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A Queer Syllabus for the Writers and Actors Strike

Whenever I love something, and I mean deeply love it, I have an unspeakable nerdy urge to … tear it apart into bits and learn everything I possibly could on the subject. That’s what lead us to our new biweekly series Queer Syllabus, and this week we are diving into histories of queer labor resistance and the Writers and Actors Strike. Join us? 🤝

Art by Autostraddle. Photography: Aubrey Plaza by Rob Latour/Shutterstock // Cynthia Nixon by Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock // Holland Taylor by jfizzy/Star Max/GC Images // Wanda Sykes by MEGA/GC Image // Peppermint with fan by Gotham/GC Images // Elliot Page by Kristin Callahan/Shutterstock

We’ve now past 110 days of the 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) Strike, a milestone that now makes it the third longest running writers’ strike in history and has finally brought the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) back to a negotiating table after months of a near standoff. Meanwhile the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SGA-AFTRA) has now been on strike for over a month, marking the first time in 63 years that the two guilds have been on strike together.

We’ve rapidly approached a corner where major studios are cancelling beloved queer shows like A League of Their Own and publicly blaming the strike in the press — despite the fact that there’s evidence suggesting the strike had little-to-nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, certain AMPTP members have anonymously said that “the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” And that cruel goal is proving to be true, we’ve already seen Emmy-winner Billy Porter have to sell his home due to the work stoppages.

To be clear, everyone at Autostraddle has nothing but gratitude to for the writers and actors who create the stories that we all love. And it is my belief that the quickest way for the strike to end would be for the AMPTP to give a fair deal to SAG and the WGA that reflects the essential, immense, foundational value these union members bring to the work that make billions for the studios.

As Hot Strike Summer (in addition to the writers’ and actors’ strike, this summer saw educators, hotel staff, and food workers striking in various capacities nationwide, airline pilots and UPS workers both narrowly missed strikes of their own with down-to-the-wire negotiations for better pay and benefits) rapidly turns into Hot Strike Fall (did you hear that the United Auto Workers contract with the Big Three American auto manufacturers will expire soon?) — I’ve become deeply interested in the trend where the forefront of these labor movements are vocally and visibly, well, gay as hell.

For today’s lesson plan, we are going to split the syllabus into three parts: we’re going to look at Queerness and the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes, then we are going to step back, look big picture, and put those strikes into a context of Queer Labor Histories in the United States, and finally we are going to discuss Direct Action to Support Striking WGA/SAG Workers.

“You’ve Already Starved Me Out”: Queerness and the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes

Left to right: Illene Chaiken, Kate Moening, and Leisha Hailey from The L Word all hold L word themed protest signs; Peppermint and Elliot Page protest together; Wanda Sykes gives a protest speech

The cast and crew of The L Word (“Corporate Greed Killed Jenny” 🔪) via the WGA West // Peppermint and Elliot Page by Jason Howard/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images // Wanda Sykes by MEGA/GC Image

“To hear Bob Iger say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day?… I don’t have any words for it, but: fuck you. That’s not useful, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t engaged because I’m so enraged… I have to sell my house… Because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back. The life of an artist, until you make fuck-you money — which I haven’t made yet — is still check-to-check. I was supposed to be in a new movie, and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening. So to the person who said ‘we’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments,’ you’ve already starved me out.”

That viral quote comes from Billy Porter to the British newspaper The Evening Standard, and Porter is far from the only LGBT actor or writer who’s come forward with words to say during the ongoing strikes.

Before we dig any further, it’s worth remembering exactly why both unions are in the midst of this historic strike to begin with. As I explained earlier this summer when the actors first went on strike: “Both groups want restrictions and protections as it relates AI technology, which can simulate a performer’s likeness or writer’s style and is setting a stage for unchartered waters in the industry that could be harmful to creatives. Both groups also want a revamped payment structure and business model for their work on streaming networks, which both unions have widely described as currently unfair if not unethical.”

