I am all Barbies, I am all slay queens

Besides the beautiful, bright-eyed baby girls and their mommies in pastel colouring the halls of Ster-Kinekor and capturing my attention, the film Barbie is surprisingly rich, nuanced and deeply and boldly political as much as it is entertaining. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBk4NYhWNMM

The opening scenes of the film capture a sea of different types of women. Different hairstyles, different races, different body types, different professions. 

While Margot Robbie plays the protagonist of the stereotypical blonde-haired, blue-eyed Barbie and “main event”, we are encouraged to see how the fictionalised age-old doll can be re-read as heterogeneous. We are moved to see Barbie beyond the monolithic construction of a doll traditionally meant to breathe life into unrealistic beauty standards and aspirations for motherhood, among other markers of traditional femininity. 

As we observe, celebrate, reflect and contemplate August as Women’s Month in South Africa, I think this film operates as a cultural text that is resonant with our context. In more recent years, the surge in public visibility of women labelled “slay queens” has been the subject of many debates. 

Originating from the drag and ballroom culture of queer communities, “Slay, Queen!” is an instruction and invitation for you to show up as your best and most authentic selves. This call was then taken up and personified by women who were successful, beautiful, assertive, audacious and self-sufficient. 

In some ways, I take the figure of the slay queen to be heterogeneous in that it represents how vast and diverse women can be, while still asserting themselves as proudly leaning into feminine energies. But like Barbie, the diversity of women is not only in relation to how one woman differs from another. The diversity of figures like Barbie or a slay queen is also in relation to how women can occupy multiple positionalities, personas and aesthetic cultures simultaneously, and self-define and take up space as a personal and political right. 

Unfortunately, as lifestyle journalist Kaunda Selisho reminds us in her brilliant 2019 article, You're probably using the term ‘slay queen’ wrong, the term ‘slay queen’ has been used inappropriately to insult women, rather than its intended affirmation of them. 

The need to insult women who present like Barbie or a slay queen is rooted in patriarchal frameworks that want to use self-affirmed, confident and bold women as cautionary tales and examples of how not to be – as if being big, successful, independent, beautiful or whatever form of power you relate to is bad and a threat to how “things are” or “should be”.  

Ryan Gosling plays the role of Ken, Barbie’s male other, who is also vying for her attention. Ken resorting to exporting “the patriarchy” from the real world to “Barbie-land” is a lot like our history of colonisation where violent regimes of power like capitalism, racism and misogyny are the order of the day. 

Similar to all the women in Barbie-land being named and identified as Barbie, all the men in Barbie are Kens, except for Allan, who can be viewed as a queer ally to the Barbies. But these Kens are almost all the same, or at least not much attention to how diverse they are is given. All of them seem to relate to the Barbies as companions. Perhaps the film tries to highlight what happens when men are not provided with positive examples of masculinity. 

The film explores the toxicity of patriarchy when Ken visits the real world with Barbie and learns about “the patriarchy”, where men are hyper-masculine and superior to women. While Barbie remains in the real world, Ken exports patriarchal ideals and flips Barbie-land where Issa Rae plays President Barbie, to a world where all Barbies submit to the needs of the Kens and forsake their own talents, interests and achievements. What a shame! 

At the heart of the matter is how patriarchy as a system of male domination is able to colonise our experience as women and the possibilities of self-definition that may exist for us. 

I believe the same phenomenon of the loss of power of the Barbies and the rise of the domination of Kens is what has happened to women who have been invited to “Slay, Queen!”. 

But this Women’s Month, I feel particularly inspired by the attempt to reclaim the narratives that have defined Barbie and slay queens. 

When we affirm one another, like how America Ferrera – who plays Gloria – does for the Barbies by reminding them of their strengths and achievements during the rule of the Kens, we can break away from the submissive positions that deem only our Kens worthy of the glory the world has to offer. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we are solely the masters of our destiny, because many of our challenges are systemic. 

But coming home to ourselves, being able to be in our bodies the way we choose, is probably one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves and the little girls we are raising. 

I am every woman. I am all Barbies. 

These are not just catchphrases – they capture the very essence of all our power and potential. 

Happy Women’s Month! DM

Dr Mbali Mazibuko is a senior lecturer at the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies at UNISA. You can follow her on X: @Yhu_Mbali