New article: Barbie in the Army: Mattel Militarism and femininity as visual protest strategy

Despite her apparently ‘apolitical’ origins, Barbie has never been far from the cultural and media zeitgeist. Although Barbie was initially marketed as a teenage fashion model, the doll enjoys some shared history with one of the most politically charged and controversial institutions of contemporary life: the US military. In this article, I demonstrate how this ‘Mattel Militarism’ aestheticizes military themes through femininity.