Review Essay: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie: Popular Culture, Cinema, and Gender

Murat Akser; Dikmen Yakali

doi:10.5195/cinej.2026.1270

Review Essay: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie: Popular Culture, Cinema, and Gender

Authors

Murat Akser Ulster University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9772-394X
Dikmen Yakali IZTECH https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6855-7946

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2026.1270

Keywords:

Barbie, Greta Gerwig, feminist film criticism, popular feminism, corporate feminism, auteurism, cultural industries, review essay

Abstract

This review assesses Hilary Radner and Rebecca Stringer’s interdisciplinary collection on Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023), which sets film historians, feminist critics, music and star scholars, and political economists in open disagreement over whether the film critiques or merely absorbs corporate feminism. Reading the volume alongside recent feminist scholarship, we argue that its opposing positions are its principal strength, but that they are insufficiently tested against audiences, intersectional critique, and labor.

References

Burke, M., & Kon-Yu, N. (2026). “Get in the box, you Jezebel!”: Barbie, gender identity and coalitional feminism. Feminist Media Studies, 26(3), 1027–1042. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2025.2467991

Byrnes, A., Loreck, J., & May, N. (2025). “She’s everything”: Feminism and the Barbie movie. Feminist Media Studies, 25(3), 760–766. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2024.2381254

Carr, K., & Behari-Leak, Y. (2026). Is Barbie a feminist film? A decolonial feminist perspective. Feminist Media Studies, 26(5), 1636–1651. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2026.2620765

Do, S. N. (2025). This Barbie has melancholy feminism: Framing empowerment and grievable lives. Feminist Media Studies, 25(3), 799–805. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2024.2372016

Gerwig, G. (Director). (2023). Barbie [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.

Li, Q. (2025). Performative resistance and aestheticized conflicts: Barbie’s ambivalent feminist practice. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 28(6), 1519–1534. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494241305336

Nolan, C. (Director). (2023). Oppenheimer [Film]. Universal Pictures.

Radner, H., & Stringer, R. (Eds.). (2026). Greta Gerwig’s Barbie: Popular culture, cinema, and gender. Bloomsbury Academic.

Yakalı, D. (2024a). “He is just Ken”: Deconstructing hegemonic masculinity in Barbie (2023 movie). Frontiers in Sociology, 9, Article 1320774. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2024.1320774

Yakalı, D. (2024b). Is she a feminist icon now? Barbie 2023 movie and a critique of postfeminism. Studies in Media and Communication, 12(1), 198–205. https://doi.org/10.11114/smc.v12i1.6478

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Published

2026-10-16

How to Cite

Akser, M., & Yakali, D. (2026). Review Essay: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie: Popular Culture, Cinema, and Gender. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 14(2), 890–896. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2026.1270

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Issue

Vol. 14 No. 2 (2026): Fall

Section

Review Essays

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