March 9 is National Barbie Day. This marks the sixty-second anniversary of America’s favorite fashion doll, a staple of many of our childhoods. She’s more than a toy, she’s an institution, and we’d be here all day if I were here to break down the doll’s complicated place in pop culture — tool of the patriarchy, feminist icon, exploitative impersonal corporation, dear imaginary friend, and everything in between.
In 2001, Mattel launched one of the most brilliant marketing tactics in their corporate history: a series of direct-to-video (now direct-to-Netflix) movies starring Barbie in the lead role, that tied into regular toy lines to promote. Here’s a small sample of just how massive this machine was and continues to be.
Over the course of pandemic, I turned to nostalgia’s rosy glow as a distraction from the ugly adult world, and I revisited several of these movies, along with a few I missed. Over the course of 38 films, I watched animation drastically improve, voice actors come and go, budgets grow and shrink. Each movie is a fascinating time capsule of kids’ entertainment over twenty years, and it’s super interesting to see what changes over time.
Here’s one of the few constants: these movies are gaaaaaaaay.
Now, that’s not too surprising. Barbie has always had some LGBTQ subtext – consider Earring Magic Ken, or his buddy Allan, or the Tweetstorm earlier this year when the Aimee Song photo shoot was rediscovered. But if you want the good gay stuff, look no further than Barbie’s direct-to-DVD empire — stories of “gal pals”, queer-coded villains, wacky sidekicks, and cautionary tales about the evils of compulsory heterosexuality. Let’s dig in:
10. Barbie as the Island Princess (2007)
Our “Barbie” for the evening is Ro, a castaway who’s been living on a desert island since she was six. And, Timon-and-Pumbaa style, she was raised by two anthropomorphic animal dads: the stoic red panda Sagi and flamboyant peacock Azul. (There’s also her elephant baby sister Tika, but we don’t talk about Tika.) Azul and Sagi are introduced to the audience having been knocked out of their tree-bed by the storm that brought Ro to their island, and Sagi persuades his husband to take her in. And contrary to what the homophobes want you to believe, red pandas and peacocks can raise children, and they’ll turn out great.
Once we leave the island and get to the human world, everything sadly straightens up. The plot becomes overtaken by Ro’s relationship with the dull-as-a-sandwich “Ken” of the movie, Prince Antonio, and all the palace intrigue about his upcoming arranged marriage. At least his fiancee, Princess Luciana, is a good sport about the whole thing, and happily breaks things off so she can do something better with her time than being in this movie.
9. Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001)
The one that started it all, movie took the classic Tchaicovsky ballet and decided to add two “sassy gay sidekick” characters into the mix. Barbie is cast as Clara, a human girl who teams up with a prince-turned-nutcracker to take back his kingdom from the sinister Mouse King. Along for the ride are Major Mint and Captain Candy, two resistance leaders who bicker like an old married couple. Also, before he was a nutcracker, the prince and the captain were apparently close friends, and many of Mint and Candy’s arguments revolve around Candy defending the vanished prince’s reputation, like Mint is envious of his boyfriend’s ex. It all concludes with the two of them dancing to the Russian number from the ballet, and it’s glorious.
8. Barbie: Fairytopia (2005)
A sub-franchise that literally begins with journeying through a rainbow, there’s a lot to like in the Fairytopia trilogy. Our villain is the wicked fairy Laverna, who has queer coding to spare. The voice, the Fungus sidekicks, the obsession with jewelry, even her big “villainous motivation” speech, where she condemns fairy society for excluding her just because she’s “different”. Then there’s her big “join me on the dark side” song from Fairytopia Live!, where she literally offers to make Elina her consort. They’re not even trying to be subtle!
