Director Greta Gerwig must have had the time of her life directing an entire film based on a beloved childhood doll, as the blockbuster hit Barbie is filled with tons and tons of Easter eggs, with references, callbacks and many Barbies, Kens, and friends — all brought together into one place from the long history of Mattel’s iconic toy line.
Living magical lives in their utopia of Barbieland where everyone is a doll, stunning Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) and charismatic Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) set out to find the truth about the real world – Los Angeles – existing right outside their perfect plastic dreamland, discovering that the rest of the world is not as perfect as they thought it was.
Throughout the hot pink movie, there are so many Easter eggs all the way through that it might be impossible to find them all. So here are all the biggest Easter eggs in Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster Barbie.
Updated January 28, 2024: This article has been updated with even more Easter eggs for you to find in the Academy Award-nominated film Barbie.
Barbieland Has Many “B” Logos Scattered Throughout
It’s not Barbieland without lots of bright colors — notably pink! And in addition to lots of pink, there are lots of cursive Bs all around Barbieland. That iconic font and letter have become synonymous with Barbie herself and can be seen splashed on Barbieland businesses and Barbie’s accessories. The film’s director and co-writer Greta Gerwig spoke to Variety about the Bs that can be seen throughout the film:
“There must be thousands of B’s [sic] everywhere because they also have like designs in the carpet.”
Gerwig wouldn’t tell the outlet which B Easter egg is her personal favorite, which gives viewers the chance to watch the movie and try to guess. With all the hidden B’s, it is no wonder the film scored an Academy Award nomination for Best Production Design.
Weird Barbie Gathers Discontinued Dolls
Definitely, the most expected and the easiest to insert into a bedazzling hot pink world full of living Barbies are more Barbies! There were lots of different dolls inhabiting Barbieland, especially dolls you won’t see anymore on shelves. Mattel was forced to remove many dolls from circulation after bad reception or poor performance. Allan and pregnant Midge are just the tip of the iceberg.
In the film, Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) gathers up a bunch of outsider Barbies who haven’t fallen under the Kens’ control. One is Growing Up Skipper, a doll that received much backlash from parents as children could swing her arm around to make her taller and also grow larger breasts. Another is Video Girl Barbie, which had a built-in camera and screen that drew open concern from the FBI as the footage could be used for some not-good things (via Entertainment Tonight).
There weren’t just discontinued Barbies in Barbieland. There was also Earring Magic Ken, a doll from the ’90s who wore a leather sleeveless purple jacket and a purple mesh top and sported a silver sparkly earring. The R-rated implications of his ring-shaped necklace are what got him discontinued, but according to Out, he’s something of an icon among the LGBTQ+ community. Sugar Daddy Ken has the same icon status, and he appears alongside the other retired Barbies and Kens in the film. The tongue-in-cheek name was meant in a literal sense as he was accompanied by a dog called Sugar (his name actually being “Sugar’s Daddy Ken”). Suffice it to say, he’s another Ken that didn’t last long on the shelves — but following the release of Barbie, he was manufactured yet again.
Here is a fun fact for Barbie fans. One of the discontinued Barbie’s was going to be played by Soarsie Ronan, the frequent collaborator of Barbie director Greta Gerwig as the two previously worked together on Lady Bird and Little Women. While Ronan was not able to appear in the film, one has to wonder which of the fun discontinued or weird Barbie’s Ronan would have played.
Barbie’s Dog Also Hangs with Weird Barbie
The cutest Easter egg in the movie would definitely be a featured pet. Weird Barbie not only has a whole collection of old Barbie and Ken dolls but also the only animal doll in the entire movie: Barbie’s old dog, Tanner.
Barbie’s furry four-legged friend is a yellow Labrador Retriever, and kids could take him on walks (his feet and tail moved), feed him goodies (food pellets would go right into his mouth), and clean up after him (food pellets would come right out his other end too). Yep, Tanner’s set came with plenty of treats and a pooper-scooper, although potential hazards related to his accessories are why he was discontinued (via CPSC). At least he was able to demonstrate his impressive consumption and waste disposal skills in the Barbie movie.
Barbie’s Sisters Are Briefly Mentioned or Shown
Two members of Barbie’s family were honored in her movie. Some of Barbie’s sisters, the discontinued dolls Skipper and Tutti, are both featured in small ways. Before Growing Up Skipper is shown later in the movie, a different version of the Skipper doll is seen waving to Barbie while standing in her treehouse (via Elle). Also, when the board of the Mattel company learns Barbie and Ken have escaped Barbieland, they panic, saying this is a repeat of “the Skipper Incident.” The CEO (Will Ferrell) discloses that Barbie’s younger sister, Skipper, managed to escape Barbieland and kidnapped some children in order to babysit them (as that’s her whole shtick as a doll). However, what happened after that has never been revealed.
