That last bit of syntax is clunky ... the -> postfix operator for dereferencing and element access as well ...

And for even less clunky syntax, Perl understands that any array/hash/code/etc. reference below the topmost level can only be a reference, so it will use the  -> operator implicitly if you do not use it explicitly. It's only at the topmost level that you have to supply a  -> or not based on the nature of the variable you are accessing:  -> must be used with an array/hash/code reference: see Anonymonk's reply for an example of this.

c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -le
"use feature qw/say/;
 use Data::Dump;
 ;;
 my @array = (
   { 'Fred'   => 'Flintstone',
     'Barney' => 'Rubble',
     }
   );
 ;;
 say $array[0]{'Fred'};
 ;;
 $array[0]{'Marge'} = 'Simpson';
 say $array[0]{'Marge'};
 ;;
 dd \@array;
"
Flintstone
Simpson
[
  { Barney => "Rubble", Fred => "Flintstone", Marge => "Simpson" },
]
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See also perldsc (Perl Data Structures Cookbook).