CFPs – Gender Studies Journal, vol. 23: “Barbie in the Age of Gender Reconsiderations: Meaningful Critique or Media Industry Coup?”
For our 2024 issue, in addition to manuscripts on various gender related topics, we invite contributions to a special section titled “Barbie in the Age of Gender Reconsiderations: Meaningful Critique or Media Industry Coup?”
Following the extraordinary success of the Barbie movie, the Gender Studies journal invites contributions to a special section focusing on the wildly popular film and astonishing cultural phenomenon Barbie. Written and directed by acclaimed feminist activist Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie, who previously had been one of the producers of the powerful feminist film Promising Young Woman (2020), Barbie was released to theatres in July of 2023. Within only five months it generated more than a billion and half dollars at the box office and became the highest grossing film in the long history of Warner Brothers. The film’s incredible success at least commercially is both unprecedented and completely unexpected. There certainly has never been a film explicitly raising feminist issues that has become so successful and become such a cultural phenomenon. With its continuous and striking contrast between an idyllic feminist community, Barbieland, and a still sexist and patriarchal real world, Barbie has been widely hailed as a feminist classic. There is, on the other hand, a minority view that sees Barbie as faux feminism that simply takes advantage of interest in feminist issues to generate extraordinary profit not only for Warner Brothers but also for Mattel, the multinational corporation guilty of producing in sweatshop conditions the always controversial doll, Barbie.
We welcome articles that analyze Barbie both as film and as extraordinary cultural phenomenon from a variety of critical perspectives, raising and addressing fundamental critical issues. The contributions can discuss various versions of feminism in the film and points of feminist critique accomplished by and through the film, including in terms of reception, or they can examine what the film says about sexism, patriarchy, gender, men, and masculinity. Alternatively, contributions can explore the potentially damaging effect the film could have on feminist thought and realities or on more general gender-related issues. Wider, consumerist-oriented approaches are also welcome, as are any that examine the mechanisms and possible aftermath of this successful and problematic cultural product. Contributions are expected to use qualitative methods of analysis in accordance with our journal’s orientation.
Deadline for submission: March 15th – July 15th, 2024
Languages: English
Submission guidelines: manuscripts (5000-8000 words) will be subject to a blind peer reviewing process and must not be under consideration for any other publications. For style sheet guidelines, please refer to “Instructions for authors” on the Gender Studies webpage. Click here to find all the information for general guidelines, and here for instructions for authors.
Submission and information:pPlease note that our journal is undergoing major changes in its online submission system and updated information will only be made available in due time for our submission period.angela.suarez@institutofranklin.net
Publication: Gender Studies Journal
