The main character of books and films, a pop idol, a presidential candidate and an opinion leader – it’s all about Barbie. This ordinary doll has become a real pop culture phenomenon and more than one generation of girls all over the world has grown up playing with her. However, today the popularity of these dolls is decreasing – what’s the reason? Is Barbie's philosophy no longer relevant? Will Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling save her?
In the middle of the last century, an entrepreneur Ruth Handler noticed that her ten-year-old daughter Barbara didn’t play with baby dolls, which were needed to be nursed and carried in a stroller. Barbara and her friends were interested in paper dolls that could be dressed up and changed up, imitating adult life. But paper didn’t meet the requirements of the modern plastic world, so Ruth was inspired to create a new toy.
As her model, she took the Lilli doll which appeared several years earlier. Previously, Lilli was intended for adults. At the hight of popularity of Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe, cartoonists created mini-comics, the main character of which was Lilli – a typical pin-up girl. Later, the Lilli doll appeared, intended for collecting, but not for children's games. Ruth Handler, relying on the power of her husband's plastic factory, decided to create her own doll, which she named Barbie after her daughter.
At first, it was implied that Barbie was a teenager, but the early dolls clearly looked older. Parents decided that the bright makeup and ample breasts were too revealing, which consequently led to negative critics of the toy. However, girls from 3 to 14 years old began to increasingly choose the new doll to be bought in stores more and more.
The creators of Barbie had good goals – they wanted girls to learn not only how to babysit, but also to see how many opportunities they have in life. Barbie showed young girls that they could become both a presidential candidate and an astronaut. Barbie even landed on the moon four years before Neil Armstrong. Girls saw in the shop windows not Barbie as a housewife, but Barbie as an artist, a teacher and a nurse. Therefore, they realized that they had the rights to choose and learned to want more – to be who they themselves want to be.
We all know nothing by nature and learn everything from culture. Johan Huizinga wrote that culture at its initial stage is played, and the game has strict rules. According to the philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer, these rules occupy a higher hierarchical position than the players themselves: if one starts playing football with their hands, they will receive a penalty or provide their opponents with a penalty kick. The rules of children's games are no less strict: they dictate how boys and girls should live. Toy dishes for girls, blue cars for boys. Therefore, the former become housewives, while the latter become truck drivers. But when Barbie appeared, the world of girls was replenished with new role models and professions. From the beginning, the girls played office workers and then began to dream of a career and creating a business. So Barbie’s main task was to liberate girls from a single model of play and education.
In 1992, Barbie spoke, but it’d be better for her to remain silent. The toy finally told the whole world what she was thinking about, or rather not she, but the manufacturing company. Barbie's main question was: “Do we have enough clothes?” Parents immediately responded: “Barbie is raising adherents to the consumer society”. But she didn’t end there: “Maths is hard. That’s clearly not why the activists fought for the right to vote.” Barbie began to be called a shallow woman.
Barbie's story commenced with a fight against stereotypes, but over the years she herself became one. Once upon a time, it was a manifesto of resistance to a patriarchal culture with its baby dolls. In the end, it became the main symbol of patriarchy. With her form, she began to establish a new ideal of beauty, looking at which girls wanted to become like Barbie. Not only girls, but also adult women. Some of them went so far as to start having plastic surgery, just to meet Barbie's standards.
Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her book The Second Sex: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” What did she mean? The fact is that it’s not enough for society, that a woman has her gender indicated on her documents. She still needs to prove that she’s worthy of it, and for this she needs to meet many standards that are constantly changing and often contradict each other. For example, today you need to look like Marilyn Monroe, and tomorrow like Barbie. “Femininity” isn’t something that a woman has by default, but something that she has to strive for in order to be generally accepted as a woman in a patriarchal society. An American writer, Naomi Wolf also states that a myth has emerged, according to which the female body itself isn’t naturally feminine enough and requires restructuring and remodelling. So Barbie was recruited as an agent of the patriarchy. She once taught girls to be free, but what does she teach now? It has turned into an advertisement for anorexia. For example, in one of her incarnations, she holds a book that contains advice: to lose weight you need not to eat. Scientists from Helsinki have calculated that Barbie lacks 20% of her weight in order for her reproductive system to work and everything to be in order with her periods. The creators justified the unrealistic proportions of the doll by saying that they put clothes on her, which increase its size.
Although by 00’s, her measurements came closer to real ones, reducing her breasts and increasing her waist, Barbie still remains the standard of beauty. Michel Foucault said that the body is a tool for controlling society. How are we controlled through our bodies? We’ve socially approved opinion leaders who dictate to us what to buy, how to think and how to look. Barbie has become one of these leaders showing that the standard parameters of a woman are 90-60-90.
Back in 1961, Barbie got a boyfriend, Ken. He plays much the same role in her story as the princes in most Disney princess films. Ken isn’t an independent character, but rather an addition to Barbie, a decoration for her life, much like a dollhouse or a car. While Barbie flies into space, paints pictures and saves lives, Ken is apparently waiting for her with dinner because he is less lucky in his career. Barbie has changed more than 200 professions in her history, but he mastered only 40. In addition, in the USA, during every presidential campaign, Barbie appears on the shelves as a presidential candidate, and Ken only has the role of the first gentleman. Does it turn out that Barbie Land is a country of victorious feminism, in which matriarchy reigns? Matriarchy is a social system, in which all power belongs to women. It’s believed that purely matriarchal societies didn’t exist in history. At the moment they’re only possible in the doll world.
In Greta Gerwig's film Barbie, we see exactly that world. Here Barbie controls everything, and Ken is just Ken – the decoration of the team. Barbie Land looks like a Looking Glass of patriarchy, showing all its problems. Men are the oppressed group here, but women suffer, too. So we see a “Weird Barbie” who has become a recluse because her owner disfigured her and she no longer meets the standards. In fact, she suffers from matriarchy, in which women are expected to be strong, successful and ideal in everything. In the same way, men can suffer because of patriarchy if they don’t meet at least some criteria of masculinity. Once in the real world, Barbie learns that they’ve failed in the mission that Ruth Handler originally assigned to them. Here everything is controlled by men and Barbie dolls embody the patriarchal ideal of women.
But it must be said that everything is gradually changing; under the pressure of criticism, the company released a series of dolls with more realistic proportions, and then with vitiligo, alopecia and prostheses. Recently, Barbie with Down syndrome has also joined them. Now dolls show that we’re all different because we don’t live in a plastic world. Over the past 10 years, sales, and therefore, the popularity of Barbie have decreased. According to the creators, the film with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling should help Barbie once again lead the fight against stereotypes. We’ll see if the new Barbie can regain her former status as a symbol of feminism.
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