Living doll Margot Robbie can do better than dressing like Barbie

This is the traditional blonde, buxom, wasp-waisted and arched foot Barbie associated with thin-ideal internalisation in a 2016 Flinders University study and gendered play. That’s the Barbie some parents banned their children from playing with, only to send them into friends’ toy drawers looking for a covert fix of fabulousness.

Barbie was inspired by the doll Bild Lilli, based on a saucy, gold-digging German comic book character. Manufacturers Mattel have slowly expanded Barbie’s representation beyond the bimbo image, with varying degrees of success.

The first black Barbie went on sale in 1980, the first plus-size Barbie in 2016 and a Barbie with Down syndrome arrived in this April. A wheelchair using Barbie appeared in 2019, replacing her wheelchair using friend Share-A-Smile Becky from 1997, who disappeared from shelves after complaints the doll couldn’t fit into the Dreamhouse.

Barbie movie previews, featuring black actor Issa Rae and transgender actor Hari Nef as Barbies, show that director Greta Gerwig will tackle representation, but Robbie is the lead. It’s Robbie’s bouncy blond hair, model figure and flirty dresses representing the original doll we see on the red carpet, not the inclusive iterations.

We know that as a producer Robbie has been a driving force in getting the Barbie movie made, with formidable credentials having guided stories of strong women to the screen with I, Tonya and Promising Young Woman.

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Why can’t we see this professional side of Robbie on the red carpet, in powerful suits from Alexander McQueen, challenging dresses by Simone Rochas or Australian designer Dion Lee’s unapologetic celebrations of sexuality?

At the haute couture shows in Paris this week, Chanel, with whom Robbie has frequently collaborated, sent out an array of chic black suits for living women rather than living dolls.

When Christian Bale played Batman, he chose suits rather than capes for premieres, while Gal Gadot refrained from star-studded underpants on the Wonder Woman media press trail.

Let’s see the real Robbie in intelligent outfits that show there’s more inside the head of Barbie than the faint scent of plastic.