Feminist Perfection

   Barbie (2023)

    Barbie: I’m not stereotypical Barbie pretty! 

    Narrator: Note to the filmmakers: Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make                         this point.

I love this movie, and I love the feminist genre. However, located within the anti-patriarchal Barbie movie, the line above becomes the "but..." interjection to the ideals feminist viewers come to celebrate. Despite all the challenges to male hegemony, the Barbie movie is a prime example of an inflicted oppositional reading of the female form in American feminist movies, television, and social media thanks to American beauty standards.

In the entertainment industry, feminist ideals claim to have come center-stage in challenging patriarchal representation. They broadcast women on the big screen as self-sufficient in taking on traditionally male roles and celebrate independent thinkers as the female protagonist finds a way to come to terms with the traditional roles society expects of them. From the outset, movies such as Barbie, First Wives Club,  Thelma and Louise, and others declare themselves oppositional readings to male hegemony.

However, there are still pieces of the social expectation that these characters simply cannot give up. Through all of the strong female dialogue, there is still a disconnect between their lives and middle America. Each character is strikingly beautiful, with access to resources. Even in movies of female empowerment, the women are sexually flirtatious, and they take pleasure in using their bodies as a way to wield power. Even though the women are going to “make it on their own,” it is still clear that they can have any man they want, as well as the resources that come with marriage and family. 

Unattainable beauty standards have plagued women since the creation of media, but some feminist propaganda feels like a targeted attack. In the genre of feminine media, a new hegemony has been created - one that says empowered women must be extraordinarily pretty, thin, brilliant, and wanted by men. Women are then left to ask, do I fit the model of a strong, independent woman?

It is true that men in movies are also shockingly handsome, but there is also an embodiment of masculinity that declares that an “every man” can find success and love. In the projected world of powerful women, only perfection will do.