Barbie/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Barbie:(To Nikki) Raquelle can't be that devious!
(Cut To Raquelle in the Confessional)
Raquelle: I am.

  • Canon Sue: Barbie's Canon Sue starts to be averted with the movies, while being played straight with the dolls, especially Teresa and Grace.
    • Chelsea is Barbie 2.0.
    • Finally acknowledged in Life in the Dreamhouse, from the characters description alone she qualifies as a Purity Sue and Mary Sue Classic.
  • Complete Monster: Gothel from Barbie as Rapunzel.
  • Copy Cat Sue: On top of being unrealistically perfect, Barbie jumps into whatever latest fad there is— there was even a Trollz Barbie! (Same perfect body and face, of course, only with Troll hair.) Her movies are also often taken from existing fairy tales but with Barbie as the star.
  • Ear Worm: She's the QUEEN OF THE WAAA-A-A-AVES!...
    • Fashion! Fashion! Fashionistas!
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Major Mint and Captain Candy from Barbie in the Nutcracker, the first Barbie movie.
  • Girls Need Role Models: The reason behind the ever-increasing of jobs Barbie has practiced.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Coincidentally enough, a certain Barbara Roberts took up politics and was governor of Oregon for a time. Barbie Roberts' political career (as President of the United States no less) wasn't so far-fetched after all.
  • Les Yay: Barbie and the Diamond Castle was practically built on this.
    • A Fairy Secret seems to be going in this direction with Barbie and Raquelle.
  • Mary Sue: The doll has been portrayed as a doctor, a princess, and god knows how many other professions. And she's meant to be the epitome of female beauty. And everyone loves her.
  • The Problem with Licensed Games: They are made for little girls, and almost none try to reach beyond that.
    • Especially the ones with interesting concepts, you'd think a Barbie designs stuff game would manage to be entertaining.
    • Barbie: Secret Agent for the Game Boy Advance among others was a rare aversion, as while it is by its core a Barbie game, pink motif and all that fru-fru, the reviewer at IGN found the game surprisingly competent "that neither insults their intelligence nor frustrates them with too much challenge."
  • Retroactive Recognition: Maureen McCormick, AKA Marcia Brady, appeared in a few Barbie commercials during the 1960s.
  • Relationship Sue: Ken, in the playline and the original movies. A Fashion Fairytale averts this.
    • So In Style's Darren is this one for Grace.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: Averted Trope with 'Barbie in a Fashion Fairytale', which begins with her getting fired and goes downhill from there (She gets better).
  • Unfortunate Implications:
    • The book I Can Be a Computer Engineer was seen as a laughably condescending insult to aspiring female computer programmers, as while Barbie was initially portrayed as being (ostensibly) competent in designing games and programming "cute puppy robots", the book goes downhill when it is revealed that she's merely doing the design ideas, with her friends Steven and Brian doing all the dirty work for her. And it didn't help that her computer got messed up royally with a malware infection, again soliciting Steven and Brian's services instead of fixing the computer on her own. One rant from author and voice actress Pamela Ribon later and backlash ensued, prompting Mattel to pull the book from circulation as it "doesn't reflect the Brand's vision for what Barbie stands for."[1][2] One female computer specialist took to crowdsourcing a more appropriate substitute by having the panels re-captioned to better reflect what the book should have depicted, though the scandal took a turn for the worse when the original book's author received hate mail and is afraid to open her inbox as a result of the controversy. So much for that "hacker" themed outfit that came with the doll when she was more of a ditzy script kiddie...
    • The Barbie Video Girl and Hello Barbie dolls solicited controversy upon release, as besides concerns over children's personal information being transmitted to third parties, the Video Girl doll was criticised by the FBI as a possible conduit for recording child pornography.
  • Values Dissonance: Among other things, Barbie's and Ken's first commercials each end with Barbie getting married.