By Omolara Okunoren (she/her)

with contributions from Elio Wilder (they/them)

Content warning: mentions of misogyny, sexual harassment, fatphobia

Now that the Barbenheimer fanfare is over and we’ve all finally gotten I’m Just Ken out of our heads, let's talk seriously about Barbie (2023) - the good, the bad and the ugly! Despite being an aesthetically pleasing film with lots of glitz, glitter and glamour, Barbie focused on addressing social inequalities, such as misogyny, and explored philosophical themes, like existentialism. This has led to some critics praising Barbie (2023) for its feminist themes.  

From a Black and intersectional feminist’s point of view, Barbie (2023) fails to offer any new, cutting-edge takes on feminism and depicts heteropatriarchy through a one-dimensional, white feminist gaze. This blog piece explores how Barbie is an enjoyable movie with lacklustre feminist commentary that fails to be a revolutionary and instead perpetuates white feminism. 

What is ‘white feminism’ and how is it different from ‘intersectional feminism’? 

‘White feminism’ is often associated with ‘liberal feminism,’ ‘T.E.R.F feminism’, and ‘choice feminism’. It prioritises the ideals of white, cis-gendered and otherwise privileged women.  It often focuses on the well-being of the individual, rather than addressing oppressive structures and intersecting discriminations that enable inequality in the first place. It fails to acknowledge the nuanced way in which these structures affect people from diverse backgrounds. It aspires to elevate white women to be equal to white men, thereby suggesting that white men are the ideal to live up to, limiting its capacity to inspire transformative change. 

Proponents of white feminism benefit from systems and structures of white supremacy whilst silencing women of colour, trans-women and other marginalised individuals. By depicting social oppression as universal and patriarchy as one-dimensional, white feminism fails to acknowledge the experiences of the most marginalised.  

A ‘white feminist’ is not a feminist who is white, but rather someone who considers themselves a feminist and subscribes to the previously outlined viewpoint.  

In contrast to white feminism, intersectional feminism acknowledges the multi-faceted nature of people's identities and how that impacts their experiences. It utilises these diverse perspectives to collaborate in the fight for liberation from oppressive structures.  

Barbie (2023): Analysis 

To an extent, Barbie (2023) does a great job of simplifying and explaining the patriarchy, especially to younger audiences. The film portrays the patriarchy existing on a variety of levels, from institutional, cultural and interpersonal issues that are embedded in every aspect of society. When Barbie enters the real world, she experiences gendered social discrimination and oppression in various forms, such as hyper-sexualisation, ‘cat-calling’ and the male gaze. On the other hand, Ken learns about how men control an array of institutions and systems (sports, media and business). He also benefits from patriarchal social norms. The contrast between the characters’ experiences, highlights how gender discrimination manifests in multiple ways and how socially vulnerable individuals are harmed by unequal power structures.  

Moreover, in neo-liberal Western countries, the belief that social inequalities have been reduced to an inconsequential level has become a mainstream opinion.  The post-feminist and post-radical viewpoint posit that all goals of social justice movements have been achieved and all structures of domination have disappeared. Barbie (2023) demonstrates that, despite recent social progress, patriarchy continues to prevail, evidenced by persisting problematic cultural values and unequal power structures.   

Social discriminations and prejudices, like patriarchy, classism, racism, ableism and more, intersect and compound to create unique forms of advantage and disadvantage for individuals. In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term ‘intersectionality’ to describe this concept. The movie fails to address this intersectionality and instead takes a white-feminist standpoint. It depicts patriarchy as universal, suggesting all women are equally affected by misogynistic mechanisms.  Its short-comings are further entrenched by the fact that Barbie dolls have a long history of solely catering to one specific market: cis-gendered, white girls. As a black feminist, the film’s message of empowering all women is contradictory. How can the sole voice and story of a skinny, cis-gendered, able-bodied, white woman empower everybody else? 

Sasha, the girl Barbie visits at her high school, is one of the few highlights of this movie. The most enjoyable scene was her bluntly informing Stereotypical Barbie about how she has negatively impacted society through Eurocentric and unattainable beauty standards that encourage ‘sexualised capitalism’ and mass consumerism and production that ‘set back the feminist movement.’ The themes of body positivity and women empowerment in the film are diminished by a scene depicting the Barbies as petrified of Stereotypical Barbie getting cellulite, which feels outdated and immature. Research has often found that Barbie dolls have negatively impacted young children’s (especially girls') body image and led to negative attitudes about body size, particularly of larger bodies. This is due to the doll’s ‘unrealistically thin and seemingly unhealthy figure’ (Lind & Brzuzy, 2008). Also, numerous studies have suggested that Barbie dolls may ‘promote harmful weight attitudes including thin-ideal internalisation in young girls’ (Tiggemann, 2011, Dittmar, 2012). This is significant as it leads people to attempt to replicate unrealistic body proportions and standards through harmful approaches, such as costly cosmetic procedures and dangerous diets. Although Mattel, the manufacturing toy and entertainment company of Barbie, has attempted to tackle these issues by creating a range of more diverse Barbie dolls and products, these reductive beauty standards remain deeply embedded in contemporary society.  

Furthermore, Barbieland is an inverted patriarchy. It depicts a society in which women hold positions of power and are defined by their careers whilst the existence of men is defined by their relation to women. Falsely termed ‘matriarchy’, this system is simply a reversal of a broken system and fails to imagine anything radically different.  

There have been arguments about how Greta Gerwig, the director of Barbie (2023), Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019), centres white feminism in her films. Some critics and online discourses defend Greta Gerwig as a white woman so her craft will reflect her own experience. However, this passive argument justifies directors and Western media’s inability to create and highlight stories from other communities. Moreover, this is also a reflection of what investors and studies are willing to fund. For instance, it seems as though every time there’s a cultural feminist resurgence, Little Women gets another adaption depicting a feminist-by-1869-standards story rather than funding new feminist art.   

Céline Sciamma is a French and cis-gendered screenwriter and director, known for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019). She created Girlhood (2014), which starred a predominately Black female cast. The film intersectionally explored race, gender and class dynamics of black girlhood in France. Sciamma emphasised her intentions to cast Black actresses due to a lack of roles and representation of black women in France. Sciamma is not the only director to have done this before and it’s not a revolutionary approach. Nevertheless, it points out how white feminism does not have to be the centre of feminist movies. Directors can and should try to be more inclusive and highlight the difference in the experience of women and marginalised communities.  

Barbie (2023) fails to be an innovative feminist film because it’s a white feminist approach to social inequalities that fails to acknowledge differences in individuals’ experience of structures and systems of social injustice. Moreover, the use of Greta Gerwig’s whiteness by online discourses as an excuse to portray womanhood as universal and all-inclusive further emphasises how white feminism silences other socially vulnerable groups in favour of one voice. The voice of feminism and other contemporary social justice advocacies and movements should never be universal to empower different voices.  

Further resources: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucyDC8mlc2s 

REFERENCES: 

• Crenshaw, K. (1989). On Intersectionality: Essential Writings. New York: New Press 

• Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp.1241–1299. doi:https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039.