Barbie is the movie of the year, and it’s taking over the way we’ve started to dress and act. The music is everywhere, and we are all living in Barbie’s pink dream world, even while the real world is more like Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House. Still, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is one of the biggest movies of 2023, and that makes Barbie one of the biggest cosplay ideas for all conventions happening around the world.
I was so excited to go to New York Comic Con for a lot of reasons, but for one reason in particular: The Barbies. I had a plan to cosplay as Barbie at the end of the movie when she was Barbara Handler and was going to see her gynecologist, and I hoped to find a meet-up of the Barbies to join. Instead, I was met with a sea of Barbies and Kens who did not know what to do.
Now, I recognize that there are people who are shy or might be neurodivergent and may not react in the same way that others would in that situation, and that’s fine. That’s not something anyone should have to do. What was odd, though, was that there were hundreds of Barbies throughout the weekend, and the enthusiastic “Hi Barbie!” greeting was never really responded to in kind by anyone.
In a convention filled with Barbies, only two responded with “Hi Barbie” to the rest of the Barbies, and we were all collectively confused by what was going on. Not because yelling “HI BARBIE” at someone warranted the same response but because it seemed like it was an easy thing to understand given what the movie taught us all about Barbieland.
The movie teaches you what to do!
To be fair, I did have three people yell “Hi Barbie!” at me. One was a Deadpool dressed up like a Ken doll, and it was just because I was a blonde woman (in a plaid shirt?), and then the other two were after I said “Hi Barbie!” first. Maybe if we could have said “Hi Ken” to the Kens first, it would be better, but, by the rules of the movie, we cannot speak to Ken until he speaks to Barbie, so that was a no-go. So, let’s have a chat, shall we? I think, as Barbies, we have to have Barbie meet-ups at conventions. Mainly so we can all just yell “HI BARBIE” at each other.
Part of my upset definitely came from the expectations I had of going to NYCC and seeing all the Barbies there. Instead, there were only a few variations of her—all pretty much rollerblading Barbie, which, to be fair, is a GREAT costume—and I did see one Harley Quinn/Barbie mash-up. Maybe if we had a march of the Barbies, we all could have come together to yell “Hi Barbie!” and heard it echo throughout Javits. Hopefully, at the next convention, we can all be on the same page. Just don’t say hi to Ken first.
(featured image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
