Description

In 2019 Barbie turns 60. Never only a toy, she defines the stellar. In Plastic's Republic, Giovanna Riccio delves into Barbie's impact on female beauty highlighting how plasticity in body and persona have allowed the doll to remain top-diva. Other poems bring to life, Mattel's movers-n-shakers who created Barbie to be their in-house money maker. Riccio's Plastications lyrics illustrate how Barbie's mouldable nature lets Mattel position their high achiever as ever-relevant, arguably, by exploiting social trends, political movements and historical events. In the Human Barbies section, Barbie becomes plastic surgery's prophet, spawning "plastic-positive" people who see their bodies as raw material suitable for actual and virtual surgical "doctoring." Riccio's witty, inimitable poems portray Barbie as a complex, contradictory global celebrity, but also explore the philosophical, feminist and body-image issues that this plastic goddess engenders. In the finale, the poems naturally segue to silicone sex dolls and a plastic-smothered ocean.