culture with feminism on some vague level,
and that’s enough for Mattel to want to use her image for their brand, to help parents see that,
like Barbie with her vlog, they just care about empowering young girls.
When Disney decided that it was time to take their classic cartoon about a young woman
who is imprisoned by a cruel violent man until she learns to love him and update it
with a more progressive live-action remake, they cast Emma Watson in the leading role.
Watson had been in the public eye recently for her UN Speech on feminism,
asking men to be more involved in ending sexism. This new image of Emma Watson as
the inoffensive voice of feminist youth made her an ideal candidate for the role of Belle.
Disney has long suffered from feminist critiques of their films, Beauty and the Beast not the
least of them. After all, earlier versions of the fairy tale were about arranged marriage,
preparing girls for the self sacrifice that comes with it. Perhaps your husband
will be super freaking gross, but you can learn to love him if you try.
Could Watson’s image give Beauty and the Beast a feminist vibe for the 21st century?
Well, I’ll tell you something, she stepped up to the plate with some big changes in mind. Yes,
it's still a film about a cruel abusive man who imprisons her and then tries to
get her to fall in love with him, but it's important to note that Emma Watson
was involved in making sure Belle wore more sensible shoes while he did it.
She also made sure that Belle wasn’t carrying a basket around town,
but rather had pockets to carry things in.
Her Belle is also an inventor, inventing a washing machine early in the film,
though she never uses that skill again at any point.
I know, this sounds like a lot, and we really have to give Disney some credit here.
Emma Watson was like “since I’m playing a farmer girl,
can I not wear ballet shoes?” And Disney was like “whew. This is it. The feminist revolution.”
I do think Emma Watson’s feminism is sincere, but it has ended up being funnelled back into
the Hollywood machine and used for Disney’s progressive rebrand, her role in the film
giving a veneer of feminist glamour to a soulless remake written, directed and produced by men.
Watson has also starred in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women,
and Gerwig too has come to be associated with feminism in film, and her involvement with the
Barbie film immediately informed public opinion before it had even premiered.
Feminism has become Gerwig’s brand, and social change is in fashion. In fact,
Gerwig seems to be building her career on remaking big franchises with a progressive coat of paint:
it was recently revealed that Netflix has hired her to write and direct new Narnia films.
So of course, Barbie was always going to be an immediate feminist classic.
Barbie isn’t just skinny and conventionally attractive anymore,
she comes in all shapes and sizes ranging from skinny to slim! There
are even two curvier Barbies with a whole five lines between them!
You may remember Barbie as the whitest woman on the planet,
but that’s not true anymore! Except for the lead Barbie played by Margot Robbie
who is the main character and gets the vast majority of the screentime.
And don’t worry, the movie is super self aware about the problematic history of Barbie.
A girl named Sasha who has become disillusioned with Barbie lists off
everything she hates about the doll, from body image problems,
to just generally calling her a fascist, as any average Gen Z-er would do.
The way in which the film highlights feminist issues is
what makes it so appealing to a modern audience.
Because the fact is, we love to feel like we can shop our way through social change,
that our purchases will make a difference. And Mattel knows it.
Worried about the horrifying effects of Barbie’s plastic bodies on the environment?
Well don’t panic, Mattel has produced special Environmental Activist Barbies which are
partially made from recycled plastics, which means, since they’ve already been partially
recycled once, that they can never ever be recycled again and will exist forever.
These Barbies hate plastic, but are made of plastic! They hate
their very existence. [muffled screams] That’s why they scream.
Oh well, that seems like a losing battle, perhaps instead we can buy our way out of sexism.
Girls aren’t making it in STEM careers? Well
Barbie’s here to support and empower them with their Barbie STEM dolls!
Of course, in the real world, the reason why there are so few women in STEM is
not because they haven’t considered whether Barbie could work in STEM,
it’s because they face misogyny at every turn, from the gendered expectations of teachers to
hostile and abusive work environments. They have fewer opportunities and are paid less.
But maybe if little girls could only buy a STEM Barbie
then they would finally see that girls can do anything! If you believe in yourself,
no amount of misogyny or violence can stand in your way, am I right ladies?
To be fair, Mattel does offer school workshops and
mentorship conferences to support girls in their ambitions, investing as much as
0% - sorry I mean - 0.1% of their profit into supporting girls. Wow, they really do care!
Yeah, no it's just a load of faux feminist marketing. It’s meant to give you that feeling
that you’ve made a small difference in the world by making your purchase,
that you’ve done a shop for social change.
And um, sorry Greta Gerwig, but the film isn’t any better than that.
For instance, in one scene Margot Robbie’s Barbie says she feels ugly, and the scene pauses so that
the narrator can make a comment about how Margot Robbie is too pretty to say that.
