Robin Ryle: Deconstructing Barbie: Using Pop Culture to Teach Sociology and Gender Courses

Join us for an enlightening discussion with Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and author of Questioning Gender, as we take an analytical deep-dive into the world of Barbie. Whether you grew up with the iconic doll or are intrigued by the cultural buzz surrounding the blockbuster Barbie movie, this episode pulls back the curtain on how Barbie is more than just a plastic doll—she’s a richly layered symbol ripe for exploring concepts like gender, power, and identity. This episode isn’t just about Barbie—it’s about seeing the connections between toys, media, and the gendered lens through which we understand the world. By analyzing pop culture artifacts like Barbie, we can peek behind the curtain of societal norms and spark meaningful conversations about gender identity, representation, and empowerment.

What You'll Learn:

• Barbie in the Classroom: Discover creative ways educators can integrate Barbie into teaching sociology and gender studies. Robyn shares activities designed to highlight gender concepts like occupational segregation, intersectionality, and media power theory.
• Is Barbie a Feminist Icon or Not? Through lively discussion and audience polls, we tackle one of the most divisive questions in pop culture. Does Barbie challenge the patriarchy, or is she a co-opted symbol of capitalism?
• Barbie and Intersectionality: Explore the evolution of Barbie’s diversity, including the introduction of dolls of different races, body types, and abilities. Do these changes create a truly inclusive Barbie universe—or just a surface-level nod to intersectionality?
• Ken, Alan, and Masculinity: A thought-provoking look into how Barbie reveals underlying ideas about masculinity and the impact of the patriarchy on men, as seen through characters like Ken and the fan-favorite “Weird Barbie.”

Transcript

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 0:00

want to welcome everyone to deconstructing Barbie, using pop culture to teach sociology and gender courses with Dr. Robin Ryle. My name is Chris Hardin and I'm the sociology product marketing manager with Sage Publishing. I'd like to introduce you to our speaker Dr. Robert Ryle. She's a full professor of sociology and Gender Studies at Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana, where she has been teaching sociology and gender for over 20 years. She is the author of she he they may for the sisters misters and Beiner resistors. throw like a girl cheer like a boy, the evolution of gender identity and race and sports and the new edition of sages questioning gender, a sociological exploration, which just came out, as well as a young adult novel about girls basketball and gender equality called fair game. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter where her handle is at Robin and Rachel are read her substack newsletter called You think too much. So without further ado, I will hand it over to Professor Ryle.

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 1:05

Thanks, Chris. Thank you everybody for being here. I hope everybody's excited to talk about Barbie and think about how we might bring Barbie into the into the classroom. We're gonna start with the poll. Okay, so quick poll about your experiences with with Barbie. And then look at the results right

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 1:27

and just so we have it on the video. So the three questions are did you play with Barbie dolls as a child? Yes or No? Have you seen the Barbie movie? Yes or no? And have you talked about the Barbie movie in the classroom with your students? Yes or no?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 1:42

