20 Books To Read If You Loved The Barbie Movie!
Hi Barbie!
Fair warning, there are some slight spoilers for the Barbie movie ahead.
If you couldn’t already tell from my previous post, or from this, or this, or even this, I’m kind of obsessed with the new Barbie movie.
I don’t care if it’s a bit cringe. It’s 96 degrees (36 for my Aussie fam), I had a migraine all morning, SCOTUS has stripped our rights away just for funsies, and the planet is literally burning. I’m going to enjoy some Barbie content, as a treat. It’s bringing me so much serotonin and I plan on lapping it up like a dog on a garden hose until it runs dry.
Lining up to see a movie with dozens of people draped in pink and floral and cowboy hats and even blonde Ken wigs? Barbie’s waving to each other on the street? A cinema of fans laughing at a Snyder cut joke, clapping and cheering together, crying together? Maybe it’s because I rarely go to the movies anymore, but I don’t remember the last time I experienced that.
It proves that we are all sorely craving something, some kind of collective joy, connection, community that we lost. Maybe we lost it when the pandemic started, maybe it was earlier than that. Is it sad that a capitalist machine like Mattel is funding this fresh spark of glee? Absolutely. It says a whole lot about the society we currently live in, but I’m not here to analyze that right now. I’m here to do what I do best: yell about books!
I’ve made a list of 20, yes TWENTY, books to read if you loved the Barbie movie. Most of them are nonfiction, because I really wanted to expand on the film’s discussions on patriarchy and toxic masculinity. I’ve divided the list into loose categories so it’s easier to digest, but all the books are feminist as hell.
For the Greta Gerwig stans…
Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her by Robin Gerber
At once a business book, a colorful portrait of an extraordinary female entrepreneur, and a breathtaking look at a cultural phenomenon, this is the remarkable true story of the world's most famous toy and the woman who created her.
The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood by Naomi McDougall Jones
A brutally honest look at the systemic exclusion of women in film--an industry with massive cultural influence--and how, in response, women are making space in cinema for their voices to be heard.
Reviving Ophelia 25th Anniversary Edition: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher and Sara Gilliam
In an interview with Vogue, Greta Gerwig listed this book as inspiration for when she sat down to write the Barbie script. It’s said to be a timely, readable combination of insightful research and real-world examples that illuminate the challenges young women face and the ways to address them.
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen
Anne Helen Petersen uses the lens of "unruliness" to explore the ascension of contemporary pop culture powerhouses, from Serena Williams to Kim Kardashian to Hillary Clinton. Petersen explores why the public loves to love (and hate) these controversial figures, each of who has been conceived as "too" something: too queer, too strong, too honest, too old, too pregnant, too shrill, too much.
Dressing Barbie: A Celebration of the Clothes That Made America's Favorite Doll and the Incredible Woman Behind Them by Carol Spencer
Illustrated with more than 100 full-color photographs, including many never-before-seen images of rare and one-of-a-kind pieces from Spencer's private archive, Dressing Barbie is a treasure trove of some of the best and most iconic Barbie looks from the early 1960s until the late 1990s.
For the Kens and the Barbie’s Who Love Them…
Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All by Laura Bates
This upcoming release examines the rise of secretive extremist communities who despise women and traces the roots of misogyny across a complex spider web of groups. It includes eye-opening interviews with former members of these communities, the academics studying this movement, and the men fighting back.
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by Bell Hooks
In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are--whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it's so deeply ingrained in our society that it's hard for men to not comply--but hooks wants to help change that.
For the Love of Men: From Toxic to a More Mindful Masculinity by Liz Plank
A smart, insightful, and deeply-researched guide for what we're all going to do about toxic masculinity. For both women looking to guide the men in their lives and men who want to do better and just don't know how, For the Love of Men will lead the conversation on men's issues in a society where so much is changing, but gender roles have remained strangely stagnant.
Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger by Soraya Chemaly
As women, we've been urged for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don't even realize. In Rage Becomes Her, Soraya Chemaly argues that our anger is not only justified, it is also an active part of the solution.
The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality by Angela Saini
Award-winning science journalist Angela Saini explores the roots of what we call patriarchy, uncovering a complex history of how it first became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present.
If Allan and Weird Barbie are your faves…
Horse Barbie: A Memoir by Geena Rocero
A dazzling testimony from an icon who sits at the center of transgender history and activism, Horse Barbie is a celebratory and universal story of survival, love, and pure joy.
The Male Gazed: On Hunks, Heartthrobs, and What Pop Culture Taught Me about (Desiring) Men by Manuel Betancourt
Featuring deep dives into thirst traps, drag queens, Antonio Banderas, and telenovelas--all in the service of helping us reframe how we talk about (desiring) men--this insightful memoir-in-essays is as much a coming of age as a coming out book.
None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary by Travis Alabanza and Alok Vaid-Menon
Drawing from their experiences as racialized queer person, Alabanza deftly interrogates our current frameworks around identity with nuance, openness, and humor. The result is a meditation on doubt and language that turns a mirror back on society, and on ourselves. By heralding transformative futures, None of the Above questions what we think we know--and shares new ways that we might live.
My Body by Emily Ratajkowski
A profoundly personal exploration of feminism, sexuality, and power, of men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment. These essays chronicle moments from Ratajkowski's life while investigating the culture's fetishization of girls and female beauty, its obsession with and contempt for women's sexuality, the perverse dynamics of the fashion and film industries, and the gray area between consent and abuse.
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J Brown
An incisive look at how anti-Blackness, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and capitalism enact harm against asexual people, contextualizing acephobia within a racial framework in the first book of its kind. An essential read for asexuals, aromantics, queer readers, and anyone looking to better understand sexual politics in America.
For a lil bit of everything…
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo
Through the last 150 years of American history -- from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics -- Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves.
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell
Amanda Montell, reporter and feminist linguist, deconstructs language--from insults, cursing, gossip, and catcalling to grammar and pronunciation patterns--to reveal the ways it has been used for centuries to keep women and other marginalized genders from power.
Does My Body Offend You? by Mayra Cuevas and Marie Marquardt
A timely young adult novel about two teenagers who discover the power of friendship, feminism, and standing up for what you believe in, no matter where you come from.
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
An engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that's obsessed with sexual attraction, and what the ace perspective can teach all of us about desire and identity.
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
In this feminist satire, the fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. What's a beauty queen to do?
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And now, for the Harry of the Week!
