Hot Girl Summer is Every Summer if You’re Barbie
Dive into Barbie's world this summer as she takes to the screen. After 60 years of play, destruction, and purchase, it's high time we learned what lies beneath her pink facade.
This summer is Barbie’s summer. It’s the summer when we finally get to know what Barbie cares about by watching her on screen. Kistchy plot and half the world’s supply of pink paint will tell us, finally, what makes her happy, what breaks her magic, and what keeps her up at night. Seems long overdue, given that children have been playing with, sleeping next to, destroying, and buying Barbie for over 60 years.
Barbie came into the world as a fully formed woman but an icon-in-the-making on March 9, 1959. She was ahead of her time, with full breasts (unheard of for a child’s toy at the time), 90’s pencil thin brows, and an iconic side eye whose legality is still questionable. She was invented by a mother who wanted her child to play with an adult doll. One that represented her highest aspirations, rather than a baby doll made to roleplay motherhood.
This seems noble, but it seems to have set up Barbie for an existential crisis. For Barbie to represent a dream, didn’t she have to know her own?
Since 1959, Barbie has gone through hundreds of iterations as she tries to find herself, define her dreams, and show children what they can be. The problem was, Barbie was created for commercial success. She had to be sellable to the masses, not break glass ceilings on their faces. Some ideal aspirations for earlier Barbies included: trophy first lady of the United States (see Red Flare Barbie inspired by Jackie O.), lounging and gossiping (see Malibu Barbie, who debuted in 1971), and making her hair a personality (see Totally Hair Barbie).
The upcoming Barbie movie is the first time Barbie seems to have truly thought about what she wants. Breaking the mold, going on a quest, and asking the scariest questions her plastic brain can think of. We love it for her! Barbie the Movie ushers her into a new era that pushes past heteropatriarchal expectations and queers up the fun she is allowed to have. Not only for her, but also for Ken, who came onto the scene in 1961, for Christie, her BFF who debuted in 1968, her little sister Kelly, who debuted in 1995, and all the BFFs and Barbie avatars of past, present, and yet to be imagined.
And of course, as much as Barbie has girl-bossed throughout the years, we have to acknowledge that Barbie has also gone to the edges of girl-flops. For the sake of nostalgia, here are some of Barbie’s most unhinged moments:
2002 - The year Barbie’s less hot but more relatable BFF, Midge, took center stage.
Midge debuted in 1963 and had a husband, Alan. She already had a three year old son when the pregnant version of the Midge doll was released. This doll had a detachable belly containing a little baby inside, which Mattel claimed could be a teaching tool for families (never mind the anatomical inconsistencies). Some parents and toy store executives were incited, claiming that this married, consenting adult doll was promoting teenage pregnancy. Midge and her husband Alan were retired, but are back for the tell-all in Barbie the Movie.
2011 - The year Barbie finally wished Ken a Happy Birthday but made it all about herself.
This doll was released for Ken’s 50th birthday, this Barbie comes holding a teensy-weensy present (probably as small as the fucks she gives about him) and a gigantic ball gown. Kudos to her for stealing the show. Interesting take by Mattel though, who chose to make Ken’s birthday a battle: toxic positivity vs. toxic masculinity.
2008 - The year Barbie got pooped on.
Mattel released the Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Birds Barbie, depicting Barbie being pecked to death by crows. I understand the drive to goth Barbie up. Horror movies can be hot for sure (hello Jennifer’s Body and Possession). But this one did Barbie dirty, and not in the filthy, sensual way of horror movies. Next time, we’d love to see a final girl Barbie, please!
And as much research as we did, we have yet to see these canon moments for Barbie:
2003 - The year Barbie caught Ken making out with Ken in the locker rooms and she listened to Toxic by Britney Spears on a loop until graduation
2005 - The year Barbie was gifted a vibrator and she coincidentally also stopped missing Ken
2012 - The year Ken married Ken, with Barbie officiating the wedding
2015 - the year Barbie used an empty 2002 Midge as a surrogate to have a baby as a single mother
2018 - the year Barbie got her appendix removed at Claire’s while her baby got its ears pierced
2021 - the year Barbie hosted the first ever Barbie Convention and met every version of herself. She also took shrooms, believed she was in a simulation, and later had a panic attack against the wall of a porta potti
2023 - The year Barbie decided to use her shrooms experience to make a Barbie movie
Swati Sudarsan
Swati Sudarsan was the runner-up of the 2022 So to Speak Contest Issue and is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and she has received support from Tin House, the Kenyon Review, Kweli Journal, and Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Her work can be found in McSweeney's, Catapult, Denver Quarterly and more. She edits at Moot Point Magazine and lives in Oakland, CA, where she works as a public health scientist.