All right, so it looks like most of us played with Barbie dolls as a child 83% said that he did. 17% said no. Have you seen Barbie the movie 73% of us have 27% of us haven't? Have you talked about Barbie movie in the classroom with your students? 38% Yes. 62% No. Alright, so cool. We got people who have some experience talking about Barbie and people who who haven't. So what we're gonna do today in the webinar, I'm just going to talk about Barbie in context a little bit and then I'm going to zero in on three kinds of specific ways to use concepts from sociology of gender or gender studies to talk about Barbie. So we're gonna talk about occupational segregation intersectionality and then is Barbie feminist or not using media power theory and audience power theory. So I have seen Barbie which is good to talk about it. I didn't see it in the movie or wait until it came out on on streaming. I will confess I saw Oppenheimer I did not do Barban Heimer so I saw Oppenheimer Britain T Barbie. My my daughter saw it and was raving about it. She said you must see it. So when it came out on streaming, I watched Barbie. If you've been teaching, I've been teaching sociology of gender gender studies for 20 years. conversations about Barbie aren't aren't anything new. You know, people have been talking about the same kind of debate that we'll end with is Barbie feminist. What's what's going on with Barbie? It was interesting to me when I when I saw the movie that they left out the part of Barbie where she does have a history in Germany as an adult lifesize sex toy. That part didn't make it into the movie. But as the movie points out, she's one of the first dogs who isn't a baby doll. So isn't allowing girls to model motherhood. Barbie is single and childless. And she and she's had a lot of careers. So there's lots of kinds of debates about exactly what's going on with Barbie that we'll get into at the end. The first thing I want her to talk about is Barbie as a way to talk about occupational segregation in Hollywood. So there's a lot of talk around the movie about Greta Gerwig and the fact that Barbie is now the largest grossing movie ever directed by a woman. She's also a co writer. And you know, this happens in Hollywood every few years. A woman director writes a movie that becomes a breakout hit and there's kind of a conversation about is this the beginning of the new wave of women women in Hollywood the rise of women in Hollywood and you know, mostly No, right? There's there's one movie and then and then it kind of goes back to status quo. But something interesting I found when I was doing the research for questioning gender. My my sociology textbook. In looking at occupational segregation, I found that in the beginning in Hollywood, most screenwriters were women. So if you go back to the silent era of Hollywood, they weren't called screenwriters, they were called scene wrists, as in scene writing a scene, scene wrist. And so these are the people who wrote the plot for silent movies as well as the little, you know, dialogue cards that showed up in between scenes in silent movies. Obviously, the job because the movies didn't have dialogue, the way that they did when sound came in, seniors weren't seen as important. But 50 to 90% of the seniors in Hollywood, in the silent film era were women. So women dominated that occupation. When Hollywood transitioned to sound movies, women were pushed out of those positions. So by the 1930s, only 15% of screenwriters were women and in the in the, the name of the occupation transitioned from Seacrest to screenwriters. What you have here is a picture of Francis Marion and Marian Pickford. And Francis Marion started out as a senior artist in the silent era. And she was Mary Pickford, who was a famous silent era actress. Francis Marion was Mary Pickford, famous, favorite scene artist. And so partly because of that partnership, Francis Marion was able to survive the transition from silent movies into sound, and was fairly prominent in Hollywood, she helped start the screenwriters guild, which is now the Writers Guild of America. And so this is interesting is one example. And in the classroom, you can kind of use it as an example to talk about many tales of occupational segregation, where occupations start out as predominantly male, or predominantly female, and transition over time, and what happens as part of that transition. So another kind of pop culture example, Hidden Figures, the book and the and the movie. And that's instance, you have computers, who are originally not machines, but people who do computations. And as the movie in the film shows a lot of those originally women. Even when you transition into computers, as machines, think about the big ENIAC computer, you know, that takes up a whole building, and you have punch codes, those are women who are doing the punch code. So in the beginning, computers and computer scientists are predominantly women, because those jobs are seen as less important and lower paid. But when they become seen in the transition from senior S to screenwriters, or from computer to computer scientists, as they come to be seen as more important and more highly paid. Women get pushed out of those jobs and men come in. So like I said, by the 1930s, only 15% of screenwriters were women. Fast forward to 2020 29.6% of screenwriters are women, and there really hasn't been a lot of progress in those numbers. And so I have a bunch of activities that that you can use around Barbie. And in your sociology of gender, gender studies class, the first one kind of looks at these numbers, so women in Hollywood is a really useful website. And we'll have after the video, we'll have resources where you can where you can find these links. So have students go to this page, there's lots of different stuff to look at. They look at women behind the screen in front of the screen, they look at race, and make an infographic to share on Instagram or Tiktok that summarize what she learned. So get them to do a little bit of public sociology. activity number two with occupational segregation and the gender wage gap. I use this my sociology of gender class, I also use it in intro. You can use these two census tables to have students pick 10 occupations that are interesting to them. A lot of times they pick things that they want to do or that they know other people do. Then go the first table and find the percent female. It also has raised if you're interested in that it has percent African American, and then this second table that can calculate the gender wage gap. It's always kind of fun. They often try to find the occupations where women make more money than men or you can kind of challenge them try and find some occupations where women make more than than men. There are some I can't remember off the top of my head what they are. They always think bartenders is always their best guests that women bartenders make more than men. So that's one one kind of way to use Barbie to talk about occupational segregation in your class. The second topic I'm going to talk about is Barbie and intersectionality. And I don't know how Um, so we had, you know, the majority people who played with Barbie as a child know how familiar everyone is with the Barbie universe. So in the Barbie