Barbie's Complicated Feminism, Before & After Greta Gerwig-Margot Robbie Film

Margot Robbie during Barbie's promotions wearing the Day-to-Night Barbie outfit. 

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/ Altered by The Quint)

"If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you" – this little statutory warning from the trailer for Greta Gerwig's Barbie is indicative of how divisive the iconic Barbie doll has been for decades.

While many have hailed Barbie for being a 'feminist revolution' in the world of fashion dolls, others have long criticised the iconic doll for perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards and taking way too long to become more 'inclusive'.

To truly understand what makes Barbie such a divisive doll, we'll have to go back to the very beginning...

A World Before 'Barbie'

The first Barbie doll was released by Mattel in 1959, when gender roles were still predominantly restrictive. Before Barbie entered the market, toys and dolls that catered to young girls were often kitchen sets or 'baby' dolls that pushed them in the direction of being 'nurturers' before anything else.

In a sense, these toys showed women that they had one 'ending', which is to be a part of a patriarchal family system. 

The first-ever Barbie doll released in 1959.

Then came Barbie, a doll modeled as an adult woman. The creator, Ruth Handler, purportedly created the doll after she saw her daughter playing with paper cutouts of women instead of the outdated dolls present in the market.

By 1984, Barbie's identity had been solidified by her tagline: 'We can do anything, right Barbie?'

For the time, this was revolutionary and is primarily where Barbie's image of being a 'feminist icon' comes from. At a time when women were barely encouraged to pursue careers, Barbie first debuted with the job 'Teenage Fashion Model'. Since then, the doll has had over 100 different careers. 

This doll was telling young girls that they could be corporate executives, paleontologists, corporate executives, and practically 'anything'. 

Paleontologist Barbie was released in 1996.

More often than not, Barbie was ahead of her time. Barbie's Dreamhouse is almost as iconic as the doll, and when it hit markets in 1962, it did not feature a kitchen.

It's also important to note that Barbie was a homeowner at a time when women couldn't have bank accounts or mortgages without the approval and signature of a male family member.

When it came to jobs, too, Astronaut Barbie was launched in 1965, two years after the first woman went to space (Valentina Tereshkova) and 18 years before the first American woman completed the feat.

Barbie's image of being career-oriented and independent came with another necessary feature – her identity wasn't tied to the existence of a man. Even when the Ken doll was introduced in 1961, it was an accessory to the Barbie doll.

Gerwig touches upon this in the movie Barbie as well, juxtaposing the role that Kens play in Barbieland to the one that women are relegated to in the real world. In Barbieland, Ken wants to feel included and doesn't have an identity outside of his relationship with Barbie.

And in the real world, Barbie feels objectified and is actively harassed and looked down upon.

Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in a still from Barbie.

Too Little, Too Late?

While many people have appreciated Barbie for 'empowering' people across age groups for decades, it has also been accused of pushing forth an unrealistic body standard.

Barbie has not only had unhealthy proportions, she had also for the longest time been thin, able-bodied, and white. 

The Totally Hair Barbie released in 1992.

For a doll that claimed that kids could be 'anything', this design was restrictive. Young girls were not only being inspired by Barbie, several were idolising her. Naturally, the onus of affecting body image doesn't rest solely on Barbie, considering that almost all media wants women to believe they must fit society's unrealistic idea of what conventional attractiveness is. 

Yet, Barbie was so popular and so omnipresent that she had influence. 

(Content warning: The next three paragraphs contain mentions of eating disorders)

Gerwig's film makes a comment on this. The film's main arc begins when Stereotypical Barbie (Robbie) is horrified when she finds out that she has 'cellulite'. Even as she rides out of Barbieland, all the other Barbies chant that they hope she comes back 'cellulite-free'.

This sentiment might seem out of place when you don't consider the doll's history. The doll's unrealistic body standards weren't just a passing phase, once the marketing doubled down on it.

In the 1960s, Slumber Party Barbie debuted with a satin pajama set (did someone say luxury?), heels, a mirror, a pink bathroom scale that only read '110 lbs' (approximately 49.8 kgs), AND a book that was supposed to be a 'How To Lose Weight' guide that just read, 'Don't Eat'.

The Slumber Party Barbie with her initial accessories. 

The pink scale was later dropped from the set and a later version came with a mug of hot chocolate and a reading lamp.

Moreover, Mattel has been accused of acting 'too little, too late' as it only introduced its 'Fashionistas' range with dolls having varying body proportions in 2016 – 57 years since the first Barbie was released. 

Mattel in Hot Water

Despite attempting to market their product as progressive, there were still glaring marketing slights that were overlooked. Ironically, most of the controversy Mattel faced was for undermining their own doll.

For instance, when the immensely popular Teen Talk Barbie released in 1992, she had the ability to 'say' four randomised phrases from a larger library. Some of the dolls said the phrase, "Math class is tough!"