These inequities are most acutely felt by writers and actors who are most marginalized, including queer and trans actors. The New Yorker‘s case study of the perhaps iconically queer show (both in front and behind the cameras) Orange is the New Black best encapsulates this — “Orange Is the New Black” Signalled the Rot Inside the Streaming Economy — discussing how talent behind the show makes pennies per episode in residual payment. As writer and actor Jen Richards pointed out last month, the vast majority of both unions are working class gig workers. It’s not lost on many folks striking that streaming platforms that have been a foot in the door for many queer, trans, and POC creatives also have some of the least regulated business models. And that’s zeroing in on only one issue.

WGA Strike Captain Brittani Nichols gave a longform interview with Out Magazine, Why Queer Fans Should Support the Writer’s Strike, on the uniquely queer stakes of these strikes that I sincerely cannot recommend enough:

“I think queer workers, like a lot of marginalized workers, are sometimes told to wait our turn. Workers in this country are constantly facing an existential threat as corporations want to extract as much value for the least amount of money as possible and keep us consumed with figuring out how we’re going to pay rent so that we don’t have the ability to speak to issues that specifically impact queer people. What queer writers in the guild are saying is that we need to be doing both at the same time. We won’t just sit around and hope that eventually our fight will become everyone else’s fight, too. We’re either all in this together or we aren’t. That’s what solidarity is.”

This predates the strikes by a few years, but in 2019 Autostraddle published a personal essay from a queer person running for office at their regional branch of SAG-AFTRA, and it further echoes many of Nichols’ points: “Tired!” or How I Ran For, and Queered, My Union’s Politics by Kylie Sparks (Kylie is also now a strike captain for SAG-AFTRA!)

Them.us put together a list of all the queer projects that have been put on hold by the 2023 strikes thus far. Though — and I cannot emphasize this enough — no one wants to be back at work more than the writers and actors most affected. As with most labor strikes, the onerous here is on the AMPTP to return to good faith negotiations as soon as possible. Joel Kim Booster, the writer and creator of Fire Island, the first Asian-led gay film backed by a major studio in history, said it best to Rolling Stone, “It’s frustrating to be in this position in the first place. Obviously, nobody wanted to be striking.”

Watch

I found Vox’s explainer on the WGA strike to be especially instructive.

And this one is for laughs, but Niecy Nash providing moral support to the writers by doing live karaoke from their picket line is the kind of cross-strike solidarity that we simply love to see!

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A post shared by Niecy Nash (@niecynash1)

Listen

Writer and Director Lily Wachowski joined the Deadline podcast Strike Talk for a little imaginative fanfiction about how she’d end solve the strikes if she had the power of the AMPTP.

“Race-baiting, Red-baiting, and Queer-Baiting Is Anti-Union”: Queer Labor Histories in the United States

Three side by side posters for the organization Pride at Work across the decades

All art via Pride at Work Records, University of Maryland.

As I previously mentioned, the writer and actor strikes are not happening on their own. A returned focus to labor movements and workers’ rights has been sweeping across the U.S. in the past few years, and it’s looking mighty queer from the bottom-to-the-top (pun not intended).

I was first introduced to this phenomenon in stark terms last month from from The Nation, “Chicago’s Labor Movement Is Looking Very Queer These Days,” which chronicled the Howard Brown Health Worker Strike, where chants of “queer liberation, not exploitation” could be heard from the picket lines. Obviously, we’re also seeing queer strike captains like Brittani Nichols for the WGA or Kylie Sparks for SAG-AFTRA. And in Louisville, KY queer restaurant workers are organizing a first of its kind, city wide, direct-join union.

Those queer organizers of today are standing on the shoulders of a long and storied history. The most-detailed overview of queer labor history that I found as our introduction came from Teen Vogue, How LGBTQ Union Activists Transformed the Labor Movement by Kim Kelly. Autostraddle also has a round-up of first persona accounts and academic texts that serves well as a primer: LGBT Labor History Is All Our History.

