Abstract
This volume brings together an international array of contributors to analyse Greta Gerwig’s unprecedented success, Barbie (2023), exploring how a film released in a moment of industrial crisis for Hollywood became the highest-grossing film directed or co-directed by a woman.
Uniting scholars from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, France, Turkey, the UK, and the USA, this volume provides a set of essays that reflect the complexities of what is, in many ways, a fable for our times. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie: Popular Culture, Cinema, and Gender opens with a chapter on the current state of the film industry. Further topics include: the treatment of American girlhood; fashion and feminism; the auteur director; post-indie cinema; queer identities; masculinity; the politics of race, class and gender; contemporary feminisms; consumerism; and the ecology of plastic. As such, the book offers a detailed and nuanced perspective on a benchmark film, produced and distributed by an industry in crisis––the brainchild of a significant director whose star is on the rise.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was an unprecedented success with audiences—it topped the Worldwide Box Office in 2023 when it was released and was the all-time highest grossing film directed, or co-directed, by a woman. Snubbed at the 2024 Oscars, Barbie’s reception underscores the viability of what many call neoliberal feminism or neo-feminism, while highlighting the denigrated position still accorded the woman’s film.
This volume unites an international group of scholars from across the Humanities to tackle those aspects of Barbie that make it an epoch-defining film. The volume begins with anatomization of the film industry by Thomas Schatz, followed by Patricia White on Barbie and the American girl and Pamela Church Gibson (with Alexander Zamboni) on celebrity culture and fashion. Further chapters from Alex Dickie, Claire Perkins, and Suzanne Ferris place the film in the context of Gerwig’s career as a contemporary “indie” auteur. Sarah Sinwell, Amy Skjerseth (with Dylan Young), and Michael DeAngelis explore the film’s treatment of gender and identity while Melis Behlil (with Rugen Dog#aku Erdede) investigate the role of national audiences, primarily Turkish, in the film’s reception. In the final section, Bruce Issacs and Geneviève Sellier query its politics and its feminism, while Rebecca Stringer, and Seán Cubitt tackle a range of issues raised by the film, from “culture jamming” to ecological concerns. The collection, thus, offers a detailed and nuanced perspective on a benchmark film, produced, and distributed, by an industry in crisis—the brainchild of a celebrity director whose star is on the rise.