Indeed, the changes Mattel has been making to their dolls can be seen as a direct result of the willingness of artists, activists, and fans to playfully engage with-rather than simply criticize-their dolls.īarbie has always been malleable. In this age of digital reproduction Mattel can neither thwart nor ignore what people want to do with their dolls.
In line with Rentschler and Thrift’s (2015) argument that feminist meme propagators do feminist cultural production, Barbie artists and activists sharing their altered dolls on social media are doing feminist cultural production and creating “feminist community-building media” (Rentschler 2019). Indeed, they make curvy Barbie, released in 2016, and the gender-neutral Creative World TM dolls, released this year, look pretty conventional. In our documentary video on Barbie in the age of digital reproduction (produced by Martha McCaughey and Beth Davison, linked above), we see how these artists and Barbie hackers go much farther than Mattel to re-imagine gender and pop culture. There are entire Instagram accounts devoted to depictions of Barbie and social critiques made through Barbie, for instance Sociality Barbie, the anonymous Instagram feed with over 800,000 followers that depicts Barbie as a Portland, Oregon hipster. For example, Black Moses Barbie videos on YouTube use Barbie dolls to depict imagined moments in history with Harriet Tubman, and photographer Mariel Clayton creates elaborate scenes with Barbies-sometimes violent, sometimes sexual, sometimes both-which she photographs and shares on her public Facebook page. Public Breastfeeding Barbie and Lesbian Wedding Barbie (Photos by Martha McCaughey)Īnd now, as Barbie turns 60, we can see how participatory social media has made it possible for anyone with a dream for Barbie to share it instantaneously and widely.
The exhibition included Muslim Girl Barbie (made from a 1960s Skipper doll), Stay-At-Home-Dad Ken, Public Breastfeeding Barbie, and Lesbian Wedding Barbie-to name a few. and other culture jammers, for Barbie’s 50 th anniversary in 2009 I initiated a “Barbies We Would Like to See” exhibition on my campus. In addition to the B.L.O., women’s groups expressed concern that Barbie’s math-anxious statement would discourage girls from pursuing math and math-related fields, and so Mattel removed the offending remark from Barbie’s voice box. Joe saying, “Let’s sing with the band tonight” or “Wanna go shopping?” and Barbie saying, “Dead men tell no tales” the B.L.O.’s media-savvy culture jam threw our gendered expectations into sharp relief. They released videotapes to major television news outlets explaining their action and calling attention to Mattel’s outdated gender ideology. Joe, and put the altered dolls back into their original packages and back onto store shelves. The Barbie Liberation Organization (B.L.O.) switched Teen Talk Barbie’s voice box with that of talking G.I. However, the 90s also gave us the infamous Teen Talk Barbie whose voice box had been programmed to say, “ Math class is tough.” She had also been a racecar driver, a pilot, and a presidential candidate. By the 1990s Barbie had careers as a firefighter, police officer, and in the military. This top selling American toy has long been criticized for fueling sexist stereotypes, because women are not actually focused on dream houses, dream dates, beauty, and unbridled consumption.Īnd yet Mattel has made attempts to refashion the doll as women’s positions in society have changed.