7. Barbie: Mariposa and the Fairy Princess (2013)
Now we’re moving into the movies that weren’t part of my Barbie-laden childhood. It’s almost definitely nostalgia talking, but it feels weaker by comparison to the ones I knew, loved, and pestered my parents about re: merchandise. But where it lacks — originality, story cohesion, a pointless love interest with an Italian pizza chef accent, and (*beleaguered sigh*) a mangled xenophobia metaphor — it makes up for with charming moments between the two title characters, Mariposa and Catania. There’s their meet cute when Mariposa flies in, them geeking out over their favorite books, their heart-to-heart on a hidden cove, Mariposa teaching Catania how to dance at the fairy ball, Catania facing her fears and flying again to save Mariposa’s life, the toy line-requisite design upgrade that gives Mariposa lesbian flag-colored wings!! This movie is a mess, but it’s a beautifully gay mess.
6. Barbie: Fairytopia: Mermaidia (2006)
Fairytopia’s gay ball keeps on rolling into the sequel, Mermaidia, where Elina teams up with a sassy mermaid gal pal on a quest to save the prince of the ocean. She and Nori do the rivals-to-lovers thing over the course of their quest, as their bickering gives way to playful banter and later, one of the most touching scenes in Barbie history. And it’s also a loose trans narrative, believe it or not.
Hear me out: all Elina has ever wanted was a pair of wings, and her happy ending at the end of the last film was when the Enchantress bestowed them upon her. But in this movie, much of the drama comes from circumstances forcing Elina to give up her beloved wings in exchange for a mermaid tail, adjusting her body and self-presentation to serve needs deemed greater than her own. And in the “darkest hour” moment, it seems as though Elina’s going to be stuck in mermaid form forever. But then Nori produces the movie’s magical object du jour: a berry that, when ingested, aligns your body with your true inner self. Elina is concerned about this, fearing that her “true self” won’t be what she wants, and Nori replies with one of the most moving lines in Barbie movie history: “You’d be you, smart and brave and everything that makes you special.” With Nori’s encouragement, Elina puts her faith in her true self and returns to the skies.
Sadly, Fairytopia lost some of its gay points with the third and final film in the trilogy, Magic of the Rainbow. Elina’s pet puffball Bibble gets an utterly needless hetero romance with Dizzle, who’s just himself but painted purple, and Elina herself gets a needless love interest with Linden. But she does get an upgraded fairy form for the toy line, and this one looks like the pride flag, so it has that going for it.
5. Barbie: Dolphin Magic (2017)
One of Barbie’s most recent outputs, this one follows Barbie and her family on vacation where they meet Isla, a mermaid on a mission to rescue a magic dolphin from an evil butch lesbian marine biologist. Barbie and Isla are absolutely adorable as they show each other around and teach them about their respective worlds. Barbie invites Isla to spend the night and gives her her clothes, Isla gives Barbie a magic shell that links them together with a wave of bi flag-colored light, and so on. Bonus: there is a Ken in the picture, but he and Barbie are specifically and happily platonic friends. How often do you get that with the male and female leads in kid’s movies?
But the highlight of the piece has to be when Isla gives Barbie a swimming lesson, which absolutely earns its place on all those think pieces about water as symbolism for lesbian desire — held gazes, holding hands, and intimate underwater gymnastics, all set to one of the corniest pop songs in Barbie discography that’s got “Let it Go” levels of coming-out subtext: “Living now, loving this day / We won’t regret the chances we take / The sun is out, we don’t have a care / We’re feeling so good like we’re walking on air! / Say it loud, say proud / Living in the moment!”
Unfortunately, there’s also another piece of queer subtext, which isn’t as fun: our villain is Dr. Marlo, a jumble of every butch lesbian stereotype in the book: the classic short haircut with garish red dye, the confrontational and gruff attitude, the hatred of dogs, children, and anything else she can’t monetize, etc. For all the queer subtext these movies offered, we can’t forget that this is still one of the pinkest and most hyper-feminine toy brands on the planet, and sadly, this is probably the closest we’re going to get to a butch Barbie. Well, at least there’s always Clawdeen from Monster High…
4. Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper (2004)
Sing it with me now: “I am a girl like you!!” This take on the Mark Twain story, which is also Barbie’s first proper musical, follows the wealthy but lonely and repressed Princess Anneliese and the dirt-poor but determined and ambitious pauper Erika. When the two lookalikes unexpectedly meet, they have the big “love-at-first-sight” style duet where they bond over the social expectations and pressures they face, and their dreams to escape to “somewhere that’s ours”, “without the strife of an unfamiliar groom”.
