Forever in the Barbie World

I wanted to talk about this for a long time and it’s going to be quite lengthy. I wasn’t sure when it was the right time to let it out about this but any time is good now.

Any girl like me from the 90s can remember having lots of Barbie dolls and I had lots. I was always hanging out with other girls, (mostly younger than me who had dolls that I begged my parents to get but never did) I always loved Barbie because of the variety of different dolls the franchise had. There was one side with the fairy tales I liked the most and the other side was all about fashion in general.

I never counted how many dolls I had when I was a kid, but one of my favourites was Christie. She was the only black Barbie doll I had but I loved her the most for her really long hair (before I got another doll with red hair that was even longer) and purple lipstick. I even used her in my project for 5th grade on mummification during ancient Egypt where I wrapped her up in linen and put in a cardboard sarcophagus!

I loved how Barbie was about embracing your identity and being whatever you wanted to be but a lot of this part of my life was met with criticism. Most girls I knew from elementary school, stopped playing with Barbies once they were out of kindergarten. I did not, my parents didn’t understand but still occasionally tolerated me having a few more dolls added to my collection every now and then. I still remember one Christmas I asked for all three dolls from the Swan Lake movie collection and didn’t get any of them. A year later I did get a different version of the Odette doll, but it didn’t have light-up wings.

I had several Barbie books and games. For the books, my favourite story was how Barbie was teaching a class and one of her students (who probably has dyslexia) wanted to participate in a reading contest because of the subject it centered on, and even though she didn’t win, she pushed herself to try her best anyway.

As for the video games, I either loved them or couldn’t finish them, I was always able to find enjoyment in the fairy tale ones and the ones where I could make figure-skating shows or stories (that one took me a while to learn and I ended up using it until the CD was too scratched). But I could never complete the Barbie Explorer PS1 game or the two Secret Agent games I had. One of them was on PC and the other was on GBA.

I also loved the Barbie films for their music, I had three of them: Nutcracker, Rapunzel, and Swan Lake. In fact, Barbie is responsible for my enjoyment of classical music and my very brief pursuit of learning ballet. I also genuinely thought dancing was the most romantic way of love between people partially thanks to Barbie. I guess I always just wanted to be a princess back then.

But like I said, it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows. The worst part was due to me still being attached to Barbie beyond the age of 5, I was relentlessly bullied by classmates and kids from other classes, even from kids who came over to swim in the pool at my house (one of them snatched my Ariel doll and took the flower out of her hair, mistaking it for a Barbie, I am genuinely surprised my parents or theirs did nothing about it).

Most of the bullying was verbal and started in 2nd grade. Some groups of kids called me “Barbie” or “Barbie girl” in a taunting tone, and some groups of kids whenever they saw me anywhere during recess, would say things to me like “Barbies are dead”, “Barbie suck”, or “I kill Barbies,”. Because of my ASD, I didn’t know how to react so I would often do so by either crying or yelling and charging after them, and they would always run away, if I caught any of those kids, I would grab and punch them continuously in the back and yell at them to stop making fun of something I loved that I chose to hold onto a little longer than most kids. As a result, I was the one who got in trouble and not them.

I mean that was a significant portion of the bullying I faced growing up, the rest of it was occasionally physical and taunting for general behaviour issues I had like how I cried and screamed easily.

Most of the girls in grades 1 – 5 did still play with dolls, but they were more into Bratz, MyScene or something else. I did have one Bratz doll, her name was Chloe and she had platinum blonde hair, red lipstick, and two sparkly outfits. I also had one MyScene doll named Chelsea with auburn hair and although I liked her as well, Barbie was still my favourite.

I feel like by the time 6th grade came along, I had to force myself to give up Barbie for good to get the bullying to stop, even though I had transferred schools that year, and perhaps to please my parents as well. I grew “tired” of the Barbie films having the same concept like only Barbie herself had the prettiest dress, could be the only one wearing pink, stuff like that, and then I finally gave away all of my dolls and still played with Polly Pocket, and some others for a few more years before high school hit.

Since then I briefly forgot about Barbie and felt like I scoffed at every commercial I saw of the dolls with say, a new movie that came out, but it wasn’t until one summer between grades 10 and 11 (I think) did I hit a rebound and realized that I still could love Barbie even if I had made myself outgrow playing with the dolls.

