Having not yet watched Barbie<\/em>, I can\u2019t speak to how successful they are in their aims, but there\u2019s one thing I can guarantee: no matter how satirical or socially conscious, the film\u2014which sees Margot Robbie’s blonde bombshell venture out from Barbie Land into the \u201creal world\u201d\u2014will undoubtedly give its hero a happy ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want a movie about Barbie dolls that is not only actually subversive, but truly transgressive, you won\u2019t find it at the multiplex. Instead, you\u2019ll have to take more illicit measures. Look no further than Todd Haynes\u2019s Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story <\/em>(1987).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shot on Super 8 over the course of 10 days while getting his MFA at Bard College, the 43-minute, mixed-media experimental film covers the final 17 years in the life of its namesake pop idol, vocalist for the immensely popular \u201870s soft-rock duo The Carpenters (alongside her brother Richard). The story mainly focuses on Carpenter\u2019s struggles with anorexia nervosa, which would ultimately lead to her death in 1983 of cardiac arrest (the result of her reliance on the expectorant drug syrup of ipecac) at the age of 33.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A period-set musical biopic is an ambitious undertaking for a studio production, let alone a student short, but Haynes\u2014along with co-writer\/producer Cynthia Schneider\u2014brilliantly stages the main action with (knock-off) Barbie dolls, while also including documentary interviews and archival footage. The end result falls somewhere between a work of puppetry and an essay film (while also serving as an effective parody of PSAs and sensationalist television newsmagazine programs). Yet, for as cerebral (and short) as it is, Superstar <\/em>carries the dramatic heft and emotive power of full-length features with double the run-time and a thousand times the budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s because Haynes’ use of dolls is more than just a clever workaround. Nor is it some cheap gimmick. Instead, it is a brilliant, and intentionally disturbing, metaphor for the sadly doomed Carpenter. Within the film, Karen\u2019s battles against her debilitating disease are shown to have been greatly exacerbated by the control exerted over her by her family\u2014her outwardly benevolent, but actually sinister parents and especially her domineering brother. The world outside of her cloistered suburban household is just as manipulative and controlling: the seemingly clean-cut, wholesome Carpenters were seen by many as an answer to the turbulent, revolutionary and decadent ethos of late \u201860s rock and roll, so much so that they once (happily) performed at the White House at the invitation of the Nixon administration. Haynes\u2019 film zeroes in on the ways in which the Carpenters served as political puppets for reactionary conservatism, even as it recognizes her undeniable talent as a musician and artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The use of dolls works beyond just this metaphor, putting in sharp relief the way Carpenter’s intentionally plastic image was commodified alongside her body. While Mattel and fellow toymakers have made efforts to diversify their products by releasing figurines of varying racial and ethnic identities, socioeconomic standings, and body type, the image of Barbie that will always come first to mind is of the impossibly happy, impossibly perfect all-American beauty. Blame for Carpenter\u2019s fatal struggles with her body and body image can\u2019t be laid on any one thing, let alone a toy\u2014and at no point does Superstar <\/em>make such a claim\u2014but it\u2019s all of a piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the use of dolls captures and conveys two of the key aspects that would go on to define Haynes\u2019s work: kitsch and dread. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the vanguards of the New Queer Cinema, Haynes very much followed in the footsteps of John Waters in his ability to, as Denis Lim wrote in his essay<\/a> for the Criterion release of Haynes\u2019s sophomore feature, Safe <\/em>(1995), \u201cUs[e] the vernacular of mass culture against itself\u2026\u201d Haynes\u2019s movies, including and perhaps especially Superstar<\/em>, \u201care queer not necessarily in content but certainly in form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In many ways Superstar <\/em>feels like a dry run for Safe<\/em>\u2014probably Haynes\u2019s greatest masterpiece, although it has stiff competition\u2014in which Julianne Moore\u2019s Barbie-like homemaker undergoes a drastic and terrifying physical and mental collapse when she\u2019s beset by \u201cenvironmental illness,\u201d an implacable (and possibly entirely psychosomatic) condition that, like Carpenter\u2019s anorexia, turns her body into a prison for which there may be no key. In Safe<\/em>, Moore\u2019s porcelain beauty journeys from a dreamhouse mansion in the San Fernando Valley suburbs to an igloo-like bunker not much larger than the closet in which Carpenter\u2019s body is discovered in the harrowing scenes that bookend Superstar<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Safe<\/em>, as well as Haynes\u2019s recent environmental legal thriller Dark Waters<\/em>, Superstar <\/em>plays like a full-on horror movie at times, with the syndrome at its center\u2014which is borne from a cruel off-hand remark about Carpenter\u2019s figure in a random showbiz news article\u2014bestowed with a numinous and at times seemingly sentient power. Haynes\u2019s films have always contained a strange force moving under and beyond the immediate frame; in these cases it tips towards a sense of cosmic horror that in Superstar <\/em>is exacerbated by the uncanny effect produced by its use of figurines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (More than just a student thesis film, Superstar <\/em>is one of the all-time great artistic thesis films. Per Lim, Haynes once boiled his postmodern spin on the Sirkian melodrama down to \u201cstories about women in houses.\u201d That starts with Superstar<\/em>, as does the other major motif that would run throughout his career: the unauthorized, speculative music biopic, which he would apply to the likes of David Bowie and Iggy Pop in 1998\u2019s Velvet Goldmine <\/em>and Bob Dylan in 2007\u2019s I\u2019m Not There<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Superstar <\/em>proved instantly notorious upon debut, playing at various festivals to great acclaim. However, it also attracted the negative attention that would ultimately lead to its suppression. According to producer Christie Vachon<\/a> (who receives a special thanks in the movie\u2019s credits), representatives from Mattel paid Haynes a visit after getting wind of the film. However, he managed to dodge any legal trouble from them by proving that the dolls he used\u2014all of which he bought at yard sales\u2014were not official Barbies, but cheap, off-brand imitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Haynes proved less successful in the fight brought to him by Richard Carpenter, who was infuriated by the film\u2019s portrayal of him as an insensitive bully and, it\u2019s heavily implied, a closeted homosexual. He successfully sued on copyright grounds\u2014Haynes didn\u2019t get permission to use any of the band\u2019s songs used in the film\u2019s soundtrack\u2014and managed to get Superstar <\/em>pulled from circulation\u2026or so he thought. A true blue example of a cult film, underground copies of Superstar <\/em>circulated on VHS for years, all while its reputation grew. Today, it\u2019s incredibly easy to find online, including on a certain video sharing platform that rhymes with Boob Toob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/superstar2-1024x576.png\")
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It\u2019s no mere coincidence that Carpenter\u2019s physical deterioration\u2014which Haynes achieved by whittling down the dolls used to represent her\u2014greatly resembles those that affected AIDS patients at the time in which the film was made. Superstar <\/em>can be read partly as an AIDS allegory. But it\u2019s not just <\/em>that.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n