Sure, they eventually wind up in two separate heterosexual marriages (and even I have to admit, Julian and Dominick are decent Kens and they make good partners for the two Barbies). But the movie can’t end without admitting that the bond between Anneliese and Erika will be the most important relationship of their entire lives, as their voice actresses sing the big love ballad that closes the film: “You and I will always be / Celebrating life together! / I have found a friend forevermore!”
Finally, I can’t leave the Princess and the Pauper section without acknowledging that Erika’s signature dress is the blue, pink, and white of the trans flag. And to all the trans women who read and contribute to HerCampus who’ve stumbled across this piece, I am proud to be a girl like you.
3. Barbie in a Christmas Carol (2008)
Barbie’s take on the Charles Dickens classic is certainly not the best kid’s movie adaptation (sorry, Barb, you can’t compete with Muppets), but it is one of the most sapphic. Since it’s Barbie and Mattel, it can’t exactly make a thorough critique of consumerism and wealth inequality, so the stakes become much more intimate, as we zoom in on the relationship between our “Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit” characters, Eden Starling and Catherine Beadnell.
Eden and Catherine are childhood friends, and Catherine was the lone bright spot for Eden under the thumb of her miserable stage mom, the Jacob Marley analogue of Aunt Marie. Years later, it seems as though Aunt Marie has won out in the battle for Eden’s soul, as she’s the self-proclaimed greatest opera songstress in Queen Victoria’s London who’s vicious and controlling with her employees. Seriously, she reacts to Catherine having other plans on Christmas like a jealous lover demanding to know where she’s spending her time.
When the Ghost of Christmas Present pays Eden a visit, we see a chat between Catherine and her older sister Nell, and Catherine’s heartbreaking faith that there’s still some love left in the diva’s heart. And while Christmas Yet to Come is much less intense than the original, Eden still breaks down in tears when she sees what becomes of Catherine: she’s become just as cruel and money-obsessed as she was before the supernatural intervention, and she pleads to go back to reality to spare Catherine from this fate. And when she does, she pulls out all the stops for a Christmas Day date: a one-horse open sleigh ride back to Catherine’s parents’ place for Christmas dinner, and showing off a memento from their childhood days to remind herself of their bond and the spirit of the season.
But what truly puts this movie in the top three is the framing device: intentionally or not, Mattel made this one canon. We open in the present day, with Barbie herself telling the story to instill the spirit of good cheer into her little sister Kelly. Kelly has a counterpart in the story as “Tiny Tammy”, but Barbie herself is conspicuously absent. She and Eden look somewhat alike, but all blonde women look alike in these movies and they have two separate voice actresses. In one pivotal scene, Catherine confides that she wants to adopt Tiny Tammy to raise as her own. Then in the finale, Eden declares that the memento, a snowglobe music box, will remain in her family forever, being passed down to every generation. And where does it surface but in Barbie’s home, where she passes it on to Kelly at the story’s end.
Let’s review: a) The snowglobe indicates that Eden is Barbie and Kelly’s ancestor. b) Kelly is visibly, genetically related to Tiny Tammy. c) Catherine, not Eden, adopts Tiny Tammy. Mattel has set up a situation where two Victorian lesbians adopted a baby Kelly doll and founded the family that led to Barbie herself.
2. Barbie in the Pink Shoes (2013)
Easily my favorite of the Barbie movies that I did not grow up with, The Pink Shoes earns the silver medal. It’s got everything: an iconic Bar-bi, a love triangle that turns into a fun gay subplot, an awesome WLW relationship at the center, and it’s the first of the bunch where compulsory heterosexuality is not only acknowledged, but problematized.