universe Barbie has, she has relatives. So she has a sister, Skipper and Stacy. She has friends, Shelley Midge can obviously famously her boyfriend has very prominent role in the movie. And we're going to talk about in a minute Alan, who is supposed to be Ken's best friend. So there there's Barbie and her friends and family. And then there's different versions of, of Barbie. And there's lots of things to talk about with Barbie and intersectionality. In the beginning of Barbies history, dolls who departed from you know, in the movie, Margot Robbie is stereotypical Barbie so any doll that departed from stereotypical Barbie was released as a special edition. So there's this kind of sense that here's the normal Barbie. And then here's all the special Barbies over here. And so the first the first black doll in the Barbie universe was Christie who was Barbie spren. She was reduced, introduced in 1968. So she wasn't a Barbie herself, but she was Barbies friend and she was African American. And then in it's not till 1980 that you get the first Hispanic and black dolls who are actually versions of Barbie so a black Barbie, a Hispanic Barbie. And one of the things I don't I don't know other people's experience, but when when I saw the movie, one of the things I was surprised by was how diverse Barbie land is. So you enter Barbie land. And there are Barbies of many different racial backgrounds or Barbies have different levels of ability. So there's a Barbie in a in a wheelchair. There are Barbies of different sizes. And you can see here in the in the picture with the Kirby original tall petite Barbie in toothpick 2016 Mattel introduced new body types for a Barbie This is the first year where you get a Barbie who isn't using the original there until you get curvy Barbie tall Barbie and petite Barbie and you can see curvy Barbie. Yeah, she's got a little more curved she's not as straight as its original Barbie. But it was interesting to me to compare her to Sharon Rooney, the actress in the picture you see in the blue dress with the long black hair and the headband. I think the movie she's lawyer Barbie. You know, she's a little curvier than the the, the curvy Barbie. So I think in the in the movie, they make Barbie land a lot more diverse than it might be if you were just looking at the actual dolls. Obviously, you could also talk about in relation to intersectionality America Ferrara and Adriana Goldblatt, who played the mother and daughter interesting that there Latina women, and they kind of talked about that some in the movie. I also found it interesting once Barbie actually leaves Barbie land. It's not very diverse. So in this kind of weird reversal, Barbie land is more has more diversity than the real world. And you can ask questions, she has a lot of encounters with mostly white people. What she leaves besides the mother and daughter America for her and Adriana Golbat. And you can ask questions along the lines of intersectionality where's the lesbian Barbie? Where's the trans Barbie? Where's the nonbinary Barbie? And one of the really interesting Where's where's poor Barbie or, you know poverty Barbie. Barbie has been many, many things over the course of her long existence. But she's never been poor. She has, you know, a camper, a mobile home, a mansion, a convertible, and quite a wardrobe. So the Barbie can be lots of things but she her social class stays the same. What I want to focus in on specifically with intersectionality is is Alan, this character. So if you've seen the movie, Alan is Ken's best friend and he really is doll. So you can see the picture there of the Alan doll and then the actor who's playing Alan, and in the movie there. I don't want to give too much away. But there's a dynamic where that it's kind of the kids versus the Barbies. But Alan is on the side of the Barbie so he's an ally to the Barbies instead of to the kins and my students in conversation when we talked about Barbie they were really interested in what's going on with Alan, why is he helping the Barbies? Why isn't he with the cans and one of the interesting things one of the students said is well, is Alan gay. Is that why He's, he's not with the Barbies. And one of the things I found my experience of watching the movie is, the messages about masculinity. To me were kind of more interesting than what Barbie was saying about femininity, per se. So in talking about Alan, it's a kind of good opportunity to bring in the idea of hegemonic masculinity from RW Connell. So the idea that masculinity is a social system where this ideal masculinity is held up, and men have power relative to their ability to conform to those versions of hegemonic masculinities. And so it can you could talk about canon Allen, you could talk about Canada's representative hegemonic masculinity. What's happening with Alan? Is he subordinate masculinity, which are masculine energies that are in opposition to hegemonic masculinities so being too effeminate or too emotional, you can talk about marginalized masculinities these are intersectional how identities like social class and race an ability crosscut with gender to affect men's ability to access hegemonic masculinity. He's already talked about hybrid masculinity. So kind of newer concept that looks at how it seems like men in some social positions can incorporate aspects of femininity, but still not. That still doesn't present a challenge to them. hegemonic masculinity. So the example is upperclassmen who get pedicures and go to fancy hair salons typically feminine activities. So that looks hybrid masculinity. But it's a reassertion of a certain kind of social class masculinity a kind of higher class masculinity. So incorporating aspects of femininity don't actually challenge masculinity. So looking at some activities related to intersectionality hegemonic masculine studies and hybrid masculinities. So these are two and again, these are these are pages will be available on the web page for the webinar. So look at a description of hegemonic masculinity from Connell and Messerschmitt bridges and passcodes article on hybrid masculinities. There's also a discussion of hegemonic masculinity is in in chapter two of questioning gender. So have students look at those different definitions. And then think about like, what type of masculinity in the article is an example of and kind of use specific examples from the movie to talk about what's going on with Alan, because that was something that was kind of seemed interesting to students. And then this is a good exercise you can do with Barbie, but you can really do it with any kind of pop culture artifact, intersectionality and identity switch. So pick a character from the movie and imagining switching, switching some part of our identity besides gender. So what if stereotypical Barbie were gay? What if she had a disability? What if she were Muslim? How would that change the perception of that character? How would it change the meaning of the movie itself? And like I said, you can you can do this with lots of different pop culture artifacts. Okay. So last thing we're going to talk about is, is Barbie feminist or not. And so Chris has another poll for you. Question for everybody to answer.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 18:33