There’s a blink-and-you-miss-it reference to Barbie’s younger sister, Tutti, who used to have a twin brother named Todd, though we don’t know what happened to him in this world. We really know next to nothing about Barbie’s family in this Barbie movie universe – maybe we’ll understand more if a sequel ever happens (though some people think it never should).
There Are Tons of Movie References
The most fun and classic little Easter eggs spread throughout the movie are references to other movies. Previous animated Barbie movies were referenced in the live-action Barbie movie — in one instance, Variety pointed out how 2005’s Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus is alluded to with a pegasus statue at the beach.
There were a bunch of references to many iconic non-Barbie films. The most obvious is the film’s beginning sequence, which is a direct homage to the opening of Stanley Kurbrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The parody was so good it was used as the film’s teaser trailer and helped set the tone for the film as more than what audiences expected.
When Ken ventures to Century City, one of the sequences in the montages that inspires his quest for patriarchy is Grease. The scene is “Grease Lightning” which is later referenced in the iconic “I’m Just Ken” dance number as all the Ken’s are wearing black t-shirts and black pants…but are notably still wearing pink socks.
Other movies alluded to in Barbie in various ways include The Matrix, when Weird Barbie’s two-shoe choices are a direct callback to Morpheus’s red and blue pill. Then there are films that are directly referenced by the characters, such as Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Ken explaining The Godfather to Issa Rae’s President Barbie. We also learn that the movie Barbie turns to when she is depressed is none other than the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by the BBC and that no Barbie in Barbie Land has much of an opinion on Zack Snyder’s Justice League when aren’t brainwashed by the Kens.
Barbie Meets Her Biggest Competitors
When Barbie arrives in the real world, she goes on a quest to meet the girl who she thinks has been playing with her and giving her visions of death. She arrives at the school to meet Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), and not only is Sasha not happy to see her, but she levels a lot of criticism about Barbie as a brand and an icon. While Sasha is referencing a lot of real-world criticisms of the Barbie brand that have popped up from critics and cultural commentators over the years, the real Easter egg is in Sasha’s name and her four friends.
Sasha has four friends sitting with her at a table: Yasmin, Jade, and Cloe. Various social media accounts on X and TikTok have pointed out that these four characters are named after Bratz dolls. Bratz dolls were introduced in 2001 and were, for a time, Barbie’s biggest competitor in retail stores. The dolls themselves were even made by a former Mattel employee, and Mattell later sued Brazt’s manufacturer, MGA Entertainment. In 2005, a study showed that sales of Barbie dolls had fallen by 30% in the United States and by 18% worldwide, with much of the drop being attributed to the popularity of Bratz as a brand. Bratz even made it to the big screen first, as the doll got a critically panned movie released in 2007.
This theory is further supported by the fact that Sasha’s mother, Gloria (America Ferrera), also calls their daughter “Bunny Boo”, a nickname that also happens to be the moniker of Sasha’s pet rabbit in the Bratz franchise. There certainly is something fitting about the names of the Bratz’s characters calling Barbie out, only for Barbie to eventually win them over.
Gloria is the Reason Barbie Doesn’t Care For Ken
While Barbie and Ken are typically portrayed as a couple, the film wisely decides to give Barbie some agency of her own while also latching onto the idea of Ken being an “accessory” for the main thrust of his character arc. The Ken as an accessory joke is even supported in the “Dance the Night Away” dance party scene when all the Barbies have their own unique outfits but all the Ken are wearing the same jumpsuits. A clever bit of dialog might indicate exactly why Barbie has so little interest in Ken despite the dolls being made for one another.
Gloria references that she never owned a Ken, so she never cared for him. Since Barbie is taking on attributes from Gloria, who was playing with Sasha’s old dolls, this has now rubbed off on Barbie. Barbie doesn’t care for Ken and doesn’t think about him at all because Gloria doesn’t.
Barbie’s Creator Appears a Few Times
The biggest Easter egg of the whole movie is satisfying, emotional, and quite a nostalgic one. Margot Robbie told Variety that her favorite reference is an interaction between Barbie’s creator and Barbie herself:
“There’s a moment when Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, [played by Rhea Perlman] gives Barbie a cup of tea and our hands touch like ‘The Creation of Adam‘ by Michelangelo, imitating the moment when God gives life to the first man. Greta snuck that in there.”
A similar moment happens near the end of the film, when Handler holds Barbie’s hands in her own, talking her through the process of becoming a real woman.
Ruth Handler was born in 1916, and the movie makes reference to her history, from her motivation to making Barbie to her IRS tax evasion case that forced her to resign as Mattel’s President in 1975. Handler passed away on April 27, 2022, from colon cancer at the age of 85. Yet her legacy still lives on in her creation, which has defied all expectations to not only be one the biggest global brands in the world but one of the biggest movies of all time, grossing $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office and garnering 8 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.
You can see all these Easter eggs and more in Barbie, now streaming on HBO Max (and back in select movie theaters).
