Barbie (film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Trivia about Barbie (film) includes:

  • Approval of God: The real Barbie herself, Barbara Handler, gave her kudos to Margot Robbie's portrayal of the character she shares her name with.
  • Banned in Vietnam:
    • Due to a map in the movie that allegedly includes China's controversial nine-dash line, which was repudiated in an international arbitration ruling by a court in The Hague in 2016, a ruling which China does not recognize. The map shown in the film was taken out of context however, as it does not resemble the real world at all but rather a child's crude representation of it. To be fair, the dashed lines in question were strewed all over the map and not just in "Asia".
    • Philippine authorities sought to have the film banned for the same reason as Vietnam, but the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) ruled to have the film cleared for exhibition once they realised that it wasn't representing any disputed territory at all. They did however request that the dashed lines drawn beside "Asia" be blurred to avert any further misinterpretation.
    • The film was reportedly banned in Kuwait due to the inclusion of LGBTQ+ actors in the cast, namely Kate McKinnon (who is lesbian), Scott Evans (who is openly gay) and Hari Nef (who is transgender); it may have also accounted for why the film's release was delayed in other Arab countries. Lebanese authorities also initially denounced the film and spuriously accused it of promoting homosexuality; they considered banning the film but eventually relented when the country's Censorship Bureau found nothing objectionable in it, thereby clearing it for release on August 31.
  • Media Research Failure: Several sources, including The Daily Mail, erroneously identify the old lady in the bench as Barbie namesake and Ruth Handler's daughter Barbara Handler; the old lady in question is actually costume designer Ann Roth.
  • Promoted Fanboy: Nicki Minaj, who is a self-confessed Barbie enthusiast, gets to record "Barbie World" with Ice Spice which was used in the closing credits. Minaj previously had a Barbie doll made in her likeness.
  • Real Life Relative: America Ferrera's real-life husband Ryan Piers Williams portrays her character's on-screen husband in the film.
  • She Also Did: Molly Lewis, the whistler who contributed to the song "Meeting Ruth" from the film's soundtrack, is also perhaps better known for her whistling part in the now-infamous country-EDM song "Big Enough".
  • Shout-Out:
    • A Mortal Kombat cabinet is seen besides one of the houses. Warner Bros. currently owns the rights to the franchise.
    • Allan claims that the members of *NSYNC were Allan dolls who escaped Barbieland and became human.
    • The scene where Barbie stumbles upon Ruth Handler's kitchen is reminiscent of when Neo meets the Oracle in The Matrix Reloaded.
    • Similarly, the scene where Weird Barbie gives Stereotypical Barbie a choice between staying in Barbieland or venturing to the real world to seek the truth is based on the Red Pill, Blue Pill scene from The Matrix, except she isn't actually given a choice at all.
    • The first scene of the movie parodies the ape monolith encounter scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, substituting the apes with little girls dressed in 1950s-era clothes and the bones with baby dolls.

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