By popular demand, PopCRN will be hosting a conference about Barbie, the popular culture phenomenon. The free, online event will be held on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th of March 2024.
From the very outset, Barbie was marketed as a ‘Teen-age Fashion Doll’, beginning her long association with fashion. Barbie’s extensive and ever-evolving wardrobe has seen collaborations that led to her celebrating her 50th birthday in a fashion parade of designs from leading designers including Calvin Klein and Vera Wang. Barbie may have started her career as a fashion model, but her CV includes “astronaut, surgeon, Olympic athlete, downhill skier, aerobics instructor, TV news reporter, vet, rock star, doctor, army officer, air force pilot, diplomat, rap musician, president, baseball player, scuba diver, lifeguard, fire-fighter, engineer, dentist, and many more”, and in doing so she has become a role-model for girls, showing them “You Can be Anything”.
The depth of Barbie’s reach into popular culture extends into other forms: animated films, video games, books, and magazines, for example. Since 2001, 42 animated Barbie films have been made, with over US$695 million in revenue from box office, DVD, and merchandise sales. Currently, there are three animated Barbie films on Netflix, with Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse trending in Netflix’s top ten. Over 70 Barbie-themed video games have been released since the 1980s, generating US$14 million in revenue. There are also over 400 fictional Barbie books and magazines in print. In its opening weekend,Barbie (2023) set records as the biggest film opening in the US in 2023, and became the highest-grossing in history of all movies directed by a woman.
This call for papers is seeking articles on the role and impact of Barbie in popular culture, from her inception by Ruth Handler in 1959 to the 2023 film release. Presenters will have an opportunity to publish their work in a special edition of M/C Journal (June 2024).
We are happy to accept papers on any topic relating to Barbie, but here are some ideas to inspire you:
- “I want to be a part of the people that make meaning...” – Barbie in popular culture
- “I begged my mother for a Barbie doll and she said no because I was assigned male at birth” – gender and toys
- “Some things have been happening that might be related. Cold shower. Falling off my roof. And my heels are on the ground” – Barbie in the real world
- “Don’t eat!” – the 1960s Barbie diet guidebook and the thinness ideal
- “I'm here to see my gynaecologist!" – Barbie and the physical and literal representations of genitalia
- “I’m a liberated man, I know crying’s not weak” – a male doll in a female world
- “Why didn’t Barbie tell me about patriarchy?” – gender and politics in Barbie
- “Thanks to Barbie, all problems of feminism have been solved” – Barbie and feminism
- “Barbie has a great day every day, but Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him” – the female and male gaze
- “KEN IS ME!” – Barbie and the fluidity of identity
- “Be who you wanna be” – Barbie as inspirational role model
- “Hey Barbie girl” – people who take on real-life Barbie personas
- “Life in plastic, it’s so fantastic!” – environmental concerns
- “She’s black! She’s beautiful! She’s dynamite!” – racial dimensions and tensions
- “Everyone knows the real Barbie is the blonde, white one” –Barbie as a racial construct
- “Math class is tough!” – contradictions in Barbie rhetoric
- “I am not a Barbie doll!” – feminist backlash against Barbie’s construction of womanhood
- "To be honest, when I found out the patriarchy wasn’t about horses I lost interest" – animals in Barbiesphere
- “I'm a man with no power, does that make me a Woman?” – gender constructions in Barbie
- “Barbie for President” – political representations of Barbie
- “In the dreamhouse” – the architecture of Barbieland
- “There’s a princess in every girl” – what is Barbie role-modelling?
- “Barbie is a doctor, and a lawyer, and so much more than that” – Barbie, work, and occupation
- “Humans only have one ending. Ideas live forever.” – the immortal life of Barbie
- "Do you guys ever think about dying?" – the mortal life of Barbie
- "I don’t have anything big planned. Just a giant blowout party with all the Barbies, and planned choreography, and a bespoke song. You should stop by" – music and dance in Barbieland
- Barbie’s ‘Happy Family’ series – pregnancy and parenthood in Barbieland
- “Don’t blame me: Blame Mattel; they made the rules” – weird Barbie and projected meanings
- “I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world” – popular culture responses to Barbie
- “What was I made for?” – reinterrogating Barbie then and now
Please email abstracts (200 words) to popcrn@une.edu.au by 31st January 2024. Please include your name, affiliation, email address, title of paper, orcid ID (where available), google scholar link (where available) and a short biography (100 words). Registration is free.