The story follows Kristyn, a bright-eyed ballerina who, as you might guess, gets a pair of pink ballet shoes. Unbeknownst to her, the shoes are magic and teleport her and her costume designer gal pal Hailey into an alternate dimension where the stories of all the most famous ballets that Mattel could secure the music rights to play out. Kristyn finds herself cast as Giselle’s title character, then Odette from Swan Lake, and with Kristyn and Hailey’s chaotic queer influence, the stories veer wildly off course.
Opposing them is the sinister Snow Queen, the heartlessly cold enforcer of the ballet’s intended stories who keeps a tight leash on “imperfections” such as freedom of expression. As Hailey points out, following the stories as writ would mean disaster for Kristyn (recall that Giselle and Odette typically kill themselves because of tragic heterosexual romance in most stagings). In her time as Odette, Kristyn voices a small crush on the Prince, a charming himbo Ken called Siegfried (hooray for bi Barbie!), but he’s ultimately a means to an end to break the swan spell, and when the Snow Queen captures Hailey and forcibly remolds her into a “perfect ballerina”, Kristyn stops playing pretend and storms to castle to rescue the damsel in distress, personally telling the Snow Queen and her metaphor-homophobia to shove it.
And of course, this is the movie that comes the closest to giving us two gay Kens! As Kristyn and Hailey send Giselle of the rails, Albrecht and Hilarion, the two legs of the story’s central love triangle, embark on a quest to find “Giselle” and get her to pick one of them, but wind up doing the rivals-to-lovers thing along the way, singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” and generally being the most fun and interesting Kens this series has ever produced.
1. Barbie and the Diamond Castle (2008)
I dare you to think of a better visual metaphor than the following: two women riding a magical rainbow that takes them far away from the annoying heterosexual love interests. Yes, Alexa and Liana, the original cottagecore lesbians and the unquestioned champions of the “Barbies Who Made Me Gay” prize.
Alexa and Liana are two humble florists who live together in a cottage during fairytale times. They spend their days planting flowers and singing heartwarming duets about how much they mean to each other, including “Connected”, an English-language cover of this bop from the Mexican band RBD. Translated, the original lyrics of this song’s chorus are: “I want to have you, to love you / I want to be with you and love you nonstop / To have you, to love you / I do not ever want to live without your love!”
Anyway, their lives change forever when they receive a magic mirror and meet an imprisoned demigoddess inside. Melody calls for their help in taking her to the Diamond Castle before the wicked Muse Lydia finds it and seizes control over all music in the world, remaking the art form in her own twisted image. So our little lesbians head off into the world, adopting a couple of puppy sidekicks along the way. Oh, and it turns out the power of their love, symbolized by the heart-shaped necklaces they both put on when they made their vow to love each other “today, tomorrow, and always”, makes them immune to the mad goddess’s mind control. So she arranges a third-act breakup for the pair and Alexa falls under her spell when the necklace is gone, but Liana saves her and affirms their love by restoring it, a standard “power of love breaks the evil spell” fairy tale moment.
Admittedly, there are two Kens here to be their love interests, but they are the weakest link of the film and barely warrant a mention. All they do is make smarmy comments instead of adding anything meaningful to the story, and thirteen years later, I still can’t tell them apart.
Then for the grand finale, they sing a duet that finally reveals the Diamond Castle, defeats Lydia, and gives them the requisite sparkly princess dresses for the toy line — which happen to have the same color schemes as the bisexual and lesbian pride flags. And unlike most Barbie princesses, they decide to stay together, returning to their adorable cottagecore lifestyle instead of staying as princesses in a literal diamond castle, riding off into the sunset and leaving the useless Kens far behind.
And that’s the list. In short, Barbie said gay rights, and it’s time for Mattel to acknowledge that. I wish you all a very happy National Barbie Day.