The Barbie movie is a big cheat for Horse Girls
As a huge Barbie fan, I found Greta Gerwig’s 2023 movie Barbie an absolute delight. All the details of Barbieland, from the way the Barbies move around their DreamHouses to the costumes that represent actual dolls really celebrate the joys of girlhood play. But there’s one small detail I just can’t get over.
Namely: What about the Horse Girls?!
[Ed. note: This post contains significant spoilers for 2023’s live-action Barbie.]
Early in the movie, handsome yet dim Ken (Ryan Gosling) discovers that while Barbies rule the mythical world of Barbieland, the patriarchy dominates the real world. So about halfway through the movie, he brings what he’s learned about real-world men back to Barbieland, installing a comically exaggerated macho regime in the previously pink and feminine world. This means Barbie’s DreamHouse is now “Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House.” All the Barbies are stripped of their cool jobs, and they just focus on serving the Kens cold drinks. There are some funny gags about Kens mansplaining The Godfather, and playing guitar at their Barbie girlfriends instead of to them. It’s all a glorious rendition of the over-exaggerated hyper-masculine world that is Ken-dom — with one glaring exception.
The horses!
After witnessing some cops on horseback in Venice Beach, Ken decides that horses are the epitome of masculinity. So part of the cartoonish macho motif of Ken-dom involves horse-themed decor, a hobby horse for every Ken, and endless background Casa House videos of stallions and mustangs racing and rearing.
Sure, cowboys and buckaroos are manly, but Horse Girls are such a staple of girlhood childhood play that it seems silly that the animals are so immediately heralded as symbols of masculinity. Where are the
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