Barbie has been an iconic figure in the toy world since her creation in 1959 by Mattel. Its popularity has transcended generations and continues to be one of the most loved toys for boys and girls around the world. The doll has evolved over the years, adapting to changes and trends in society, becoming a symbol of fashion and beauty.
This is how this half of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon comes to encapsulate a large number of cultural signifiers that have been part of the legend of this doll with long blonde hair and slender figure. Throughout its history, Barbie has represented different professions, cultures and lifestyles, promoting diversity and inclusion, as represented in this film by the Barbies of Issa Rae (President Barbie), Hari Nef (Doctor Barbie), Alexandra Shipp —Barbie writer—, Emma Mackey —Barbie physicist— or Sharon Rooney —Barbie barbie. But more importantly, Barbie has inspired many people to pursue their dreams through the creativity and firm determination of a woman who can do anything.
Beyond a flat meritocracy, this seems to be the result of a combination of factors that have been shaped over time by the most pressing needs of women, starting from identity itself. A Barbie is all Barbies. That is why this toy, and the cultural movement behind it, requires a more careful reading about everything it represents.
The version of her creation as told by Robin Gerber, Barbie and Ruth, tells the story of Ruth Handler, a visionary and determined woman, who founded Mattel in 1945 with the dream of creating dolls that reflected the real world instead of just baby dolls. Her desire was to create dolls that girls could relate to, and thus the idea for Barbie was born. Ruth’s creativity and entrepreneurial spirit drove her to boost her team, and Mattel would prosper greatly.
However, Ruth’s success was not without challenges. She faced resistance within Mattel, especially from the all-male team who initially rejected the idea of realistic dolls for adults. But Ruth persevered and, in 1956, she convinced her team to produce the dolls, which eventually led to the creation of Barbie.
As Barbie’s popularity grew, so did the controversies surrounding her. Some critics argued that Barbie’s proportions and emphasis on physical appearance were harmful to girls’ self-esteem. However, Ruth vehemently rejected these criticisms, believing that Barbie inspired girls to dream big and be whoever they wanted to be.
Despite business ups and downs and more than one setback, Ruth’s passion for her work never wavered. She continued to be a driving force at Mattel, ensuring the company remained at the forefront of innovation. She oversaw the development of new products, such as Uke-ADoodles and Hot Wheels, which helped Mattel maintain its competitive advantage.
However, she would eventually resign from her position as president in 1973, managing to consolidate a legacy in which she showed the world that dreams can become reality with innovation and passion for making a difference. Barbie’s journey from controversial icon to symbol of empowerment is a testament to Ruth’s vision and her unwavering belief in the potential of her creation.
According to what is stated in the book Forever Barbie, cultural critic MG Lord expresses that Barbie is, par excellence, a reflection of American popular culture. The iconic doll created by Mattel occupies a unique place in the popular culture of the country of the stars and stripes of the late 20th century. It has been an object of fascination for artists such as Andy Warhol and a subject of deep introspection by academics and critics alike.
Arthur C. Danto’s review of the Warhol retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art led him to reflect on future interpretations of Pop art when its familiar subjects, such as Brillo Boxes and famous faces of the 1960s and seventies, become unknown to future generations.
This notion of impermanence also extends to living icons. Figures such as Valentino, Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, once symbols of attractiveness and sex appeal, have become caricatures, with their glamorous images now entangled with the darker aspects of their personal lives or, in the extreme, cases, like frozen blots in history.
Barbie, however, has a clear advantage over these icons, Lord points out, as she remains eternally young and adaptable, immune to the ravages of time and cultural changes. Mattel’s team of designers and marketers continually reinvents it, ensuring it remains relevant in times of change. Barbie’s market appeal remains tremendous, as evidenced by billions of dollars in annual sales and continued global demand for the doll—now heightened by the release of her movie,Barbie (88%), starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
As Barbie became a symbol of literature, art, and a marketing phenomenon like few others, it became essential to analyze how she developed and what her prevalence at the top of the audience—movies and animated series—might mean. sales—toys and their infinite range of products. While it is challenging to quantify Barbie’s influence through consumer studies, it is possible to study her as a reflection of American cultural values and attitudes toward femininity. Her various homes, friends, and outfits provide insight into the often contradictory expectations society has of women.
Barbie’s origin dates back to the “Bild Lilli” doll, a toy for adult men based on a German comic character. Ruth Handler, one of the co-founders of Mattel, invented Barbie and designed her as an all-American girl, different from the provocative Lilli. Handler’s creation uplifted the quintessential American woman-in-the-making, reflecting the middle-class obsession with respectability.
For many first-generation Barbie owners, the doll represented a revelation of independence and ambition. Unlike other dolls that focused on domestic and parenting roles, Barbie could transform herself through different costumes, symbolizing a variety of careers and possibilities for girls.
However, the impact of this figure on each girl’s inner life varied significantly, resulting in very different interpretations and projections about the doll. Somehow, with or without intentionality on the part of Mattel, this also managed to emulate the condition of “being a woman” in all its diversity and crossed by any number of sociocultural contexts throughout history.
Thus, over the decades, Barbie’s physical appearance underwent changes as a reflection of social attitudes towards femininity and sexuality. The doll’s early submissive look transformed into a more assertive and progressive expression during the sexual revolution. However, as gender and sexuality become increasingly complex topics, Barbie remains a subject of interest and deconstruction by scholars and feminists alike.
Contrary to the belief that Barbies are simply toys, they can act as transitional objects for childhoods. Symbolizing a connection with the mother and representing the process of becoming independent, Barbie, as a young woman, embodies the mother-daughter relationship and is not only limited to the latter, because yes, there have always been children who enjoy playing with Miss Roberts.