Among others, educators from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics criticised the doll's messaging especially at a time when women were discouraged from opting for subjects like mathematics and science. 

Mattel, in response, withdrew the phrase from the doll's lexicon and admitted that they hadn't considered the "potentially negative implications."

Let's talk about the 'negative implications' in question and why four words were so heavily criticised. For absolutely no logical reason, even education has been gendered for centuries. Men are considered to be better candidates for fields like science, technology, and mathematics, and women are considered to be better in fields like teaching and home science.

Even in 2023, as Clara Piloto, the Director of Global Programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out, "Despite progress in gender equity and growing interest over the last decade in computer science, engineering, math, and statistics among both men and women, the underrepresentation of women in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields continues to persist."

"In 2023, the gender gap in STEM remains significant, with women making up only 28% of the STEM workforce."

Clara Piloto, MIT

'Barbie: I Can Be A Computer Engineer' book and the Computer Engineer Barbie. 

While Barbie is obviously not responsible for the gender divide in professional fields, the company was rightfully called out for having Barbie, a doll marketed as someone who could do anything, feed into the stereotypes.

Years after the Teen Talk Barbie debacle, a similar bout of criticism followed the release of the book 'Barbie: I Can Be A Computer Engineer' in 2010. In the book, Barbie mostly relies on assistance from her male counterparts and claims that she can only make 'designs' but 'will need to ask her male friends' to turn it into a game. 

Mattel later admitted that the book 'doesn't reflect the brand's vision for Barbie'.

In fact, Gerwig hilariously weaves this into her film Barbie to critique the way women are often infantilised especially in professional fields – from microaggressions to mansplaining.

Moving Past 'Barbie'

In the film, a teenager gives Stereotypical Barbie (Robbie) a reality check by calling her a 'white saviour Barbie'. This cheeky dialogue points to another issue in Barbie's history – for the longest time, Barbie was a white woman and Ken was a white man.

Even Mattel's journey towards becoming more racially inclusive is complicated.

The first Black doll that Mattel produced wasn't even a Barbie, it was a sister line: Francie. She was introduced as a 'MODern cousin' to Barbie, and in 1967, a Black Francie was introduced (though the name they gave her was highly problematic). The latter was criticised for still having Eurocentric features.

The company then introduced two friends for Barbie: Stacey and Christie (in 1968 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement). The latter was a Black doll for which Mattel created separate face molds. It was a massive success but still garnered similar criticism to Francie. 

Mattel's actual contribution to inclusivity would come from their support for two Black men, Louis Smith and Robert Hall, who launched their own toy company Shindana Toys. Mattel was one of the corporations financing parts of the company's operations (and training employees). The company specialised in producing accurate depictions of Black culture in their dolls and went away from Eurocentric proportions. 

A line of dolls from Shindana Toys.

(And yet, the corporation has been criticised for not being inspired from Shindana Toys' ideas of diversity despite providing 'guidance' to the company.)

But so far, all the dolls mentioned weren't 'Barbie', they were either friends or cousins of the original Barbie. The first Black Barbie made her debut in 1980 thanks to Louvenia 'Kitty' Black Perkins who designed her. The doll's box read, "She's black! She's beautiful! She's dynamite!"

And as Perkins told the New York Post, she wanted the new doll to look 'more like her'.

Black Barbie and her designer Louvenia “Kitty” Black Perkins.

Progress, Finally?

Mattel released a doll who was a wheelchair user in 1997 called 'Share a Smile Becky'. However, they discontinued the doll later after (and this is very telling) consumers realised that the Barbie Dreamhouses couldn't accommodate the doll and the accessories weren't compatible with her either. 

It would take over 20 years after this for Mattel to announce that their Fashionista line would include dolls with disabilities.

"A wheelchair or doll in a wheelchair was one of the most requested items through our consumer hotline. It's important to us to listen to our consumers.'

Kim Culmone, the Vice President of Barbie Design to Teen Vogue

In 2023, the corporation launched a doll representative of people with Down Syndrome after partnering with the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) in the US. Mattel now calls Barbie its 'most diverse doll line'. 

Mattel's new diverse Barbie line.

From recalling Earring Magic Ken (widely considered to be the most purchased Ken doll ever) because queer audiences identified with it to launching a diverse collection of dolls, the company has clearly come a long way when it comes to making attempts at diversity. 

Not to forget, queer kids saw themselves as consumers of Barbie even back in the 1980s and 90s and yet, a Ken that was mistakenly queer-coded (questionable necklace choice aside), was recalled. 

One could wonder, did the company change or did the consumers? Mattel clearly still has a long way to go but can progress, in all its forms, even within the confines of materialistic consumption be considered welcome in a world where Greta Gerwig's Barbie is being criticised for being 'too woke'.