Coda in Pink: Plasticity

The hot-pink address of Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) calls to and intensifies viewer experiences of plasticity—molded by the demands of femininity, woman-identified viewers are practiced in adapting and molding themselves in response to the white male gaze reflected in the shaping of consumer and aesthetic desire, and yet there is a chance to act and do otherwise. The film invites discomforting feelings of plasticity via Gerwig’s cinematic language, a language that is a reception of Chantal Akerman’s in her musical, Window Shopping (1986). These films invite viewers to “feel like feminists” to move beyond both the “plastic representation” and the “intimate publics” of female complaint, both of which are too easily and readily co-opted by whiteness, capitalism, and neoliberal diversity. Barbie’s bold artificiality, intense color palette, and camp aesthetics unsettle and remain long after the film ends.