The Barbie movie trailer has dropped, and with it, Warner Bros. and Mattel have unleashed a million billion Barbie variants on the world. We’ve got Issa Rae as President Barbie! Dua Lipa as Mermaid Barbie! Hari Nef as Doctor Barbie! So many Barbies!
But my favorite? The immediately relatable Barbie played by Kate McKinnon. I shall call this Barbie “Marker Face Barbie.”
Even if you haven’t seen the trailer, you can instantly picture the Barbie I’m talking about. Her hair is cut in a haphazard bob, no doubt using preschool safety scissors. She’s always doing the splits, because her legs don’t bend any other way. And her face is, of course, scrawled with marker.
I was never really into Barbies, but I did have one Barbie doll that I remember fondly: Robot Barbie. To create Robot Barbie, I took a ballpoint pen and coated Barbie’s entire face with shiny, sticky blue ink. Then I cut off all her hair until it was something resembling a buzz cut. I probably dressed her in something weird, likely designed for another kind of doll. Later, looking at my creation, I felt a searing pang of guilt at having ruined one of my toys forever, but that’s a whole other thing. That’s baggage I need to work through. The point is, we all know and love Marker Face Barbie.
I think Kate McKinnon is the perfect choice to play a misfit, body-modded Barbie. Why? Well, mainly because she’s a great comedic actor, but here’s a fun fact: McKinnon’s Jillian Holtzmann, the queer and neurodivergent-coded genius engineer in 2016’s Ghostbusters, was my bisexual awakening. McKinnon’s work has literally been transformative for me. It’s no surprise that I’m responding to her portrayal of Barbie so strongly, seeing as her characters are my soulmates.
Crap, do I have a crush on a Barbie doll? Oh boy. This movie is going to do strange things to me, I can tell.
(featured image: Warner Bros.)