Great, so I just launched that. And it's, the question is, do you think Barbie was a feminist movie? Yes or no?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 18:41

Great. We'll give everybody a chance to enter. Okay, so it looks like 78% about 60 people answered 78%. People said yes, Barbie is a feminist movie. 22% said, no, no, yeah, that's, that's interesting. This kind of seems to be the question that a lot of the media focused on in the articles I've read articles and essays. I've read it talking about Barbie this question is Barbie, feminist or not? It's certainly the one that I was most interested in, in my students reaction. When we came when we came back in the fall, Barbie came up immediately Can we watch Barbie? And they were they were just gushing about it. It was the it was the best movie ever. I can say for their sakes I really, really wanted to like it. And I did like it the question of whether it's feminist or not, we can talk about it people have questions and at the end as a sociologist, the question is kind of always a little bit more complex than then. And so you can use media power theory and audience power theory to kind of dig dig deeper into This question, you know, questions to think about in general in conversation with students? Did Greta Gerwig set out to make a feminist movie? Does that matter her intentions? Is Barbie the doll, a feminist object? So separate from the movie? Is it possible for a movie made in a capitalist society by several corporations who are cooperating in making Barbie to have a subversive feminist message? So looking at feminism and capitalism, those are just a few questions to kind of throw out there. But media power theory and audience power theory are two theories I talked about in Chapter Nine of questioning gender, and media power theory comes from Theodore Adorno, who is fleeing Nazi Germany and moves to Hollywood. And so his background is thinking about how media was used as propaganda under Nazi Germany. And so not surprisingly, he puts a lot of emphasis on the power of media as a kind of top down instrument to influence people. And you know, one of the things I kind of used to summarize, media power theory, is the idea that basically we're all sheep. Hollywood produces these movies, we absorb the messages kind of mindlessly, and they shape our shape our norms, and, and values. And so on the side of media power theory, you might look at a lot of the articles that talked about okay, in Barbie the movie, there seems to be some kind of challenging of beauty culture. So if you haven't seen the movie, one of the things that one of the reasons that Barbie leaves Barbie land is that she finds cellulite. And she leaves she leaves Barbie land and she encounters this older woman who's you know, wrinkled. And Barbie looks at her and says you're beautiful. And so you could say, well, the message from the movie seems to be that beauty culture doesn't really matter. But media power theory asks about you know, what is Hollywood trying to sell to us both literally in terms of marketing, but what other ideas are they trying to convince us? And so Barbie sales, the sales of the actual Barbie doll did not go up in the wake of the movies were like, Oh, it didn't work. They didn't sell Barbie dolls. But one of the points A lot of these articles made is that they weren't trying to sell Barbie dolls. So Mattel partnered with 165 brands for the Barbie movie. And this is just a short list of all the brands that they partnered with. And you can see here there's quite a few of if you're familiar with these brands, there's quite a few of beauty brands here. As well as you know Airbnb, you can buy Barbie candles you can buy our Barbie X Box. So no, you know, there might have been challenges to beauty culture in Barbie but there's also this other message where okay, it's okay for Barbie to have cellulite but one of the products they're marketing was skin smoothing or for your cellulite so there's a little bit of Barbie can have cellulite, but but you can't. And so from a media power theories perspective, Barbie can't be a feminist movie because it's trying to sell us a certain image of beauty. On the other hand, audience power theory this comes from Stuart Hall in in culture studies. And this is the idea that we're not cheap. As an audience, we have the power to interpret the messages that Hollywood and other pop culture industries produce for us. So we're not just passive absorbers of message of the messages, we have the ability to interpret and do with those messages, what we like. So one thing I kind of thought of in relation to audience power theory is, if you saw these images, this was on Instagram of dads going to Barbie with their daughters, and here the dads wearing a pink tank top and a pink tutu. And so maybe Barbie is trying to sell us beauty culture, but maybe the way people are interpreting it is as a challenge of some kind of hegemonic ideas about gender. And the idea that, you know, dads can wear pink tutus, too. And so there you know, there there were lots of essays and articles that you could kind of see on either side of this, of this argument. And so two activities related to this question is Barbie feminist and or not? Are we sheep? So read the description of media power theory and audience power theory that's in chapter 10 of questioning gender, make a list of evidence in support of media power theory, then turn around and do it for audience pure color theory. And then kind of write a show or paper or have a discussion about what they what they personally believe and why. And then final activity. What is feminism? And can Barbie be a feminist? So I have here, one description of feminism and Roxane Gay. As a bad feminist students seem to really like, the way she talks about feminism. Obviously, there's also discussion of feminism and the women's movement in chapter two questioning gender. Also any other readings that define what feminism is or what feminism isn't? And have students come up with their own definition? And then talk about whether Barbie is feminist movie or not by that definition? Is Barbie, the doll feminist? And what are Who does your definition of feminism leave out? So hopefully, that gives everybody some ideas for how to talk about Barbie in your classroom. And we're gonna open it up now for some questions.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 26:02

