a Barbie girl in a Barbie world

Oh Barbie, Happy birthday! You will be fifty soon but you are looking HOT. Your hair has not grayed, your neck has not turkeyed, your breasts have not sagged, your waist has not inflated, your thighs have not started to resemble my mother’s homemade cottage cheese, your feet have not bunioned from all those heels. Girl, am I JEALOUS! I hope that when I hit fifty, I will look like you.

Oh wait. I am twenty. And even right now, I look nothing like Barbie.

          Barbara ‘Barbie’ Millicent Roberts was created on March 9, 1959 – almost fifty years ago. Morphed into a children’s doll, she was created after Bild Lilli, a German “sex toy” marketed only for adult men. Barbie has now become an international icon, as her blonde hair, bright blue eyes, busty torso, long, thin legs, and countless identities are recognized by young girls all over the world. Yet, I would like to go deeper into the world of Barbie. What does she represent? I would like to assess the extent to which Barbie is a physical role model, moral role model, both, or neither. Does she provoke the cult of domesticity or break gender roles? Is she a product of technology or does she use it just like we do? Is she a simulation, a ‘hyperfeminine performance’, or is she the ‘real woman’ that we are striving to become?

          The definition of gender has been a key argument in the study of “femaleness.” The variations of these definitions are infinite. But a constant conclusion throughout most of the discourses we have discussed in class have been that gender is ‘a product, a socially and culturally constructed representation or performance, in harmony or at odds with biological sex.’ (G&T blog) Teresa de Lauretis, a gender theorist, proposes in her essay The Technology of Gender, that gender…[is a]…representation and self-representation…the product of various social technologies…and of institutionalized discourses, epistemologies, and critical practices, as well as practices of daily life.” (De Lauretis 2) She claims that “gender is a representation…that the representation of gender is a construction…[and] that the construction of gender is also effected by its deconstruction; that is to say, by any discourse, feminist or otherwise, that would discard it as an ideological misrepresentation.” (De Lauretis 3) Barbie, I propose, is a construction of gender. We give her breasts, a dress, a job, a boyfriend – simply, we give her the identity of a woman. She is performing physically and socially.

          Physically, Barbie has been criticized for her ‘perfect body.’ She is 5’10, 110 pounds, and has a 39-18-33 inch frame. In my research, I found a critique of the icon, Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: The Posthuman Body, by Kim Toffoletti. Toffoletti claims that Barbie is a “transformer” (Toffoletti 57). “Figurines such as Barbie function to encourage alternate understandings of the body and self a transformative, rather than bound to an established system of meaning. She is a precursor to the posthuman; a type of plastic transformer who embodies the potential for identity to be mutable and unfixed.” (Toffoletti 58). I suggest that it is not about her thin, plastic physique but instead, about her marketability. Barbie’s eternal youth allows her to sustain herself – after all, she is a doll. She needs to be accessible to play and dance with, to talk to, to pretend and perform for any girl for any future generation. If she ages, she is no longer marketable. If she ages, she will die.

          Socially, Barbie is a still a “transformer.” She has evolved over time. She has emerged into different ethnicities, races, religions, and occupations. Barbie no longer solely promotes the cult of domesticity, where the True Woman holds the four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, submission, and domesticity.

“[Instead, she] displays a malleability in the multiple personals and roles she enacts, while retaining a coherent identity. This interpretation finds its theoretical complement in Judith Butler’s notion if performativity…that gender roles are performative enactments that ensure the materialisation of female roles…Indeed, Barbie’s hyperfeminine qualities imply that gender itself is a simulation; an artifice that is reproducible, rather than a natural characteristic.” (Toffoletti 73-74)

Barbie may be physically thin and blonde, but she is socially independent. She is a product of technology yet is intelligent enough to use it to her advantage. She can be whoever she wants to be: a police officer, the President, a rock star. We may still associate Barbie with ‘playing house,’ but I believe that times have changed. “[These] transformations Barbie may undergo…are limited to the changing accessories, careers, and roles,” (Toffoletti 74) but at the age where Barbie is an influence, there is nothing more enchanting than the switch of an outfit and the resulting switch of an identity. Barbie gives young girls a chance to see the transformativity of gender; that femaleness is no longer constrained to being a girlfriend, mother, or housewife.

          De Lauretis states “gender is not a product of bodies, but of social technology.” (De Lauretis 2) Barbie is a prime example of how social technology embodies gender as a performance, a simulation, a transformative identity. Barbie is a woman who can do everything. We can take parts of her lifestyle and work towards assuming it as our own. She is a revolutionizing role model for young girls. But most importantly, we must remember that she is a toy. She shapes us when we are young, but we outgrow her. She is a simulation of what our future could be like, but she is not the ‘real woman’ we are striving to become. “The construction of gender is both the product and process of its representation.” (De Lauretis 5) It is a continuum, and without plastic figurines like Barbie or G.I. Jane and whatever is in between, we are stuck in a binary world of masculine man and feminine woman. 

                                                                                                                                                    

De Lauretis, Teresa. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film,

     and Fiction. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press,

     1987.

Toffoletti, Kim. Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: The Posthuman Body.

     New York: I.B.Tauris, 2006.

“Class Notes.” Gender and Technology Spring 2009. 12 Feb 2009.

     Bryn Mawr College. 13 Feb 2009

     <http://www.gandt.blogs.brynmawr.edu>.