Sophia Michaels
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A huge win for weird girls everywhere: On Aug. 4, Mattel brought Kate McKinnon’s iconic “Weird Barbie” character to life in doll form, and it’s already available for preorder. This highly-relatable version of the traditionally “perfect” Barbie comes with a choppy platinum-blond pixie cut, neon green snakeskin boots, and colorful marker scribbles all across her face — an ode to all the Barbies who’ve been fiercely loved and played with “too much.” The dolls are priced at $50 each and expected to ship on or before May 31, 2024.
In Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie, Weird Barbie is characterized as a social pariah, often inexplicably found in the splits on the outskirts of Barbieland. Her character is a nostalgic gut-punch for anyone whose Barbies served as functional tools rather than building blocks of fantasy: messy, chaotic, and straight-up weird. A recent trend spoke to the impact of these imperfect dolls, with people showing off their various Weird Barbies on TikTok. From bite marks and haircuts to complete dismemberment and reassembly, each bizarre toy carried plenty of history.
Although Mattel’s version of Weird Barbie appears less chaotic, with pastel highlights and all limbs still intact, her influence is clearly stronger than ever. In an interview with Rolling Stone published on July 3, Gerwig said, “We grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls older than me, so I had a lot of hand-me-down Barbies that had already gotten a haircut by the time I got them.” Learning from what she saw, the director gave her dolls similar makeovers, carrying on the Weird Barbie legacy. “It felt almost like a spiritual conduit to the world of play through that Barbie.” Read on to see more of Mattel’s new Weird Barbie doll, and preorder one of your own.
