‘What if there were a butch Barbie?’ Barbie’s gender politics investigated

The exclusion of butch representation in the Barbie movie limits its queer inclusivity, says a paper released in the year of the doll’s 65th anniversary. Dr. Clara Bradbury-Rance, Senior Lecturer in Gender and Sexuality Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities, imagines how the film could be different if it featured a butch version of Barbie in the paper published in Feminist Media Studies. “The film has many undeniable pleasures, including its celebration of femininity, its shameless camp aesthetic, and the could-be-lesbian chemistry between its leads. But there are clearly still barriers to queer and trans representability. I wanted to Read More