And the point is for the movie to be like, “Body image, am I right, ladies?” And now you can’t say
in your reviews and your tweets that the film didn’t bring up body image problems. It really
did. The feminist revolution. Started with Emma Watson’s shoes and now here we are. Incredible!
The film really slows itself down trying to anticipate all of your potential criticisms. It’s
like they scrolled through twitter and found every half baked complaint about Barbie and just shoved
a line into the film to try to preemptively counteract it, and it gets pretty tiresome.
But that’s because this isn’t really a film about feminism. It’s a mainstream film made
for the widest possible audience, trying to reach everyone at the same time without
saying anything of any real substance. Flattened, plastic wrapped feminism.
Because while the film can call out problems like Barbie and body image,
a popular topic which probably everyone has probably had at least one conversation about,
there are other problems they can’t ever confront.
A few years ago, China Labor Watch sent undercover investigators into
Mattel’s factories in China where they make their toys, including Barbies,
and they found that life for the women who make Barbie… isn’t so great.
For instance, they found that most workers were women and most higher ups were men.
Female workers reported regular verbal abuse and humiliation by line managers.
Workers’ dormitories housed up to 10 people per room,
and were infested by fleas, mosquitos and other bugs.
There was no hot water in the showers, the cold water was dirty, and the toilets had no doors.
The food in the factory cafeterias was served on dirty dishes and
workers found hair and cockroaches in their meals.
The pay was so low the workers had to work illegal amounts of
overtime if they wanted to make a living wage.
They described production targets as inhumane and they were not provided
with safety equipment, even when working with dangerous materials.
Female workers reported a climate of frequent and trivialized sexual harassment.
When Mattel was made aware of the harassment and discrimination in their factories,
they did not announce any measures to stamp it out.
The latest undercover report about Mattel’s factories concludes,
“At the very least, women who produce Barbie dolls should be able to work
without fear of humiliation or harassment. Barbie makes a mockery of women's rights”.
So weird they didn’t mention any of this in the Barbie film, huh?
There’s this really emotional scene in the film, a feminist speech about
the cognitive dissonance of being a woman under patriarchy. Gloria talks about how
you need to have money but you can’t ask for money, about how you have to put up
with men’s bad behaviour and stay in line. And she’s right, according to these reports
Mattel apparently subjects the workers who make Barbie to this kind of abuse exactly.
But then the film just shows Mattel bosses as just silly, wacky, harmless guys.
But this is how corporate feminism works:
companies can’t ignore the new feminism of the age because their customers expect
them to keep up with times. So you get these Girls Can Do Anything campaigns
and “Barbie has a Butt Sometimes” campaign and a film about defeating the patriarchy.
But behind the scenes, the company can’t actually be feminist because that would be
bad for business. They know exactly what’s going on at their factories,
but that won’t stop them demanding higher production targets for lower production costs.
That’s just business, baby. You can’t girlboss without just a little bit of labour exploitation.
The day after watching the film, my co-writer Ada and I both were feeling a little down, and after a
while we started talking about what was bothering us and found that we were both feeling bad about
our bodies, that since watching the film we had come out just feeling worse about how we look.
And that actually surprised us, because we both kind of thought
that Barbie would leave us with some good vibes, little bit girl power,
but it actually just reminded us of how high the standards are.
Yes, Barbie tells a wrinkled old woman that she’s beautiful,
but at the same time you can buy some official Barbie anti-wrinkle
cream. “Have smooth skin like Barbie” with official Barbie Bikini Serum!
Or you can buy some official NYX Barbie make up! And don’t forget:
your teeth are ugly too! Barbie wants you to feel good about yourself,
while reminding you that you will never be good enough without these products!
As Jessica Defino puts it, “you cannot subvert the politics of Barbie while
preserving the beauty standards of Barbie. The beauty standards ARE the politics”.
This film is about how Barbie is a victim of the same misogyny women face every day. They
want us to feel that Barbie is not an “it,” not a successful brand, not an intellectual property,
but a “she,” a victim, a person, a woman. She may be selling you cosmetics for “smooth,
firm” skin, but it's only because she too has felt the shame of cellulite!
The film is a great ad. But is it feminist? Is it really fair to
call it that? Is liberation factory made? And if so, who’s working in the factory?
The whole system of media and culture is broken, it’s built on exploitation,
and Gerwig hasn’t like taken advantage of that system to create great feminist cinema, she’s just
been absorbed into the system. This film could never have been anything other than what it was.
I’m afraid the feminism of Barbie is an artificial and appropriated one designed
specifically to sell you products, many many products, and nothing more.
So instead of buying a ticket to see Barbie,
consider supporting this channel on Patreon! That sounds like a fine thing to say!
I don’t get paid as much as Greta Gerwig and I won’t try to sell you any serums
… unless you want me to?
Thank you to all our patrons who make this possible and a very special thank you to…
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