During that time, my dad gave me a summer job. The first one I spent at the school he worked at, cleaning out lockers and reassigning the new locks. Then the following task I had to prepare all these envelopes of paperwork for all the students in the school as a welcome back package. This could be done at home at my own pace. So I spent long mornings and afternoons preparing those packages for over one thousand students and during that time, for the hell of it, I rediscovered Barbie and began rewatching the films on my smartphone while I was doing all that paperwork in the dining room table, starting with the first three I had owned and relived the memories. I also watched The Princess and the Pauper which I watched at someone’s house once when I was in elementary school. Then I began watching the films beyond.

I really enjoyed a lot of them, the designs, the dresses, the stories. I liked Kelly Sheridan’s voice for the character Barbie was. I also liked how in the Fairytopia series, Kathleen Barr provided the voice for the evil fairy Laverna and I remember Kathleen as the voice of Gali from the first Bionicle film: Mask of Light.

I also loved about all the Barbie films I watched, was the music and the dancing like the ballet scene during The 12 Dancing Princesses. I hated the villain in that movie though and her pet monkey but the doll of Genevieve (why was she always so late for everything in the movie?) that I saw in the commercial was beautiful and comes really close to the one of Clara from The Nutcracker which the latter I also asked for for Christmas and didn’t get so I had to settle with the mini version of her and the prince I got from McDonald’s instead.

I also enjoyed the musicals aside from Princess and the Pauper I also liked The Island Princess the musical numbers in that one were good, and I liked how Princess Luciana meets another prince when she attends Rosella and Antonio’s wedding at the end. The baby elephant Tika was a bit annoying though, and not to mention possessive.

The Magic of Pegasus was also really good too, I liked Annika’s headstrong personality and she seemed more than capable of taking care of herself like when she gets out of a giant’s lair. I find it difficult to imagine all those characters riding on flying horses side-saddle though, it doesn’t look very secure! There’s also a quote from that movie that I like:

Take what you need, but not for greed.

I believe I watched all the films up to A Fashion Fairytale and stopped there which was probably because the stories became less interesting to me from there on.

Anyway, a lot of the Barbie movies I enjoyed, whether I saw them as a child, or watched ones later as a teenager. So it’s safe to say I never stopped loving Barbie even if I felt like I had to pretend to let it go so I wouldn’t be bullied further. Even if I no longer have my dolls, and watch the films in secret, Barbie still played a big role in my childhood.

So that’s why when the Barbie film for this year was announced, I decided in a heartbeat that I was going to see it. It may not be like the films I was watching while growing up but I am still looking forward to seeing it nonetheless.

I also came to realize over time that I was not the only one who still liked Barbie as an adult. There are social media tribute pages on Instagram that I found and many people collect the dolls as well. I bet some of those movie dolls are still out there but cost a fortune!

With that being said, my favourite Barbie films are chronological:

Nutcracker

Rapunzel

Swan Lake

Princess and the Pauper

Magic of Pegasus

The 12 Dancing Princesses

The Island Princess

The Diamond Castle

The Three Musketeers

and I suppose I could say I also enjoyed all three Fairytopia films as well!

It makes me wonder to this day if there are adults out there who still love Barbie then why the hell was I relentlessly bullied to death about it as a kid until I had no choice but to pretend to let it go so they would cease and desist? Was it because of how I reacted or the fact that I chose to hold onto things I loved longer and didn’t believe in leaving it behind as I got older? That is something I have always lived by. I mean it’s one thing to stop playing with toys in the bathtub and learn to wipe your bottom yourself but still my point stands.

I bet some of those kids eventually pretended to hate Barbie because it was no longer “in” once you left kindergarten, which is another thing that made no sense to me. Today, I see a lot of people I know who secretly liked Barbie are now being more open about it because of that upcoming movie.

So yeah, that’s my story as a long time Barbie fan that I’ve kept deeply hidden for a long time. When you get to know me, you mostly see my heavy metal and gaming side but how often do I show my girlie side other than makeup hauls and my love for pink in certain places like this blog?

I may not have my dolls any more and I don’t have a huge interest in trying to acquire even just one from any of the films because like I said, they won’t be cheap, but would I still watch any of the films if I wanted to? Absolutely, I don’t give a damn, and I can’t wait to see the new movie!

I will always love Barbie and even if I felt like the bullying broke that love briefly, I was eventually able to repair that love, move on, and find a way to keep Barbie in my life in a more subtle way that suited me. I’m sure this post is guaranteed to attract any of my followers who also loved Barbie growing up so feel free to share your stories in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.

👽Emily