Professional Documents
Culture Documents
173
Amina Yaqin
Islamic Barbie:
The Politics of
Gender and
Performativity
Abstract
This article explores the signicance of a new Muslim lifestyle doll
called Razanne who is being marketed over the internet as a role model
for Muslim girls living in the West. While the doll is presented as an
alternative to hedonistic Barbie, it bears a striking resemblance to her
and participates in the same consumer culture. In contrast to Barbie,
Razannes sexuality is downplayed and she has a headscarf (hijab) and
full-length coat (jilbab) for outdoor use, which are designed to encourage
modesty and emphasize her Muslim identity whilst at the same time
allowing space for following the latest fashions for indoor wear. The
174
Amina Yaqin
175
Figure 1
The two masks of the Muslim
Razanne doll: inside the house
and outside.
Iranian twin duo of Dara and Sara to the Syrian doll, Fulla. Dara and
Sara were introduced to the Iranian market in 2002 as an attempt to
curtail the popularity of Barbie and Ken. Developed and marketed by
the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young
Adults in consultation with the Ministry of Education, the dolls are
supposed to represent eight-year-old siblings. They wear modest clothes
representing traditional values and Sara has a white scarf covering her
hair. According to an Iranian toy seller, Masoumeh Rahimi, the dolls
are an important addition to the market as they are representative of
Iranian values and a much-needed intervention against the wanton
Barbie whom she believes to be more harmful than an American
missile.2 The Syrian doll, Fulla, on the other hand has a similar body
type to Barbie and an equally expansive wardrobe. The most noticeable
differences between Barbie and Fulla lie in their clothing, lifestyles,
and hair color. The dark-haired Fulla wears a full-length black abaya
(thin all-enveloping cloak) that covers her from head to toe when she
is outdoors, has a wide selection of headscarves and, most signicantly,
does not have a boyfriend. For the manager of a toy outlet in Damascus,
Mohammed Sabbagh, Fulla is one of us. Shes my sister, shes my
mother, shes my wife. Shes all the traditional things of Syria and the
Middle East.3
In Great Britain there has been a certain amount of interest in the
transnational Razanne and Fulla dolls since their arrival in the market.
They have been reported in both the national broadsheets and the
tabloid press. Ranging from The Guardians Islamic Barbie to The
176
Amina Yaqin
Daily Stars Burkha Barbie, both Razanne and Fulla feed into the
public imagination of Muslim stereotypes reconrming the popular
perception that Muslim values cannot be integrated with the demands
of modernity.
The matter of Muslim womens dress itself has been a topic of public
controversy in England, particularly since 2002 when a thirteen-yearold British Muslim girl, Shabina Begum, was suspended from school
for continuing to wear a jilbab and ignoring the school uniform code.
Shabina Begum stopped going to school and initiated legal proceedings
in court, supported by her guardian and brother and advised by the
Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.4 According to Emma Tarlo, this radical
Islamist group used the hijab/jilbab controversy as a means of advocating
rejection and resistance to the West from within the West. Hizb
ut-Tahrir is an extreme example of an Islamist activist group that has
operated in Britain since 1986. They are not in any way linked to
the production of consumable Muslim dolls. But what they share in
common with the creators of these transnational subjects is the fact that
they are contributing to the production of a xed visual stereotype of
the Muslim women (Tarlo 2005: 3) and trying to make that stereotype
a reality.
177
178
Amina Yaqin
Figure 2
Razanne: the transnational
product. Image courtesy of
Noor and Ammar Saadeh,
Noorart Inc. USA.
179
180
Amina Yaqin
181
182
Amina Yaqin
Figure 3
Muslim Scout Razanne. Im
honest, kind and trustworthy....
Muslim Scouts organizations
all over the world help build
character and skills for success
in this life and the next. Image
courtesy of Noor and Ammar
Saadeh, Noorart Inc. USA.
183
184
Figure 4
Razanne dresses up for the
festival of Eid. Image courtesy
of Noor and Ammar Saadeh,
Noorart Inc. USA.
Amina Yaqin
185
186
Amina Yaqin
Notes
1. Andrew Stern, US Muslims seek alternatives to American Products,
http://www.noorart.com/Convention France.
2. html http: //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1856558.stm, accessed
April 3 2006.
3. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20051027,
accessed October 31 2005.
4. Shabina Begum lost her case against the school in 2004. This decision was temporarily reversed in 2005 when she won her case in
the Court of Appeal. The school then took the case to the House of
Lords where the judgment went against Ms. Begum. For an engaged
analysis of the sartorial agenda of Hizb ut-Tahrir and its connection
to the Shabina Begum case, see Tarlo (2005).
5. Discussion on the stereotype and representation in this article is
drawn from a larger argument, which is part of a joint monograph
with Peter Morey (in preparation).
6. For a demonstration of how Islamist activists rework popular Western
stereotypes of Muslims into Muslim stereotypes of the Westerners,
see Tarlo (2005).
7. Barbara Brotman, The Workplace: Under Fire, January 9 2002,
Chicago Tribune. http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news/hits/
020109ct.htm, accessed February 5 2005.
8. I have devised the term Afro-chic borrowing from Saadia Toors
article where she identies Indo-chic as a highly desirable consumable
cultural commodity amongst diasporic Indians.
187
References
Asad, Talal. 1999. Religion, Nation-state, Secularism. In Peter van
der Veer and H. Lehmann (eds) Nation and Religion: Perspectives on
Europe and Asia, pp. 17895. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Other Question: Stereotype, Discrimination
and the Discourse of Colonialism. In The Location of Culture, pp.
6684. London and New York: Routledge.
Bunt, Gary. 2005. Dening Islamic Interconnectivity. In Miriam
Cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence (eds) Muslim Networks: from Hajj
to Hip Hop. Chapel Hill, NC and London: University of North
Carolina Press.
Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender Trouble. London and New York:
Routledge.
Cooke, Miriam and Bruce B. Lawrence. 2005. Muslim Networks from
Hajj to Hip Hop. Chapel Hill, NC and London: University of North
Carolina Press.
de Certeau, Michel. 1997[1974]. Culture in the Plural. Luce Giard (ed.)
Trans. Tom Conley, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of
Minnesota Press.
Ducille, Ann. 1994. Dyes and Dolls: Multicultural Barbie and the
Merchandising of Difference. Differences 6(1): 4768.
Grewal, Inderpal. 1999. Traveling Barbie: Indian Transnationality and
New Consumer Subjects. Positions 7(3): 799826.
Hegde, Radha S. 2001. Global Makeovers and Maneuvers: Barbies
Presence in India. Feminist Media Studies 1(1): 12933.
Howell, Sally. 2000. Cultural Interventions: Arab American Aesthetics
between the Transnational and the Ethnic. Diaspora 9(1): 5982.
Kabbani, Rana. 1986. Europes Myths of the Orient: Devise and Rule.
London: Macmillan.
188
Amina Yaqin