Yeah, so thank you so much for that presentation is really interesting. And I just wanted to, you know, reiterate from the beginning that if anyone has any questions, please feel free to put them in the q&a box, it should be at the bottom of your screen. You know, we're happy to, to review any of that. And I also wanted to mention that we're monitoring the conversation on social media as well. So if you're on Twitter, and you have any comments, if you go to the hashtag SAGE talks, you can ask a question there, and then we can put it in the chat. We're looking at that space as well. So, you know, one question that I was going to ask that came up during the registration period, if someone had asked, either from your personal experience or the research, you know, how does the incorporation of pop culture into classroom teaching enhance students engagement, and understanding of sociology and Gender Studies concepts? So, either maybe in your own classroom, or things that you've seen anecdotally, that was a question that we received?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 27:14

Yeah, um, you know, one of the famous quotes, I think it comes from Barbara Riesman. You know, genders like, fish, gender is like water to fish. So gender is all around us. And part of what I want to do in my gender classes is, is help students to see that. So I've had students kind of say, at the end, like, they can't stop thinking about gender, and they see it everywhere. And that's a that's a good and a bad thing. I think it's a good thing sometimes to them, it's kind of it's kind of annoying. But, you know, they're they're marinating in, in, in pop culture. And so I think one of the first and kind of easiest places to help them help them see that is, is, is in the pop culture that that consume it. Also, the difficulties of professors, especially as I get older is that I don't know as much of their pop culture, which is part of why I was excited about Barbie because, you know, I, you know, I know Barbie, I played with Barbie to my daughter played with Barbie. And it was relatively easy to, to see the movie. So there was a, there was a kind of point of intersection. But I just think using pop culture it it helps them to see how gender is everywhere, especially I used to do on the first day of class we would watch and this is kind of becoming dated up and trying to find like a more up to date version of it. We would watch some scenes from the movie Grease, which on the surface, you know, so So Barbie, people would say, oh, clearly that's movie about gender. They're their movies that you like, clearly, those are about gender, usually movies that have either women or LGBTQ plus people in them, right. But movies about men are not usually seen about as about gender. So we'd watch some scenes from Greece and talk about like, what's going on with, with gender as a way to see how you know, even in things that don't appear to have anything to do with gender, have a kind of gender component to them. So I just think it gets them excited. It meets them where they are, you know, you kind of have to know who your students are to teach them and getting familiar with their pop culture helps. Great.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 29:30

We got a question from Patricia. Is there a new theory that says it's a bit of both media power and audience power?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 29:41

I'm sorry, is there a new theory that what that says

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 29:44

it's a bit of both media power and audience power? Like is there any kind of thought there that it's a little bit of both?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 29:52

Oh, yeah, yeah, you know, I don't I don't know theory. You know, I don't know I don't know, off the top of my head. But of course, you know, of course, it's always more complicated, you know, so we start with the kind of polar, you know, polarized views for students, you know, to make them take one perspective than the other. Because I don't mean, I don't know what other people students are, but my students are already in the both category. So that, you know, they immediately default to will and you know, it will it's both. And I'm like, of course it is. But for a moment, let's tease out and make sure we understand what the, what the opposing viewpoints are, before we before we put them together. So yeah, you know, I've no doubt that there there are theories that kind of, you know, put that put that together more. And I think it's kind of why at the end of the activity, they talk about what what they think personally, which allows them to integrate and say, Yes, of course, both things are happening. You know, a lot of theories basically, it's a it's a, it's an emphasis, so it's a lens that you're having them put on. So when you put on the lens of media power theory, you look at how we're manipulated by media, when you put on the lens of audience power theory, you look at art, you're looking at our ability to interpret and manipulate those messages. Thanks. Good question.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 31:20