Two full length books stood out in my research:

Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America by Dr. Miriam Frank. Miriam Frank is as much a part of living queer history as she is a documentarian of it, which is extremely cool. I’ll talk more about her in a second, but for now this was my favorite review of Out in the Union. It gets right into all the book’s nooks and crannies, including its first person accounts of over 40 years of labor history: “Queer Activism in the Labor Movement” by Dr. Sara Smith for the socialist journal Against the Current.

Love’s Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture by Dr. Aaron S. Lecklider. Yes! Magazine published an excerpt of Love’s Next Meeting, “On Board with Queer Labor and Racial Solidarity,” that you can read for free on their website. The excerpt tells the story of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Association of the Pacific (MCS). By the 1940s the MCS was already known as one of the most progressive unions in the United States, led by values of pro-Black racial solitary and equality for gay workers — and honestly the whole excerpt is a fascinating, satisfying read on its own. Fun fact: this section’s title — “Race-baiting, Red-baiting, and Queer-Baiting Is Anti-Union” — comes from the MCS’ union banner.

Key People, Organizations, and Moments in U.S. Queer Labor History

This is not a complete history! I am not an expert! But there are some key people, orgs, and events that repeatedly showed up, and I wanted to make sure they get highlighted.

There is of course the Marine Cooks and Stewards Association of the Pacific (MCS) which I just mentioned above, but their work at the intersection of Black and queer organizing in the 1940s cannot be overstated.

Fast forward a few decades, and pretty much everyone who talks about queer labor organizing mentions the infamous Coors Boycott of the 1970s, which brought together the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO, thee Harvey Milk, and gay rights activists to protest Coors beer after the company required workers to take a mandatory polygraph test where they could be asked directly about their sexual orientation. They joined Chicano activists who were already engaging in a similar boycott against Coors over racial discrimination,  creating a coalition across the Midwest, Southwest and West Cost. You can read more from LA Progressive — “The Coors Boycott. Gay Liberation. Betrayal.” — as well as the gorgeously illustrated “‘Every Can Counts’: Boycotting Coors in Colorado, the Castro, and Beyond” for the website Good Beer Hunting (great name, by the way).

You can also listen to a podcast episode of Unsung History about the Coors Boycott:

In 1990, Miriam Frank (I told you we would return to her!) and Desma Holcomb self-published Pride at Work: Organizing for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Unions, a 100-page handbook with advice on organizing for domestic partner benefits and grappling with the AIDS crisis at work. The full booklet is now available online as historical artifact, hosted by LaborNotes in collaboration with Autostraddle! (You can also read a full interview with Frank and Holcomb on Autostraddle.)

Formed in 1994 in response to the AFL-CIO’s then-refusal to endorse marriage equality in the 1990s, the organization Pride at Work now serves as a conduit of “mutual support between the organized Labor Movement and the LGBTQ Community to further social and economic justice.” You can learn more about their mission and work.

Of course, we cannot talk about queer and feminist labor histories without talking about the great Leslie Feinberg. The late trans activist’s thoughts and work around working class solidarity, Marxism, and labor politics have informed generations of queer activists. You can read Feinberg’s seminal Stone Butch Blues for free. Also read: Leslie Feinberg’s “Lavender and Red” series for Workers World newspaper.

Virtual Exhibits

On of my favorite parts of studying history is that it never happens in a vacuum. Labor and union history overlaps with art, with culture. These exhibits helps make what can otherwise feel like abstract or far away histories into something much more tangible.

Photo Credit: Pride at Work Records, University of Maryland.

Pride at Work: The Movement for Equality. This multimedia history exhibit is hosted by the University of Maryland and includes movement posters, video interviews of organizers, original documents, and photographs from labor protests starting with the 1970s Coors Boycott and continuing through labor actions as late as 2006.

