Greta Gerwig’s Barbie

Hilary Radner is Emeritus Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand. She has published widely on gender identity and visual culture, her books include Shopping Around: Consumer Culture and the Pursuit of Pleasure (1995), Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks and Consumer Culture (2011), and The New Woman’s Film: Femme-centric Movies for Smart Chicks (2017).Rebecca Stringer is Associate Professor of Sociology, Gender Studies, and Criminology at the University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is author of Knowing Victims: Feminism, Agency, and Victim Politics in Neoliberal Times (2014), and co-editor of Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Cinema (2011).

• List of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgmentsForeword: If you love Barbie … This movie is for you … If you hate Barbie … This movie is for you …” by Hilary RadnerIntroduction: “Barbie Land,” Contextualizing Greta Gerwig’s Barbie by Hilary RadnerPart I: A Fragmented World - The Cultural Moment 1. The Barbenheimer Phenomenon and the Post-Pandemic Streaming-Era Movie Industry by Thomas Schatz2. Jo, Meg, Beth, Amy, and Barbie: White American Girlhood in the Work of Greta Gerwig by Patricia White3. Fake Feminism and Strident Pink Spectacle: Fashion, Celebrity Culture, and the Marketing of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie by Pamela Church GibsonPart II: The Greta Gerwig Touch - A Contemporary Auteur4. Greta Gerwig: From Indiewood to Conglomerate Hollywood––New Iterations of the Contemporary Auteur by Alex Dickie5. Barbie, Irony, and Post-Indie Cinema by Claire Perkins6. “Authentically Artificial”: Embodying the Self in Barbie by Suzanne FerrissPart III: Identity7. Queer Barbie, Weird Barbie, and Greta Gerwig’s Many Queer Kens by Sarah E. S. Sinwell8. “What Was I Made For?” and “I’m Just Ken”: The Musical Binary of Barbie by Amy Skjerseth and Dylan Young9. “Barbieist vs. Oppenheimerist”: A Gender-based Reception Study of Barbie in Turkey by Melis Behlil, and Ruken Dogu Erdede,10. Deeper into Ken: The Accessibility of Ryan Gosling by Michael DeAngelisPart IV: The Polemics of Barbie11. Barbie, Feminism, and Consumerism: An Incoherent Combination by Geneviève Sellier, trans A. Fox12. The Politics of “Always’’ and “Never”: The Monologue Heard Around the World – Race, Class, and Gender in Barbie by Bruce Isaacs13. Barbie, the Feminist Mattel Ad by Rebecca Stringer14. Plastic, Kitsch: Ecologies of Barbie Land by Seán CubittAfterword by Rebecca StringerAppendicesGreta Gerwig: Biography and Filmography by Alex Dickie with Frédéric DichtelBarbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023): Summary in Three Acts by Hilary Radner and Rebecca StringerNotesSelect BibliographyIndex

Radner and Stringer have assembled an impressive global roster of contributors to provide a breadth of perspectives on the cultural phenomenon that was Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Collectively, these authors provide fresh ways of interpreting the film – and its filmmaker’s – industrial, creative, political, and sociocultural impact.