Barbie herself is a mass-produced work of art, an embodiment of pop culture at its finest, made of plastic, she is durable, replicable and easily accessible. Plastic, wrote Roland Barthes, “is the very idea of its infinite transformation; as its everyday name indicates, it is ubiquity made visible.” It is also democratic and disturbingly common.
From the perspective of pop culture theory, this character emerges as a representative icon of the massive cultural industry that drives and absorbs pop culture, in a kind of perpetual feedback. In her role as an object of desire and aspiration for girls and young people, Barbie personifies the values and norms of the consumer society. Her image of beauty and glamour, increasingly removed from promoting the idealization of certain physical and social standards, has become a universal discourse.
And it is true, the figure of the mannequin is not exempt from criticism and debate, especially with regard to its representation of femininity through a thin and stereotyped body. This has been the subject of constant questioning, which argues that it encourages and canonizes unattainable ideals of beauty and contributes to the construction of a negative body image in girls.
But it is also true that, to some extent, attention has been paid to the various voices that have advocated for greater diversity in the representation of Barbie’s body and appearance as a way to counter the unattainable standards of beauty that she promotes. And perhaps her most tangible effort to achieve these substantial changes in her speech is the tape itself.Greta Gerwig.
Pop culture, in which Barbie sits on the throne these days, has the current trend of being a powerful tool for social change and a platform for the expression of ideas that, in one way or another, seek to change the world. . All its cultural expressions, such as music, cinema and series, reach mass audiences, which amplifies the voices and messages that seek to question and transform obsolete social paradigms. Barbie is then, a pop goddess.
And if the substance of Barbie is the very essence of the mid-20th century to the present, its philosophy is almost as old as humanity, and it is its form that evokes a mythical resonance in all types of societies, crossing cultural barriers. Barbie is a fertility symbol of our era, The Goddess, to whom veneration is due.
The concept refers to the divine feminine figure, both in ancient cultures and today. In early civilizations, such as that of mother goddesses and female deities associated with fertility and nature, goddess worship played an important role in spirituality and understanding of the world. Through rituals, adorations and festivities, tribute was paid to her, often from clandestinity, after the arrival of Christianity.
In the modern era, goddess recognition has seen a resurgence in different forms. There has been an increase in the exploration and study of ancient mythologies and religions that worship the goddess, as well as the creation of contemporary spiritual movements and practices focused on the conceptualization of feminine power, from the perspective of the present. These modern expressions of goddess veneration seek to balance and honor the feminine divinity in a current context, promoting the idea of the sacredness of the feminine and the liberation of women from an oppressive system.
Lord also suggests that Barbie thus equates to a timeless and omnipotent female deity. She possesses an infinite number of totems, comparable to the Venus of Willendorf, the Venus de Milo, Coatlicue, Isis, Cybele or Kuan Yin. So, in the realm of Barbie, a seemingly innocuous children’s toy, there is a connection with ancient symbols and archetypes that have deep cultural and mythological roots.
At first glance, it may be difficult to link Barbie to Stone Age fertility amulets, but the connection becomes evident when one looks at her feet. The “Venuses” of the Stone Age, including that of Willendorf, had spikes on their ankles to stand upright, symbolizing the Great Mother, a representation of the female principle of fertility, associated with Mother Nature, the Mother Goddess or the Mother Earth.
She would thus be a contemporary representation of an ancient icon, embodying a mythical and matriarchal power. Throughout history, dolls have been used in both religious practices and play, blurring the line between the sacred and the mundane. Some dolls, such as the “snake goddesses” of Crete, initially look like toys, but were actually religious icons.
Ken, on the other hand, embodies a diminished male figure, reflecting the subordinate role in Barbie’s cosmology. Barbie challenges the traditional notion of women as the “second sex” and represents a prelapsarian paradise, untouched by the masculine views of Genesis.
In the realm of fantasy play, children use Barbie and Ken to act out stories and relationships. Children’s play involves entering their imaginary worlds and manipulating symbols to exercise their imagination. While some argue that toys reinforce gender stereotypes, imaginative children can reshape the roles of their toys to suit their creativity.
Although the symbolism and meaning attributed to Barbie are complex and vary from one girl to the next, Barbie’s enduring appeal transcends the changing conditions of culture by exposing the very essence of femininity in pink, even when these are not mutually binding. . Children’s play with Barbie may reflect her feelings and anxieties about real-life relationships or social expectations.
And this “game” brings us back to the effervescent response that people and strangers have had to the new Barbie Roberts movie… and Ken. Ultimately, the cult of Barbie as a cultural deity and as a model for shaping entire societies highlights the powerful impact that pop culture can have on self-perception—particularly but not exclusively among women—and on the society in general, highlighting the need for a more critical and conscious approach towards the messages we receive and the figures we admire in the cultural landscape.
Barbie is an icon with great influence on the social identity of girls and women around the world. According to Social Identity Theory, people derive part of their self-concept from the social groups to which they belong, thus, Barbie has possessed the duality of representing an ideal of feminine beauty unattainable for most women, while also having with a facet of has evolved to represent a broader variety of identities, careers and lifestyles for women.
With an ability to reinvent herself and adapt to the changing demands of society that surpasses any other contemporary cultural product, Barbie is likely to remain a beloved figure in pop culture for many decades to come. Her influence on future generations is assured and her legacy will endure as a symbol of all that is possible within different contexts. Barbie is only here to remind us who this toy really is.