The Work of Love, the Queer of Labor Installation (photo credit: Pratt Manhattan Gallery)

The Work of Love, the Queer of Labor was a 2022 exhibit from Pratt Manhattan Gallery, focused on the art and ephemera of labor movements. The above linked review (“Uncovering the Queer Histories of Workers’ Movements“) comes from the art magazine Hyperallergic. It includes photography of the exhibit for perusal.

Direct Actions to Support the Writers and Actors Strike

Left to Right: Brittani Nichols at WGA protest, Cynthia Nixon at SAG-AFTRA protest, Holland Taylor at SAG-AFTRA protest, and Aubrey Plaza at SAG-AFTRA protest.

Brittani Nichols via Brittani Nichols on Instagram // Cynthia Nixon by Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock // Holland Taylor by jfizzy/Star Max/GC Images // Aubrey Plaza by Rob Latour/Shutterstock

OK! So, you’ve followed along, you’ve learned some things! But my friend, what is the point of that knowledge if you aren’t going to also do something with it? That’s what I thought!

Donate to Affected Workers

Are you in a New York or LA? You Can Respectfully Join a Picket Line.

Solidarity turnout is essential! Walking a picket line day after day is hard effing work. Showing up to picket lines with some joy and enthusiasm is one way to support folks on strike. Remember though, you are there in support of the strike and should be listening to on location strike captains and other union members in charge. You can also bring along some extra bottles of cold water (it’s hot as hell), beverages with electrolytes, and snacks. Here’s the WGA picket schedule and the SAG-AFTRA picket schedule. SAG also has FAQ and the WGA has guidelines available.

Share Information!

There is a lot of misinformation about the writers and actors strike, and framing those on strike as being spoiled, selfish, unreasonable, or lazy is a key tactic used to turn public support away from the workers. You can help stop misinformation spread by amplifying messages from union members about the difficult realities of their day-to-day lives. You can also share informational media  that helps bring context to the strike and what workers are up against, like say.. this exact article!

The WGA even has a social media toolkit (including infographics!) for sharing online, and branded merchandise that you can purchase to show support IRL. SAG-AFTRA also has a social media toolkit available.

Last Question! Should You Boycott Streaming Services, Television, or Movies in Solidarity with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes?

This is important! At this time, neither union has called for boycotting content. Ideally you should wait until we are told by union leadership that a boycott is called for, because a collective action has the greatest impact. And if they decide that a boycott is necessary, you will know! I recommend waiting for their call to action.

That said, if you decide to cancel any of your streaming services, at least be sure that you let your streaming service know in a comment box that you are doing so in solidarity with the strikes. Otherwise it will be seen as a part of normal cancellation cycles and your protest won’t have the hard hit that you’re hoping for.

In conclusion, FAIR CONTRACTS NOW!!!

Class dismissed.

A Queer Syllabus for Barbiecore

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors who are currently on strike, movies like Barbie one would not be possible, and Autostraddle is grateful for the artists who do this work.

Whenever I love something, and I mean deeply love it, I have an unspeakable nerdy urge to … tear it apart into bits and learn everything I possibly could on the subject. That’s what lead us to our new biweekly series Queer Syllabus, and this week we are diving into Barbiecore. Grab a pink floatie and join us? 🎀

After months of anticipation, Barbie The MovieTM The ExperienceTM is finally here and as a lifelong member of Club Pink (no seriously, I had over 50 Barbies as child and slept in a cotton candy pink bedroom between the ages of 11 and 18 by choice), I cannot wait.

For today’s lesson plan, we are going to split the syllabus into three parts:  Barbiecore Aesthetic, Barbiecore and Queer Femme Theory, and finally Barbiecore Capitalism (that is, the movie, the dolls, and the money of both).

Overlapping topics we will discuss include the history of glitter, queer meanings of femme and femme theory, Rainbow Capitalism, why gays love Earring Magic Ken, pink vs pynk, and more! Alright nerds! Are you buckled in? C’mon Barbie let’s go party, etc etc.

