Let’s Explore! 10 Things About Barbie You Didn’t Know

By Rahul Rajput On Jul 25, 2023

Here she is! The new ruler of the movies. All this time, we thought Tom Cruise was saving movies, but it may have been the women that every little girl had in her toy box at some point.

Barbie is not only one of the best new movies of 2023 but also one of the best feel-good movies of all time, in our view. As we said in our review of Barbie, we also think it’s one of the best movies we’ve seen in a while (sorry, Oppenheimer), and it has definitely made many people fall in love with movies again.

And while the Barbie group does a great job of letting us in on some Barbie secrets and pointing out some in-world meta-Barbie lore, we wanted more. We love the doll and the movie, and we know you do, too. That’s why we worked hard to bring you some information about the doll and the movie that you probably haven’t heard before.

1. Barbie and Ken: Don’t Tell Anyone Else

Most Barbie fans and people who have seen the movie already know that Ruth Handler’s daughter inspired the name Barbie. Handler, who made the first Barbie doll, tells Margot Robbie’s Barbie that the original Barbie was her own kid.

But did you know that Ken also comes from a nearby place? Handler’s daughter Barbara was the one who came up with the name Barbie, but her son Kenneth was also important because he came up with the name for everyone’s favorite blonde friend.

2. The First Job Barbie Had Was as a Beauty Model

Mattel says that Barbie has had more than 200 jobs in her life. She has been a leader, won a few times in the medical field, and has even been a well-known sports figure.

But her first job was more in line with the rest of the Barbie story: she was a beauty model. Yes, in 1959, the year she was created, Barbie worked as a teen fashion model. We can only guess that she quit because she was bored and wanted to work in the STEM area instead.

3. The Real Barbie Doesn’t Like… Well, Barbie

Going back to the original Barbie (also known as Barbara Handler Segal), it became clear over time that the person who inspired the doll, Barbara Handler Segal, never really cared much about the things that would come to define her life. In later years, she would try to say that she was nothing like the popular doll Barbie.

“It sounds silly, I know,” Barbara Handler said [via The Los Angeles Times]. “But I don’t really know much about Barbie dolls at all.”

4. Barbie Says That Blondes Have More Fun Than Brunettes

The fact that Margot Robbie was chosen to play “Stereotypical Barbie” shows that most people think of Barbie as a classic blonde. But when Barbie came out for the first time in 1959, she had both blonde and brown hair. Good news for brown-haired girls! Or at least it was until they found out that Barbie sold a lot more as a blonde.

From then on, Barbie was always a blonde. Only some versions of the figure had brown hair, and red-haired Barbies didn’t come out until the early 1960s.

5. Ken is Barbie’s Junior

Even though Barbie and Ken were a couple in the official Barbie story, Ken came out two years after Barbie, making him two years younger than Barbie.

If we look at the way the Barbie movie is coming together, this kind of makes sense. After all, in the movie Ken is a lot younger and less sure of himself than Barbie, so maybe that’s just because they’re different ages.

6. Thank you, Madam President

Barbie’s job has taken her into politics more than once. In fact, Barbie has run for president no less than six times in her career. This just means that she had six different versions of “President Barbie” in the world of dolls.

This would come full circle in the movie Barbie, where Issa Rae plays President Barbie, one of the main characters. In fact, President Barbie is such an important part of Barbie’s history that she was in a skit on Saturday Night Live long before the Barbie movie came out.

7. Barbie Won the Space Race

Well, no, not really. But the ‘Astronaut Barbie’ model, which came out in 1965, turned Barbie into a moonwalker. Man didn’t walk on the moon, though, until July 21, 1969. This means that Barbie was in space long before the great Space Race was over. Guys, I’m sorry.

8. ‘I’m Just Ken’ Wasn’t Meant for Gosling to Sing It

Even though Ryan Gosling singing an ’80s-style power ballad to start the War of Kens is one of the best musical parts of the Barbie movie, it wasn’t meant to be that way. When music producer Mark Ronson made the song, he was pretty sure that Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach wouldn’t even like it.

But they liked it, and even more important, Ryan Gosling did too. In fact, Gosling liked the song so much that he asked to sing it himself. As they say, the rest is history.

9. The Style of the Barbie Movie Comes From a Certain Time in Barbie’s History

Since we’ve seen the Barbie movie ad and marketing everywhere, it might seem like we’ve seen it before. But the logo used for the movie has a style that comes from a long time ago. In fact, the Barbie font and image came from the time when the doll was made, from 1975 to 1991. The style has been updated and changed many times over the years, but we’re glad we got the one we did.

10. “Hey, We’re Playin’ With Dolls, Here!”

In the Barbie movie, there are a lot of nods to other movies. Greta Gerwig isn’t afraid to talk about who she looks up to, either. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that some of the “real world” scenes in the new movie were based on scenes from the old movie Midnight Cowboy.

In particular, the scene in which Barbie and Ken wear cowboy clothes and walk around Los Angeles is based on scenes from the 1969 movie in which Jon Voight did the same thing.

Conclusion

Barbie, the new ruler of the movies, is one of the best new movies of 2023 and one of the best feel-good movies of all time. The movie has had over 200 jobs in her life, including a beauty model and a well-known sports figure.

Barbie’s first job was as a beauty model in 1959, but she quit due to boredom. The real Barbie doesn’t like Barbie, and she never really cared about the things that would come to define her life.

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