Hyper-femininity can be subversive and empowering – just ask Barbie

• Indoors, confined to Juicy Couture tracksuits, I was missing excuses to express my hyper-femininity through clothing, as I had done pre-pandemic.
• Collecting Barbie dolls became a way to display my love of femininity in all it’s fun, ridiculous and pink-saturated possibilities.
• My shelf of Barbies – from Western Winking Barbie (1981) to Enchanted Evening Barbie (1995) – is now my favourite part of my home.
• But for many, her rediscovery will come through Greta Gerwig’s upcoming movie, Barbie – the doll’s first live action film, starring Margot Robbie.

Barbie’s complicated feminism

• Lord describes Barbie as a complicated and contradictory pop-culture figure.
• Lord sees Barbie as a “reflection of American popular cultural values and notions about femininity”.
• Over its 64-year history, the doll’s evolution has reflected the often contradictory demands and ideals placed on women.
• Some feminists argue that Barbie’s hyper-femininity isn’t self aware in the way that, for example, the hyper-femininity of drag queens is.

Rebranding Barbie

• The company alleged that the band’s song Barbie Girl, released the same year, infringed upon Mattel’s trademark and imposed an adult image onto Barbie.
• Fast forward 20 years and the soundtrack to the Barbie movie features a song by rappers Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj entitled Barbie World, which samples Aqua’s Barbie Girl.
• With lyrics such as “I’m a Barbie girl, pink Barbie Dreamhouse/The way Ken be killin’ shit got me yellin’ out like the Scream House”, the pair position Barbie-branded hyper-femininity as a source of sexual empowerment.
• In the trailers for the upcoming Barbie movie, Barbie Land is a matriarchal society where hyper-femininity is a sign of power.