“Pink Is My Favorite Part”: A Queer Barbiecore Aesthetic

On one hand, the aesthetic of Barbiecore is pretty easy to understand at face value: it’s pink, from blush to hot pink and all the hues in between! But before we dig into the nuances of queer Barbie aesthetics, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves “do I even know what the word ‘core’ means?” If you’re chronically online, you’ve probably seen everything from Cottagecore to Mermaidcore or even Rom-com Core — but have you wondered where the word comes from?

“A ‘core’ is a niche fashion trend, often born from social media, that revolves around a very specific visual aesthetic,” Brenda Otero, Lyst’s cultural insights manager, told Rivet in 2022. You can also read more about ‘core’ aesthetics in this delightful Vogue takedown that argues we shouldn’t use the word at all (ironically, the article is centered around Barbiecore! though that isn’t why I picked it). Alas, we are one with the internet and ‘core’ is the language of our people — and so that is what we will use.

With that lil vocab lesson out of the way, let’s talk more about various Barbie aesthetics across queer time and place.

Barbiecore and its History

“The Barbiecore aesthetic is in many ways ironic, deliberately excessive, even irreverent. It sort of expresses the desire for joy and lightness that is shared by everyone after the health emergency of Covid-19 and all the current events that are brutally changing our lives.

… It aims to become an ode to feminism, to beauty, to diversity, to inclusion. To break down stereotypes and prejudices (no, pink is not a girly colour). Add years of battles for emancipation and inclusion to the present feeling and you find yourself with an increasing number of women who, in contrast to the past, returned to explore hyperfemininity as an act of resistance against a culture that considered everything remotely feminine to be weak.

The Barbiecore aesthetic also draws from drag and queer culture. It does not want us all white, thin, blonde and blue-eyed. Barbiecore is for people of different sizes, colors, genders and backgrounds, it inspires people to break out of the mold to wear (and be) whoever they want.”

That definition comes from LAPP Magazine’s Why We Fell In Love With The Barbiecore Aesthetic.

You can also read a detailed timeline of Barbiecore dating back to the original 1959 dolls in TIME’s The Long, Complicated, and Very Pink History of Barbiecore.

And ArtReview explores The Politics of Barbiecore going from Killing Eve’s Villanelle to 2017’s Pink Pussy Protest Hats (a swerve that I did not see coming!), plus an appropriate amount of cynicism towards Mattel’s drastic change in messaging away from “their claim that Barbie’s unrealistic, highly problematic and potentially damaging proportions were simply to make the doll easier to dress, an argument they were still promoting as recently as 2014.”

✨ On Glitter ✨

I just deeply believe you can’t talk about queer Barbies without talking about glitter.

My Love for Glitter and Openly Expressing My Queer Sexuality Go Hand-in-Hand. A queer writer talks to nine other LGBTQ+ people about the role that glitter has played in their lives.

Inside the Fascinating History of Glitter and Gay Culture, honestly I could have written an entire article just on this subject! This one touches on drag queens’ use of glitter dating back to the 1930s-1960s, but I really wanted to highlight the use of glitter in queer protest and activism. Pay close attention to the use of purple glitter in religious activism by Parity and the infamous (but short-lived) glitter bombing of extremist right-wing politicians in the 2010s. See also: The History of Using Glitter As a Symbol of Protest from Teen Vogue.

Watch

OK I recently rewatched But I’m a Cheerleader on a plane and you cannot tell me that this queer classic is not, at its root, also Barbiecore. You can stream it on Prime Video (for free, if you have a subscription).

Once you’ve finished watching, don’t forget to also read this 2020 interview between director Jamie Babbit and Drew Gregory for Autostraddle: Jamie Babbit on “But I’m a Cheerleader,” Barbie Sex, and Getting Bad Reviews

Listen

These listens are also both “watches” because… aesthetics. But first I am obviously going to recommend Janelle Monaé’s 2018 “Pynk” video.

