In this particular article Ann Ducille critiques the past and present ways in which Mattel presents race and gender by way of Ruth Handler's iconic Barbie doll. Not surprisingly Barbie has come under fire by feminists for many years now. Save for Pamela Anderson or Dolly Parton, the physical image of femininity that Mattel pedals is not one that of most women, or something many even aspire to. Although I did not own any Barbies while growing up, mostly on account of my family having been unable to afford them, I have come to the defence of Barbie on more than one occasion academically. To dismiss a doll that millions of girls covet as simply "bad" however could be regarded as quite conservative. Though this tends to both piss off and perplex some of my cohorts, her potentiality as a role model, despite her ridiculous physique, warrants a least a bit of consideration. As argued in class, Barbie could be seen to represent personal and financial independence, female camaraderie, and professional success. She's been a World Cup soccer champion, an astronaut, a doctor, and even a head of state. She is an utterly distorted physical representation of a woman. I'm thinking again of Dolly Parton; an incredibly talented singer, songwriter, and guitar player. She is however, a physical caricature and as such, taken less seriously than her talent warrants. Parton hilariously says of herself however, "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap."
In "Black Barbie and the Deep Play of Difference" Ducille is less generous in her assessment of Mattel as company, or Barbie as one of their many products. She has many reasons to call out both however. On top of reproducing stereotypes of Caucasion hyper-femininity, Mattel wades into the African American market by first producing a Black Barbie with the identical features of white Barbie. "Coloured Francie" would be hilarious if it wasn't bizarre. During the de-segreation upheaval of the 1960's, it seems plain silly that Mattel asked consumers to embrace Coloured Francie as Barbie's younger cousin. Nothing about the doll's commercial failure is surprising. Later attempts to mass produce stereotypical African American features were no less problematic. Ducille loses tract of the fact that Mattel is gigantic company competing in a cutthroat global market however. I agree with a great many of her arguments regarding race and gender. Her discussion of "Magic Earing Ken" practically had me rolling on the floor in fits of laughter. Despite all of this however, Ducille fails to adequately situate Barbie within a Capitalist market. Although the increasing spending power of African Americans is brought into the discussion, Ducille's analysis lacks a complexity that allows her to move beyond simply faulting Mattel as purveyors of White, patriarchal, Heteronormativity. In light of our ever expanding "global village/market" however, I would be quite curious to see how Ducille would frame the African Barbie series recently created by Mattel. The fetishization of the "exotic African" as is so obviously displayed with the above doll, would no doubt add to the complexity of an analysis and discussion of the (Neo) Colonialist "White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy".
