I would rather be a cyborg than a Barbie: hyperfeminine nostalgia and patriarchal futurity in Barbie

Abstract

I examine portrayals of digital media and technology in Barbie, analysing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) symbolism in conjunction with the film's thematic commentaries on gender and contemporary affects. I draw my theoretical framework from Tracey Mollet's conceptualisation of twenty-first-century American nostalgia and Donna Haraway's iconic discussion of the cyborg, tracing all appearances of digital screens and devices, media franchises, computer software and virtual platforms in the film. I demonstrate that Barbie consistently associates ICT with toxic masculinity and corruptive futures, while disassociating desirable feminine spaces and interactions from technological artifacts and their use. This gendered representation of technology is contextualised within two competing nostalgias portrayed in the film: a hyperfeminine, commercialised girlhood and a masculine, nationalist and patriotic past. Analysing the strategic placement of digital ICT across the film's settings – Barbie Land, the Real World and Kendom – I illuminate the paradoxical relationship between the film's selectively feminist message and its dichotomous portrayal of technology. This case highlights the challenges of portraying feminism without stakes in popular culture, evoking Sarah Banet-Weiser's observations of neoliberal girl-power narratives in the guise of feminism. Ultimately, I argue that the portrayal of technology in Barbie reinforces biological essentialism, revitalising archaic logics which fixate on the physical gendered body as the motivator for feminist solidarity; moreover, it overlooks the importance of digital spaces in feminist praxis and theory, complicating its status as a pop feminist film.