And once you’re done, you can read my review of it from back in ’18: Janelle Monáe’s Queer “Pynk” Music Video Is Here To Wreak Havoc On Your Heart and Body and also Dr. Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley’s The Color Pynk: Black Femme Art for Survival, the intro chapter is titled “Femme-inist Is to Feminist as Pynk Is to Pink” and how could you not want to read that?? (we profiled Dr. Tinsley’s work earlier this year).

Next is Cardi B’s “Up” music video.

There are talking Barbie dolls sewn into her wig!!!!

“It’s Barbie, Bitch, if You Still in Doubt”: Barbiecore and Queer Femme Theory

Barbie is dancing while asking if anyone has ever thought about death, a quote from Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie.

You didn’t think we’d talk about queer Barbiecore without talking about femmes, did you?

“I came to Femme as defiance through a big booty that declined to be tucked under, bountiful breasts that refused to hide, insolent hair that can kink, and curl, and bead up, and lay straight all in one day, through my golden skin, against her caramel skin, against her chocolate skin, against her creamy skin. Through rainbows of sweaters, dresses, and shoes. Through my insubordinate body, defying subordination, incapable of assimilation, and tired, so tired of degradation. Through flesh and curves, and chafed thighs which learned from my grandma how Johnson’s Baby Powder can cure the chub rub. Through Toni Morrison, and Nella Larsen, and Audre Lorde, and Jewelle Gomez who, perhaps unwittingly, captured volumes of black femme lessons in their words. Through Billie Holiday who wore white gardenias while battling her inner darkness. Through my gay boyfriend who hummed show tunes and knew all the lyrics to ‘Baby Got Back,’ which he sang to me with genuine admiration.”

That comes from Sydney Fonteyn Lewis, who wrote those words as part of an essay in the anthology Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love & Fashion (edited by Virgie Tovar), which obviously I recommend on its own! But I also wanted to talk about how Lewis uses this excerpt to explore Toni Morrison’s Sula in the academic article “‘Everything I Know About Being Femme I Learned From Sula”or Toward a Black Femme-inist Criticism’” from the online journal Trans-Scripts. It’s a careful read that will require all your attention, but worth your time.

Meanwhile, VICE explored what happens when “femme” gets co-opted outside of queer spaces and nearly everyone on the internet has a roundtable of femmes discussing what that identity means to them, so I’m just going to go ahead and link our own because we did it best (I’m kidding, I’m kidding).

Watch

Again, what femme “means” is, in a lot of ways, objectively personal. If you ask 50 different queer femmes how they’d define it, you’d get at least 30 different answers. I recommend exploring the history with British Black trans model and advocate Munroe Bergdof.

Listen

Dr. Rhea Ashley Hoskin is a Canadian interdisciplinary feminist sociologist whose work focuses on Critical Femininities, Femme Theory, and femmephobia. In this 2022 episode of the podcast The Sensual Revolution, she talks more about her work, Femme Theory, and its applications ranging from studying the role that femmephobia plays in gender-based violence to femme invisibility in queer culture.

Just for Fun

“Life in Plastic, It’s Fantastic”: Barbiecore Capitalism

Photos by Elizabeth Braunstein for Mattel.

We can talk a lot about “reclaiming pink aesthetics” (and I can, do, and will!) — but also it’s worth remembering that Mattel is a corporation with a net worth of roughly $7.46 billion (yes that’s Billion with a B) dollars. Barbies are made to be bought. Barbies have also held a lot of emotional meaning. There’s a productive tension there, and I want to explore it’s impact!

Barbie, the Doll

The first thing I simply have to talk about here is actually not about Barbie herself — but the queer history of Earring Magic Ken. Oh what, you may ask?? Oh YES! When Mattel Said ‘No Homo’: How Earring Magic Ken Became an Accidental Queer Icon. With his lilac vest, he is also known as “Cock Ring Bottom Ken” depending on who you ask. His rise to fame overlaps with the early 90s, the mainstream-ification of Voguing, and the brief moment where HIV/AIDS finally became recognized as a national health crisis. Sadly by 1993, he had already found his way to Doll Heaven but we remember him for who he is: A legend.

