Hey There, Barbie Girl!: The Subversion of Mattel’s Commodified Femininity in a 1990s Riot Grrrl Zine
摘要
This chapter examines Hey There, Barbie Girl! (1994), a four-issue riot grrrl zine that satirically reimagines Mattel’s Barbie, a dominant cultural symbol of commodified femininity. Situating the zine within the 1990s context of third-wave feminism, riot grrrl activism, and critiques of consumer culture, this chapter considers the zine as a case study of how riot grrrl discourse contested Barbie’s narrow beauty ideals, heteronormative narratives, and racialized assumptions. It examines the zine’s various imagined Barbies—activists, rebels, queers, and self-possessed women—and other elements, attending to how transgressive representations through images and text intersected with contemporaneous feminist debates. Although the zine’s inclusivity has limitations, its irreverent experimentation does foreshadow some of Mattel’s later corporate shifts in Barbie’s branding and design. Ultimately, Hey There, Barbie Girl! demonstrates how grassroots feminist interventions can challenge iconic brands, broaden representational possibilities, and contribute to the evolution of mainstream consumer and feminist narratives.