Another, another question here. What did you think about the way the movie handled the concept of patriarchy and the treatment of men? The questioner thought it was fair, but had friends that didn't. And just yeah, just general thoughts on I think you'd mentioned a little bit in your talk about, you thought the film said more about, say, masculinity than femininity. So just, yeah. How would you feel about you know, how it portrayed the concept of patriarchy and the treatment of men?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 31:53

Yeah, you know, it was, it was one of the places where I kind of wished, I don't know, I wished that there was this separate movie, or I wish there would have been a different direction. So there's, you know, Ken, Ken follows Barbie out of Barbie lands to the real world. And you know, it's it's a great humorous moment where suddenly realizes that men are men are in control, and that there's this thing called patriarchy. But of course, is a gender scholar. I'm like, I wanted, I wanted to know more about that, like, exactly what is he seeing? And how does he understand exactly how, how patriarchy works? So, you know, though, I do think the movie, you know, has a lot to say about masculinity. You know, I wish there was like, uh, you know, a whole little separate thing that kind of got into it more deeply, because I felt like, um, yeah, there's, I mean, there's a lot to say about patriarchy. And obviously, it's a very complicated concept. And, you know, I mean, I guess maybe she's playing with it a little bit, or there's some complication of it in the in the Allen character, and that patriarchy doesn't include all all men, Allen doesn't seem to be part of the patriarchy. Yeah, so it was, you know, I think, when I think when I think about my experience watching the movie, obviously, I'm thinking and talking about gender all the time. So the way in which the movie is using concepts like patriarchy isn't really particularly, you know, shocking or new. But I think part of what my students responding to is like, here's a movie where they actually said patriarchy, and it was, you know, and it was a, it was a central feature of the film, I think that was just really affirming to them to have a major Hollywood picture, say patriarchy. And even if it was a kind of shallow treatment of it, it was it was there. It was, it was not, it was not there in a subtle way. It was like, you know, here's here's patriarchy, and you know, and here's can being seduced by it. So, yeah, um, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't as complex as I would have liked. But that's it. You know, that's me. I want a whole movie about banning the patriarchy basically.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 34:15

Or we're talking about possible sequels to Barbie. That will be the the C 10

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 34:21

and the patriarchy SQL.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 34:24

Here's the question. Do you have suggestions about how to use Barbie to bring in awareness about how the US may be different? And how the movie and also just the dolls themselves are received? And then to that somebody else followed up? Yeah, just maybe say a little bit more about the movie in a global context?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 34:46

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. And I'll confess I don't know as much about, you know, Barbie on a global global level. I know she's a global brand. I think it might be interesting. to bring in a lot of the research about globalization of Western beauty standards. So I know that in many countries the the particular ideal Barbie body type the Barbie represents isn't isn't isn't the ideal body type for for women. So there's a lot of variation in terms of what, you know what a beautiful woman looks like. But you could certainly talk about how Barbie is part of the globalization of Western ideas of beauty and erasing those kinds of indigenous or native ideas. So creating this kind of, you know, one world uniform beauty culture. I think you could also talk about you know, because Barbies, white and blonde you could probably bring in a lot of the stuff about skin color and colorism so I don't know I haven't done a deep dive into all the all the things that are associated with the Barbie moving the Barbie brand, but they're certainly skate lots and lots of skin lightening products out there. And, you know, you know, obviously their tie ins to things like if you want to get multidisciplinary Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and thinking about you know, baby dolls and dolls in a in a Global and MultiCultural context. So just kind of some things off the top of my head that's really good question. I hadn't really I haven't really done research about how Barbie was perceived globally. I know that more and more important to Hollywood, that you know, they have to think about will this movie sell in China? The kind of biggest market but i don't i don't know that's a really good question. I'd be interested to know more about that. Thanks for

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 36:56

the question I don't think there are questions I don't think you mentioned you know, quote unquote weird Barbie you know, who was played by by Kate McKinnon and the the other rejected or you know, a weird doll. So where do you see you know, weird Barbie fitting in in the narrative in terms of like class or beauty standards, or he plays on Pride femininity?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 37:22

That's a really interesting question. Yeah, I hadn't, you know, I found weird Barbie delightful, as someone whose Barbies ended up looking very much like Barbie. When I played with them I think we probably all had the weird Barbie whose hair we cut off and whose legs we Yeah distorted Yeah, I don't you know it's interesting because you know just in doing this presentation the social class aspect hadn't had never had never occurred to me that Barbie really is always Rich and I you know, I guess weird Barbie is is too Yeah, I mean I you know it's interesting that in the movie weird Barbie has this wisdom so weird Barbie is the person that you kind of go to who knows things so I think there's a there's a message there about living on the margins of you know of gender that you know how however the weird Barbies are marginalized. They know more which is kind of consistent with them. standpoint theory and Patricia Hill Collins that you know that basically the people at the at the margins have a kind of understanding of how the system works that other people don't so Greta Gerwig was going all deep there she like using you know theory that the the marginalized have a has a have a better view of how the system works, then the people who are in the majority who are seen as the normal or the standard, but yeah, I mean, weird Barbie, weird Barbie is fascinating. There's just so much in the movie that yeah, that you can really have some really great conversations about great question. Thank you.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 39:12