While we are talking about gay Kens, let’s bring back an Autostraddle work that will one day certainly live in a museum for it’s pitch perfect cultural ephemera: 75 Lesbian Ken Dolls, Ranked By Lesbianism and it’s partner piece Your “Lesbian Ken” Community Photo Gallery.

With all that Ken business out of the way, let’s also talk about perhaps the most famous LGBT Barbie in recent years. In 2022, Barbie announced that, as a part of their “Tribute Collection,” the first trans Barbie would be modeled after Laverne Cox. Though we can assume Mattel did not do this intentionally, there’s also a nice thread here where — relevant to this syllabus — some Black trans women call each other “dolls” as a term of endearment. Laverne Cox’s Barbie was released right before her 50th birthday and if you think she celebrated with a Barbie themed party… you are gotdamn right.

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A post shared by Laverne Cox (@lavernecox)

Using both (accidental) gay icon Earring Magic Ken and (very real) trans and queer icon Laverne Cox, we’re asked to think about Barbie’s role in Rainbow Capitalism and the queer lenses that we place on the doll. I recommend starting that journey with this short piece, Beyond Rainbow Capitalism: Barbie Through The Queer Eyes.

Often when we’re talking about capitalism — especially in queer spaces — we are talking about the evils thereof. And I am not advocating for or defending the ills of capitalism here, but there are so many interesting explorations of Barbie and her meaning, none of which can be separated from capitalism itself. Earlier this week, I stumbled across this Twitter thread that compared Barbie’s wheelchair to someone in the real world.

Barbie, the Movie

All of this brings us to Barbie The MovieTM the real reason that we are all gathered here today. Greta Gerwig has set out to create a movie that both satires the pink capitalist, patriarchal structure that gave us over 60 years worth of Barbies and simultaneously create a loving homage to it — does she pull it off? I have no idea.

Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ Dream Job is a New York Times feature about the tensions of creating “art” for corporate dollars. I’d consider must read material before (or after!) seeing the movie — they provide audio accompaniment, so I listened while doing dishes.

Hari Nef spoke with Out Magazine about growing up playing the Barbie’s Magic Hair Styler video game and why, though she understands the importance of being cast as a Barbie as a trans actress, she doesn’t see this is as case of cut and dry ‘representation’: “Barbies are Barbies, they’re not human women. They’re dolls. They don’t have genitalia.”

It’s worth noting that even if Nef doesn’t see her role as a “trans Barbie” per se — the right-wing machine’s trans panic over the Barbie movie has skyrocketed as we’ve gotten closer to the premiere.

Ultimately, all of this leaves us someplace muddled! I tried not to dig too deeply into movie reviews for this syllabus, but I think Aisha Harris for NPR sews together a lot of the same themes I’ve been most interested in exploring:

“Stereotypical Barbie is rendered exactly as her name suggests: blond, thin, [presumably] straight, and Margot Robbie … i.e., the first image that likely comes to mind when anyone thinks of Barbie, as she herself proudly admits early on. Pointing this out is subversive, to a point. For all the brand’s exaltations about representing everyone – in recent years, to combat plummeting sales, Mattel has expanded the doll’s shapes, shades, and facial features – the movie is also admitting that the symbol that still looms large is white and supermodel-esque…. Yet Barbie’s limitations as a vehicle for substantial commentary are two-fold. For one, the execution is sometimes awkward, like a long, stilted monologue about how ‘impossible’ it is to be a woman because, The Patriarchy.

The other rub is inherent – critique can only mean so much when the entity under the microscope also happens to be the one writing (and cashing) the checks.”

Is ‘Barbie’ Corporate Propaganda or Malibu Metacommentary™? Why Not Both! The last word of the day.

That’s it! Class dismissed!

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