“Bimbo” or feminist?
Since the announcement of its release, the film Barbie arouses great enthusiasm on social networks and raises the question of the hour: Was Barbie a feminist all this time?
This has got to be the most anticipated movie of the summer. Directed by Greta Gerwig, Barbie will hit theaters this Friday with Margot Robbie (Babylon, Suicide Squad, I, Tonya) in the role of the most famous doll in the world.
The trailer for the $145 million production sets the stage for an ambitious comedy between homage and satire. When kicked out of her perfect world, Barbie, accompanied by Ken (Ryan Gosling), ventures into the real world in search of the truth about human nature, no less. “Do you ever think about death? “, she simply launches to her peers in the middle of a dance number.
For Internet users who are familiar with the genius of Greta Gerwig (Little Women, Ladybird), it was enough to qualify the work as a modern feminist epic even before having seen it.
In the eyes of Greta Gerwig, Barbie can only be transformed into a feminist icon.
Martine Delvaux, essayist and professor of literature at the University of Quebec in Montreal
It must be said that the film was not always so promising. The project had been in the cards at Sony Pictures for years before its rights were transferred in 2018 to Warner Bros. Pictures, which entrusted the direction to the filmmaker of 39 years.
In a recent interview, actress Amy Schumer – who was initially offered the title role – said she left the production because the script wasn’t “feminist and cool” enough. In one of her earliest versions, Barbie was an inventor who made high heels out of Jell-O…
But it was also a different era. Before the imprisonment of producer Harvey Weinstein, before the #metoo shock wave. In recent years, the film industry has left more room for strong female voices, including that of Greta Gerwig, precisely. Judging by the rest of his work, Barbie will take a complex and nuanced look at the tribulations of femininity, only wrapped in fuchsia packaging.
“Greta Gerwig is a great director, who likes to revisit classics. Barbie is really candy,” underlines Martine Delvaux.
Controversies
An invaluable source of material, too. We loved it, hated it, loved it again. Barbie is divisive. From the start, in fact.
It was Ruth Handler, wife of the co-founder of the toy company Mattel, who had the idea to market a doll with an adult appearance in 1959. At the time, young girls mainly played with it. babies. “It participated in the domestication of little girls. They were first taught to be mothers. Barbie had potential, ”said Mme Delvaux.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Martine Delvaux, essayist and professor of literature at the University of Quebec in Montreal
She was of questionable proportions, but she owned a house before women were even allowed to open a bank account and practiced all sorts of trades, some have pointed out.
However, Barbie was also the target of strong criticism. There was this doll, for example, sold with a diet book advising “not to eat”. The one who repeated that math lessons were “difficult”.
Certainly, Mattel cannot be considered solely responsible for the dictatorship of thinness and the reproduction of gender stereotypes. But she certainly participated in “the mass production of this figure”. “The problem is that there was only that. And this imagination is like a virus. It has contaminated all representations,” notes the author of the essay. Serial Girls – From Barbies to Pussy Riot.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MATTEL
Barbie Rosa Parks
The company has made efforts in recent years to diversify the look of its toys, including the addition of a doll with Down syndrome. She also launched a collection inspired by exceptional women, including activist Rosa Parks and anthropologist Jane Goodall. “But if the costume changes, the nose remains fine, the luscious lips, the Caucasian features…”, remarks Martine Delvaux.
For me, Mattel’s Barbie cannot be feminist.
Martine Delvaux, essayist and professor of literature at the University of Quebec in Montreal
One and the other
So what has changed? Why is the controversial toy suddenly being greeted with such enthusiasm? Like many of her generation, Martine Desjardins loved her Barbie dolls. As a child, she had everything: the house with the elevator, the convertible, the camping trailer…
Yes, unrealistic standards of beauty, yes, gender stereotypes, but for the 54-year-old lawyer, Barbie has always had a “rebellious” side, even feminist, dare we add, in her way of assuming its superficiality.
A girl can be smart and deep and dress in pink and a miniskirt!
Martine Desjardins
It is certainly no coincidence: the figure of the bimbo has made a resounding comeback since the pandemic. It is the image of the frivolous woman, endowed with a thin waist and a generous chest, who likes to take care of her appearance. On social networks, young women claim their hyperfemininity.
Some talk about bimbo feminismothers from bimbification. They exhibit an exaggerated femininity, often in the register of parody, with the aim of diverting the codes, of reappropriating them. Basically, it’s this idea that women are not one-dimensional.
“The message that the film tries to convey is that there is no dichotomy between giving importance to one’s appearance and intelligence,” thinks Béatrice Gaudet, literature professor at Cégep de Saint Laurent.
In an interview given to New York Times, Greta Gerwig evoked the contradictory symbol represented by the blonde doll. “Things can be both,” she said.
Barbie can be both a plastic bimbo and a feminist icon. In the same way that we can both like it and criticize it. “We don’t put Barbie to death. We are not told not to use it, concludes Martine Delvaux. We are told, on the contrary: give it a feminist force. »
Barbie in 10 defining moments
From instant success to many controversies, the ups and downs of Barbie’s history.
1959
The first Barbie is presented at the annual toy fair in New York. The doll is dressed in a striped bathing suit and has a blonde or brown ponytail. Mattel sold 350,000 copies in its first year on the market.
1961
Two years after its creation, the Barbie family is growing. Donning a red bathing suit and yellow towel, Ken is introduced as her boyfriend.
1965
Barbie became an astronaut four years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. Since its creation, the doll has practiced more than 200 professions, including pilot, news anchor and President of the United States.
1965
The first controversy is not long in coming. The same year, a doll is sold with a scale and a diet book that advises “not to eat”.
1968
Barbie has an African American first friend, a doll named Christie. It wasn’t until 1980, however, that Mattel released the first black-skinned Barbie.
1992
Barbie is in trouble again. Mattel launches a doll programmed to repeat pre-recorded phrases, including “Math lessons are difficult!” “. The American Association of University Women is quick to accuse the company of perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes.
2004
Like Kirsten Dunst and Jake Gyllenhaal, Ken and Barbie announce their separation. After a few years of a strictly platonic relationship, the pair would finally reunite in 2011 (but not Dunst and Gyllenhaal).
2006
A study published in the journal Developmental Psychology reveals that girls exposed to Barbie have less self-confidence and express a stronger desire to be thin.
2016
Mattel introduces three new silhouettes: small, large and round. The company, whose global sales have plummeted in recent years (a low of US$905.9 million in 2015 for Barbies, according to Statista), says it wants to adapt to the times. For some, it’s too little, too late.
2018
The company is launching a collection of dolls in the image of inspiring women, including painter Frida Kahlo and mathematician Katherine Johnson.
Sources: Times MagazineMattel, Reader’s Digest