Question from me. How do you feel the timing of the Barbie movie and Taylor Swift's eras tour coming the summer after the overturning of Roe Roe v. Wade? Pink washed feminism was media power theory and full action?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 39:30

I'm that? That's a great question. Because one of the things you know, it's interesting as someone who's been teaching sociology, gender and gender theories for 20 years, when I started out, none of none of them. Very few of my students wanted to identify as feminist. You know, who that men teaching in the late 2000s. You know, if you think about historically, there's the women's movement in the 70s and then in the 80s, there's a backlash. I think that lasts for a while. And now more and more of my students will identify as feminist. But I think the definition of what that feminism is has changed for a lot of them. And, you know, I've read people talking about it's basically neoliberal feminism. So it's feminism that means you get to be whatever you want. It's very individualistic, instead of collective. So, yeah, you know, when I when I when I, when I saw the movie, I'm like, okay, I get it. They said the word patriarchy, there's this great speech by America Ferrara, where she's talking about what it means to be a woman. And obviously, you know, that you know, the, you know, the Barbies get together, there's collective action. But I do think yes, that there's a there's a slippage, there's a slippage in what in what feminism means. And when it when it comes to mean, I can do whatever I want, and that's feminism rather than we have to collectively organize to protect, you know, women's reproductive rights and women's rights. I don't know how that goes together. I you know, I want to believe I want to believe that like, you know, that you know, that there can be some kind of connection between Barbie and Taylor Swift and also, you know, fighting for women's rights in you know, in a more kind of, you know, national political sense. Yeah, um, you know, but I'm not sure Is it is it kind of bread and circuses medium power? Here you have Barbie, don't pay attention to the fact that you know, that you can't you can't get an abortion illegal abortion anymore. Now, that's a that's a that's a great question. Thank you.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 41:48

And then, you know, this question, what did you think of the ending of the movie? I know there were lots of thoughts and yeah, just you know, curious what you thought of it. Um,

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 42:04

yeah, um, it was you know, it took me it took me by surprise. I assume you're kind of talking about you know, spoil but you know, Barbie, you know, it's like it becomes a little Pinocchio ish Barbie you know, Barbie becomes a real person. And in the last scene, she she's going to see your gynecologist and I get it. It's a joke right Greta? Gerwig because Barbie and Ken are nude or they have no genitalia. So now Barbie is a real woman, she has genitalia, she gets to go to the gynecologist. Um, you know, as someone who tries to resist essentialist ideas of gender or who's women and who and who's a man. I don't know, it was a it was a little weird as an as an ending that, you know, we're ending with, you know, a kind of emphasis on on genitals and biology. It kind of made me think of during the women's march in what was that in 2016 2017? The the pussy hats, which you know, again, they're cool, they're fun, they're pink. But you know I just really believe that feminism has to be about all women and when you when you emphasize biology you know we're excluding people. And yeah, you know, I get the joke it was it was a little disappointing isn't isn't ending to me that she Yeah, she didn't go into the gynecologist and you know, I'm just wanting to say Barbie isn't what you think it is going to the game

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 43:49

yeah, so just want to throw it out there if there are any. That was the last open question that we had had if anyone has we have a little more time if anyone has any final questions for Professor while fine, if not, so first of all, would you want to just share those those final two slides? I think just so we can oh, here's the final question. A question Is there a male gender studies response to Barbie that you know about or that you've heard?

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 44:39

No, no, there isn't. But you know, I haven't I haven't. I haven't. I haven't done a deep dive. I hope that I hope someone writes something like that. I assume you're talking about something that kind of looks at and masculinity in Barbie. No, I don't. That's a That's a great question, too. Wouldn't someone should write that? Maybe other people in the in the chat have heard of things or read things that could you know, that could share a thing if they're aware, but no, I don't know.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 45:14

Let's give him a second. We got a question here. If you could write a follow up to the Barbie movie that would emphasize what you have determined to be the most important aspects, what would it include? Or what might that story? Like? You know? That's a large question. I know.

