Profs & Pints: The Life of Barbie
Black Squirrel Club
1049 Sarah St.
Philadelphia
April 22
Nearly two years after the Barbie movie became the first ever female-directed film to gross $1 billion in the box office, the wave of infamously overplayed barbie-core aesthetic has all but subsided. When I learned that the next Profs & Pints, an affordable lecture event held in bars throughout the city, would cover “The Life of Barbie,” I jumped at the opportunity to relive the magic of the summer of Barbie.
Profs & Pints originated in Washington, D.C before expanding to cites all over the U.S., including Philadelphia. This unique social outing introduces people to different academic fields and welcomes the intellectually curious to enjoy a deep dive into new topics over a few martinis.
I must admit that despite the fervor of my anticipation, a part of me held some skepticism regarding this week's topic. I thought that perhaps the Barbie movie, while representing the most recent iterations of the Barbie brand, might have been where any meaningful cultural analysis of Barbie had peaked.
My reservations proved to be woefully misguided.
Emily Aguiló-Perez, the featured speaker and an associate professor at West Chester University, told me that her extensive research into the history and legacy of Barbie began in 2012. She currently teaches a class studying “girlhood,” in which she has her students design their own Barbie, and they get quite creative, drawing from their own lives. The project is meant to prompt students to reflect on what girlhood means to them, and reimagine versions of Barbie that reflect the more mundane reality of being a woman.
In her main analysis, Aguiló-Perez illustrates Barbie as both a mirror and a mold: first as a mirror that reflects social values that young girls might aspire to, and second as a mold, an experiential and tactile model that young girls use play out life's possibilities. Of course, what many girls who played with Barbie share in common tends to be how they’ve been shaped by those conflicting messages.
Ruth Handler, who founded major toy company, Mattel [1], alongside her husband, Elliot Handler, and Harold Matson, designed Barbie for young girls to see themselves in the many facets of what Barbie could be. Notably, it was not until 1980 that they released the first Black and Hispanic dolls that also were named Barbie. Prior to that, Barbie had a few Black and Brown friends, but Barbie was explicitly understood to be a white woman.
Aguiló-Perez used a fun PowerPoint with images of ads and clips from Greta Gerwig’s film to show the historical evolution of Barbie, including two versions of Barbie in space, first in 1965, and then again in 1985. Releasing the first astronaut Barbie marked the achievement of the first woman who went to space in 1963[2]. The 1985 version commemorated that same moment twenty years later, as the rise of second wave feminism pushed a cultural shift towards women’s liberation.
We learned about a group called the Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO), an activist group on the frontlines of the culture wars in the 1990s. They formed as a pushback against the first talking Barbie that included that controversial phrase, “Math is hard!” Their protests played out more as comical absurdity when they confiscated hundreds of Barbies and GI Joes and swapped out their voice boxes, to then be purchased by unsuspecting customers.
Barbie’s struggle with math reinforces the stereotype that keeps women largely absent in STEM fields. However, it’s possible that these criticisms further reduce femininity as something less than. At the end of the day, Barbie is just a toy, and perhaps that’s why there’s a myriad of emotional reactions, for better or worse. Does the doll manufacture unrealistic standards of girlhood, or do consumers place too much onus on a toy to be such a role model?
I really enjoyed the lecture overall, especially its casual setting of a local bar. Aguiló-Perez’s analysis stood out to me because she engaged with Barbie as a text, broadly defined as anything that you can attach meaning to or convey messages through. Barbie is many things: an astronaut, a fashionista, a doctor, a surfer, a girl, a woman, a toy, and a tool. I believe that instead of Barbie herself being the mirror, how we personally resonate with Barbie is the reflection that we see. Barbie doesn’t tell our story for us; instead, we use Barbie as a conduit to express our own uniqueness.
While Barbie has influenced generations of women in ways that no toy ever had before (nor will again), she could never capture the full nuances of being a living human girl, only the outlines of the shape of girlhood. I think if grown-ups want to empower their children to embrace their complexities and their flaws, they need to allow that space for exploration, the good and the bad. Children’s play shapes their minds and their identities; it’s intrinsic to the human experience.
No one ever had to be taught how to play. We just did it. Imposing limitations on what constitutes “safe” or “educational” play takes the fun out of toys. Regardless of well-intentioned feminist critiques, girls themselves have always had the final say on what Barbie means to them.
As Marie Antionette once publicly declared, “Let them play with Barbies!”[3]
[1] The name “Mattel” came from combining Matson’s surname with Elliot Handler’s first name. His wife, Ruth’s, name is noticeably absent from the branding.
[2] Valentina Tereshkova paved the way for Katy Perry to spend 11 minutes in space to find herself.
[3] Marie Antoinette actually said “Let them eat cake.” However, many historians say she might never have said that, either.
