Among other problems, I struggled with how to assign roles to my two Barbies. Putting Chicana Barbie on top reinforces racial stereotypes of the dark brute overpowering the less animalistic white girl; the hair contrast alone places my Dream Loft firmly within the hetero-generated tradition of lesbian representation, which often features an aggressive, dark-haired vixen seducing a blond innocent. Putting blond Barbie on top would have subverted these stereotypes but performed white supremacy. In terms of race there was no way out of the dominant discourse.Rand describes her Barbie's Dream Loft installation as a "top/bottom dyke sex scene" in which Chicana Barbie "stands bent over blond Barbie with a hand on blond Barbie's butt, a hand moved now and then to suggest alternately spanking, anal penetration, and the more run-of-the-mill hand-to-vagina activity generically known as finger-f**king."
By her account, Rand's interest in Barbie dolls started when she
spotted a photograph—in her favorite lesbian sex magazine—of a
woman inserting a Barbie doll "feet first" into her vagina. She
loved the photograph and wanted to teach it to her students as art
history and women's studies, but was concerned that the image would be
interpreted as an immature act of "transgression" rather than an
occasion for serious intellectual analysis of its "counterhegemonic
discourse," or "the Barbie features that make her seem to resist the
free play of accessorizing signifiers." "I worried," as she phrased
it memorably, "about inserting a Barbie dildo into the heterosexist
context of the university classroom."
[Ed.: Mattel announced that, partly to prevent young girls from wanting to mirror Barbie's impossible measurements, the latest model of "Rad Barbie" will feature smaller breasts and a wider waist. What Ms. Rand is to make of all this remains unclear.]
