Barbie: The epitome of overconsumption or a feminist figure?

This summer, a pink and blonde tornado will hit our screens, “Barbiiiiiii!” With her much-anticipated film*, feminist director Greta Gerwig, a darling of independent cinema, like her companion Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote the script with her, is set to create the event. Already the trailer is crocignole, inclusive and satirical at will. There’s this self-deprecating link 2001, a space odyssey Kindergarten version. And then Margot Robbie, in immaculate neon barbie, greets like Miss France in her driverless Malabar convertible. Or Ryan Gosling, uneasy as Ken opens his open shirt, worthy of a member of a boy band. As we already love, this kitsch universe where good princes develop (without laughing), dozens of actors made up of Ken and Barbie. “Life in plastic, it’s fantastic.”sang Aqua in their smash hit, Barbie girl.

Barbiecore trend

If Greta Gerwig’s film (who saw it as “feminist fire” and Margot Robbie’s “stunning”) should have sharpened the trend and turned our hearts pink, then the “Barbiecore” trend has been raging around the world for a year. catwalks, red carpets or social networks. The Barbiecore hashtag has 292 million views on TikTok. With a bit of disdain for yesterday’s qualified bimbos, Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears or Paris Hilton are back with their heads (and heels) held high. The first, recovered by Jacquemus for his Pam in Paris campaign and his anti-type activism; the second, the heroine freed from her guardianship, fighting for her own sanity; third, cleared of all suspicion of stupidity thanks to the documentary this is paris which finally gives it some depth. And to rhyme peroxide blonde, for once, with gray matter. As for celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Hailey Bieber, Megan Fox, Lizo, Harry Styles, Glenn Close or even Brad Pitt, we swear by Valentino Pink PP, a unique fuchsia monochrome created by Pierpaolo Piccioli for Pantone together with And on the catwalks, after the capsule collection created by Balmain with Mattel, Dior, Marine Serre or Rick Owens, signed for the summer of 2023, adorn the silhouettes of Viva Magenta models, the Pantone color of the year. pink is the new black As mentioned Mixed magazine. But why this avalanche of pink Barbies and this unexpected rescue of many Barbie stars?

the reign of false

First, because, without a doubt, if we do not officially live a barbie world, his world sometimes ends up being a good metaphor for our world. In our world, the oceans are filled with plastic, the material from which our heroine is made, and false It is the king. on social media we encounter creatures with frozen smiles and filters or faces transformed by cosmetic surgery or in images created by artificial intelligence that seem strangely real to us. “But the Barbie ‘revolution’ is also about an entire society that is less and less able to distinguish between pretense and reality. Born in the 1950s and triumphant in the 1980s, the Barbie doll is another form of social imagination that is disrupted by the confusion between reality and all kinds of simulacra,” wrote Marian Debussy, a French historian specializing in American history, already in 1996. in his article Barbie doll (published in the journal Clio). He added: “It tells us something about a whole world where the human person is plasticized.”

Become a free woman

If the Barbie created in 1959 is a simulacrum, then what is it called? From the status of women, of course. Because while mothers in the 1960s were reluctant to offer their daughters this plastic pencil with skewed measurements (her legs, for example, are 50% longer than her arms, when in fact the average ratio is quite close to 20%), little girls immediately adopted it and succeeded : For what ? Because in the past, when baby dolls were only on the market, they played the role of mother, and with Barbie, they played at being a woman, which was an important step in breaking free of their mother-child bond. Because a bimbo doll is a free, powerful woman. “Barbie does not limit little girls to the educational function, providing pampering. She is a strong woman who does not give in to Ken’s advances,” notes Marie-Françoise Hankes-Meinsen, author. Barbie, doll-totem. Connection between mother and daughter or break? (Ed. Otherwise, 1998).

Barbie does not limit little girls to the function of feeding, handing out caresses. She is a strong woman who does not give in to Ken’s advances.

Marie-Francoise Hankes-Meinsen

A feature that Mattel’s ingenious marketing department has mastered well over time, assigning the doll all sorts of professions (air hostess, surgeon, racing driver, etc.). So he will be an astronaut since 1965, long before Armstrong and Aldrin’s first steps on the moon, and a presidential candidate since 1992 (so he will appear in every election). This allows curator Anne Monier to say And God made Barbie A documentary by Julie Deletre and Gabriel García, available on france.tv, that Barbie is indeed a “feminist object”.

all equal

Today, a blonde doll with blue eyes and fake ringtones even saves an awakened conscience. In the 2000s, the marketing of a black Barbie, the Barbie Oreo, sponsored by a popular cake brand, caused a scandal, and the term Oreo was considered a racial slur against black people. In 2016, in an effort to thwart criticism and restore collapsing sales, Mattel will release three new Barbies, this time “round.” Today, the brand continues to promote diversity and inclusion with black, Hispanic, Asian, or disabled dolls; the latter has Down syndrome so more children can identify themselves. Gorgeous Barbie never stops changing.

* barbie, By Greta Gerwig, with Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Emma Mackie… Released on July 19