It's officially been one glorious month of bright pink bliss since the cultural phenomenon Barbie made its way into movie theaters and our hearts...and the world will never be the same. 💅
Barbie feels like an adult woman version of a baby sensory video. There are so many aesthetically pleasing images swirling about that it's easy to miss subtle details on display right before your very eyes. It's one of those movies that you immediately know you'll have to see again to fully take everything in.
I noticed many more details in the second viewing that went right over my head the first time. Specifically, that there were wayyy more horses on screen than I originally counted. There are even horses snuck into the pattern that's lining Ken's fur coat:
So, to see if everyone else had a similar experience, I asked the BuzzFeed Community to share the Barbie detail they missed in the first viewing, but caught the second time around — and they definitely delivered! There are even some details that I must have missed on my second screening, too! Here are some of the most interesting responses:
1. "When we first meet Barbie and she goes to get her breakfast, the Barbies in the houses behind her are all moving in sync with Stereotypical Barbie. All of their waffles pop at the same time, all of the whipped cream lands at the same time, and they all sit at their tables in unison. I definitely missed it on my first watch!"
2. "In the beginning, when the Barbies are accepting their Nobel prizes, they respond very honestly like, “Thank you! I deserve this,” but then in the end, when they’re brainwashed, they talk about how grateful they are to the Kens. It shows how in a world without patriarchy, the Barbies can own their intelligence and hard work without having to downplay it for men."
3. "Weird Barbie has a key ring with a bunch of barbie legs dangling from it!"
4. "When she first visits Weird Barbie, Barbie is in her navy blue dress with blue heels. When she takes off her heel to show Weird Barbie her flat feet, there's a blink-and-you-miss-it close-up of the shoe, and the shoe buckle is actually a little snap button, exactly like the ones on actual Barbie clothes."
—Anonymous
5. "The girls at the lunch table that Barbie approaches in the real world are a reference to the Bratz dolls."
6. "After her first meeting with Sasha leaves her crying on the bench outside of the school, Barbie can’t believe she was called a fascist because she 'doesn’t control the railroads nor the means of production,' which is such a silly and spot-on 1950s mental image of a Mussolini-type fascist."
7. "When Barbie and Ken get arrested, Barbie's sign in her mugshot says, "Barbie," but Ken's says "and Ken."
8. "On the swinging doors to the mojo dojo casa house, one of the Kens spelt 'saloon' wrong and corrected 'salon' with a black sharpie by adding an extra 'O' with a line pointing to the word."
9. "The first time I saw Barbie, when the Kens took over Barbie Land, it reminded me of frats in college and that stereotype of a man. As a woman, I was feeling so sad and angry for the Barbies during those scenes. When I watched it the second time, I noticed that those scenes were also a portrayal of toxic masculinity and the messages that boys and men get all the time. I realized this the second time because I was with my husband; he was noticing so much more of the male-gender stereotypes/messages than I was."
10. "Sasha and Barbie shift places stylistically and metaphorically in a way throughout the movie arc. Sasha starts out as a typical teen girl with straight-ish hair and casual dark clothes. As her character progresses during her time in Barbie Land, her hair gets gradually curlier and curlier like it’s more 'done,' while her clothes glam up. She’s wearing a full-out glitzy dress and jewelry in the last scenes."
—Anonymous
11. "Barbie’s character follows the opposite arc of Sasha's. She's progressively dressing more casual and 'real' while her hair also transitions to less 'done.' In the final scene, Barbie is even wearing neutrals and a tan blazer. I honestly didn’t notice this trade-off between the two characters the first time through."
"It was an expertly executed metaphor for the two of them accessing the opposite spectrum of what it means to be female. I thought it was really affirming of the fact that there’s validity to all different expressions of femininity, and characters were able to learn about different aspects of themselves from one another."
—Anonymous
12. "In the last scene, Barbie is wearing pink Birkenstocks which represents her finding a way to balance her idealism and positivity with the more gritty nature of the real world."
