Cthulhu Barbie: expanding women's rights...?

It's always fun to Goth the talk and walk the Goth...so when horror and politics meet, we need to spread the dark glamour of spooky subversion...




Source: Introverted Wife

 Yes! You can make your own Cthulhu Barbie. Introverted Wife has step-by-step destructions to show you how to cow, terrify and drive the rest of your dark doll collection insane. Move over Monster High, Barbie's inner beast goddess is coming to claim the chaos back as her own




Source: Introverted Wife

 ...and maybe take back the night, too...? Is there, perhaps, a deeper message than just the black abyss in cult-crazed Cthulhu Barbie? Is it more than a maddening joke/gimmick?

That's exactly what Introverted Wife says:




Source: Introverted Wife

 "I would offer up some commentary on how this isn't born from the old hat idea of "ooh isn't it funny making Barbie ugly" but more a plea to all those costume makers who think women's only worth is looking hot at all times.

A woman can never be scary, or terrifying, or even truly ugly even if that is the homage she wishes to make. She must at all times be in a state of giving men boners.

So...Cthulhu Barbie. If she disturbs you, I've done my job. Also, I love any excuse to play with latex."

As women's bodies and women's minds get ever more constricted and constrained by the head-to-toe veil of corporate Kultur in its ever-expanding war on the female gender, spreading alternative images is more than just culture jamming. Everywhere, women must be skinny but full-breasted sexy but clean and fresh-smelling flirty but any carnal intent must be disavowed and covered up under powder and push-up bras and perfume. No stain, no scent, no bulge of the real body can be allowed. Only the illusion of the ideal of womanhood.

And what does Cthulhu Barbie have to say to this sterilized and sanitized version of womanhood? What does representing images of women as scary and ugly have to do with gender equality? Well, the ties that bind women to the beauty myth need to be cut. Ugly, scary representations of the feminine are part of the rupture.

Representing scary images of women can help make women scary. Powerful. In a way that isn't sexualized like the femme fatale. In a way that doesn't titillate and tease the male gaze. But rather terrifies it. Like the Furies. Like Medusa and the Gorgons. Like all the female spirits of vengeance and death and destruction that kept the male gaze in check, if only in a small way. We can bring them back. We can recreate them.

So go out and deconstruct Barbie and spread a little black magic, my pretties