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 45:33

Um, gosh, I don't know, you know, I mean. I mean, I think I think like I said, you know, one of the things that one of the things that seems true about the women's movement, the second third, and I guess now we're in the fourth wave of the women's movement, is that women have women who've changed a great deal and ideas about femininity have changed a great deal, but our ideas about masculinity aren't, aren't quite aren't quite keeping up. So it'd be interesting. I don't you know, I don't I don't know how you do it. I don't I don't know how you create a movie that's about masculinity, that you know that that's accessible to men and women. But yeah, I'd like you know, you know, I'd like to see a deep dive into cans and cans encountered with with patriarchy, and masculinity, and all the complexities of that. So like, for example, and, and I don't, you know, I don't know, I've seen the movie once, so I should probably watch it again. But one of the things about about masculinity, and one of the reasons that I believe feminism is for everyone is that masculinity gives men power. So you know, her Connell, if you, the closer you are to hegemonic masculinity, the more you can get patriarchal dividends, all the good stuff that comes with masculinity. But it also forces men to suppress parts of their humanity. So suppressing, you know, emotional expression. And, you know, men's lifespans, on average, aren't as long as women and a lot of that is attributable to masculinity, to risk taking behavior and not going to the doctor when you're sick. So it'd be interesting to look at a movie that explores how masculinity obviously, is part of how the patriarchy works. But how it hurts, it hurts men too. It's, you know, it's not the power doesn't come without a cost. Basically, it'd be, it'd be interesting to kind of get it that I don't you know, and I'm not sure, not sure if you see that. And, you know, if you see how, you know, Ken can embrace the patriarchy, but it will, it will bite him in the ass in the end. It's not. It's not all musical numbers, masculinity and patriarchy.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 48:09

So we, let's see, I see, Sylvia put a question in the chat, which we missed, and that now it's in the q&a. She's there wondering about using the movie to critique the assumptions behind them today and masculinity. In fact, the very idea of femininity and masculinity as if they were natural, or university universal, such as the idea that pink is feminine and skirts are feminine, something like that. So just, you know, kind of the background of using the movie to talk about, like, assumptions behind femininity and masculinity. Yeah,

Robyn Ryle, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and Sage Author: 48:48

yeah. I think especially in it and again, like, you know, so one of the things that people have been talking about Barbie for a long time is that, you know, she's, she's part of beauty culture, but you know, also in an adult's world, like, you know, she's, she's single, she never gets married, you know, the movie plays with us. Does she even have a boyfriend? If she does, he's not really very important. So she's always been kind of this model of, like, within this acceptable framework of, you know, she's, you know, she wears all these exciting clothes, but but she's also, you know, independent, you know, childless on married and has many, many careers. So, I think there's room to talk about how, you know, you know, Barbie, you know, does challenge some notions about femininity. And then and then can the interesting thing about Ken is, you know, because he's, he's because he's basically this accessory to Barbie and that, you know, it's part of what the movies playing on like he doesn't get to express a lot of ideas of hegemonic masculinity. He you know, his whole identity is tied up in a woman, which is usually the way you know, women are perceived in society that Her whole identity is tied up, and how they're related to men but in you know, in Barbie land that's can can only exists because of because of Barbie. And because he's a doll, he has to be very into his, into his clothes. So there's some of that hybrid, you know, hybrid masculinity there. You know, Ken is kind of a closed down, he, you know, he exists so that you can dress them up and stuff. And that's not you know, that's not typically how we think of certain versions of masculinity. So yeah, I think there's, and this is, you know, this goes back to audience power theory, there's always room in, there's always room in, in pop culture to find the kinds of holes. It's also, I think you could talk about queer theory there, too. Because, you know, one of the things that queer theory talks about is, you can you can queer anything in the sense that you can look for like, what, like, what's going on here? That's kind of weird or subversive in relation to gender? Yeah, good question. Thank you.

Christopher Hardin, Sage Product Marketing Manager: 50:58

We have two other questions. And we're out of time. So we'll look to answer those after the webinar. So I just wanted to the slide, it's up is sharing two pages that I wanted to share with everyone. The first is for our webinar series, Sage talks. So if you go to the webpage, Sage pub dot com forward slash Sage talks, you can see information about this webinar or all the other webinars that are forthcoming. So check that out. And I also wanted to share our new open access resources page for those new to teaching sociology. So you can see the link there. But it's a resources page that includes teaching aids skills for career development, podcasts, and a lot more. It also includes a feature called the sociology exchange, and you can post questions there. And then haven't answered by a seasoned instructor. And Professor Ryle actually just answered a question on strategies for handling sensitive topics and discussions in the classroom. And that just went up this week. So so beyond you know, check that out and see her answer there. So I just wanted to thank everyone for coming today. And Professor Ryle, thank you so much for your time, and I was really interesting conversation. Thank you for joining us. So thanks again.